Once you have called us on freephone 0800 092 6350, we will talk to you about your situation and answer any queries that you may have about the debt management services we offer. Our friendly advisor will go through your financial details in the form of a Statement of Means. This takes about 5 - 10 minutes. Paperwork based on the information you provide will be sent or a face to face appointment will be made with a debt advisor depending on what you want to do.

If you can, please have the following information available. It will help us get to the right solution for you.

• Details of your creditors (credit cards, loans and catalogues), including account numbers if you can. If not, recent balances are fine.
• Details of any county court judgements and when they took place/are taking place.
• Mortgages and secured loans details, i.e. balances outstanding.
• If you have a car on hire purchase, the amount each month and how long is left (if you can't get this don't worry, we can still help).

Lenders in most cases freeze, reduce or stop interest charges when we contact them. Creditors can see that you are making an effort to repay your debts and are doing so with the assistance of a professional organisation.

You must call us and let us know before your payment for that month is missed. Please tell us why and what token payment you can manage. We will then contact your creditors to make them aware of the change in payment and when to expect the re-payment to increase to the normal level again.

No! Credit rating is calculated on a point-scoring basis. Once you are on our consolidation plan and we are getting your debt under control we can help you to improve your credit rating.

We will advise and encourage you not top take out any credit cards, store cards, or non-essential loans during this time.

This will depend on your own personal circumstances. Our aim is to help you reduce the overall amount of debt by reducing the interest and charges you pay on those debts and by making regular payments to clear them as quickly as possible.

Using special packages such as our write-off plan will all help towards clearing your debts in as short a time as possible and our advisors are on hand to help you achieve this goal.

In the first instance, our advice is free. If you decide to take up our services there is a small administration charge each month.

However, the savings we will be able to make for you by reducing the interest charges on your debts will far outweigh our admin cost.

When debtors propose an IVA to their creditors, they offer to re-pay a percentage of the debt via monthly installments. The sum suggested is based on what the debtor can afford to pay. This means that the monthly debt re-payments vary on a case-by-case basis. They depend on what assets the debtors have and how much money they have available after their living expenses have been deducted from their monthly income. However, there does tend to be a minimum amount that creditors will accept as part of the IVA proposal. An IVA is usually rejected if it offers to pay the creditors less than 25% of what they were originally owed. IF HSBC are the major creditor, minimum payment is 40% as they will not accept less.