Dealing with my debt

What is debt?

Debt means any money that you owe to someone else.  As long as it is paid, there is no problem.  It only becomes a problem when you cannot meet the repayments as they fall due.  Debt can be:

• Money owed to banks (personal loans, mortgage)
• Money owed to the council (rent or council tax)
• Goods and services bought on credit (store and credit cards, catalogues etc)
• Unpaid taxes
• Hire purchase
• Utility bills (gas, electricity, phone)

If you miss repayments or fail to pay your bills, you can quickly run into serious problems. There are various legal consequences if you don't pay people the money that you owe them. But the earlier you try to sort it all out, the better the result will be.      

Different ways to deal with debt  

There are various ways in which you can deal with your debt.  Depending on your circumstances you may either enter a debt management plan, where you pay your debts back over an extended period, or one of the debt relief options, where part of your debt is written off

• Further information on different ways to deal with debt. 

Before you make any decision on how you are going to deal with your debt you should seek out  money advice on all options available to you.