Well it was in Feb of this year that OH decided he couldnt go back to Iraq, he’d been there for the previous 18 months, earning good money to try and repay our debts, he’d been injured 3 times and the roulette ball was bouncing closer.  We had made a few big mistakes like buying a property to do up (to help pay debts off) and selling at a £20k loss. Also after 16 years of marriage and 5 kids, we had consolidated our debts with 2 big 30k loans over the years, and with credit cards and car loans it all added up to almost 100k and not one holiday abroad to show for it.  the final straw was when we gave up our family car, knowing we wouldnt be able to afford the monthly payments, and they sent us a bill for £18k!! I cried alot that day.

The next step of our journey to try and sort this mess out was ringing a debt management company called byrom and keeley, they were very nice and we agreed a monthly sum of £600 being our disposable income would be sent out to the creditors after their fees were taken. We didnt know that there were fee free companys at this point.  Anyway husband left the job he had temporarily took for longer employment, albeit a lesser wage, and we couldn no longer afford the £600.  A company called Spectrum rang out of the blue and said they could get the payments down to a more suitable amount but wouldnt give me any details over the phone and insisted a member of staff visit us at home.  Curious i accepted and they said we could pay £135 a month after paying them £600 for the first 3 months!  All i was worried about was the creditors not recieving any money and the continous phonecalls and letters, after all i had actually enjoyed paying my debts each month and paying more than was asked, and now felt extremly guilty.  Needless to say we didnt go ahead with Spectrum.

After visiting the IVA forum and reading up about debt management, we decided to contact Payplan.  They have been good but a little slow on sending out our payments, so the calls and letters continue daily, and we are now in Sept! I make sure all doors and windows are locked fearfull of baliffs calling.

We have had a lot of sleepless nights and tears over our situation, my main concern with losing our house.  This is the first time we have settled down, being a forces family we have had 11 moves in the same amount of years. The kids like it here and they are my main concern at present, so the idea of Bankruptcy terrifies me, but it seems we have no alternative at the moment.

Northern rock are issuing a charging order on 12th Oct and i can only see things getting worse if we dont do something sooner rather than later. 

I posted a question on the forum last night about the charging order and recieved a reply that has made my mind up to go for BR after the charging order is in place and just see what happens with the house, with any luck, and we dont get much, the OR will let us keep the house as it will be in negative equity, this is the best i can hope for and then we can come to an arrangement with NR to repay the loan.  Seems so unfair on all the other creditors, some of them have been so understanding, like Natwest, we owe them as much as NR and they havent even sent us any horrible letters, just said they will be happy to recieve the offer amount each month and then review at a later date.  We opened new accounts in March of this year and some tax credit money which was owed to us was paid in  a few weeks ago and they even rang us and said we could go and collect it!