How Does It Work?
- The solution depends on your circumstances
- We prepare a budget with you and assess your options against your budget
When you call our office we will undertake a quick summary of you circumstances. Your assets, debts and income. From this quick summary and a few questions we will provide you with the options that may suit you. If you see value in any of the options and wish to pursue it further we will make an appointment for you to attend our office.
When you come to the office we will ask you to bring with you a number of documents to verify your financial position.
At the appointment we will outline the process for you and if you agree we will proceed to complete a budget which will generally determine what solution best suits your circumstances. In the budget process we may point out opportunities for savings eg lower insurances, phone and internet costs. Electricity etc.
When you are happy with the budget and the solution we will work out what the repayment plan will be. If for example you have debts of $20,000 and can afford $100 a week then your proposal will take just under 4 years. This is normally a Part 9 Debt Agreement.
In addition to the repayments for the abovementioned debt (which does not include any future interest ) you will pay a set up fee of say $1,100 and the lodging fee with the Government department, ASFA is $200. All of these payments are generally collected by direct debit at the rate which you can afford. In the above case that is $100 per week. These amounts are allocated first to pay the ASFA fee and then the Administers set up fee, thereafter the funds go into the clients trust account. The client would likely save in the order of $16,000 over the next four years assuming the client could only keep paying the minimum payments on a credit card charging 20% interest.
The Part 9 documents are then prepared for you to check and sign and date. When they are returned to us we lodge them with ASFA. You will receive a letter from ASFA giving you a debt agreement reference number which you can advise your creditors if they ring you. After giving them that number which will look something like this QLD 1234/5/8 the creditors should stop calling you.
ASFA register your debt agreement and send your proposal to creditors who will assess your proposal and vote either yes or no. Most proposal are approved by creditors.
When your proposal has been approved you will be notified and therafter all of your creditors in the debt agreement are paid proportionally each quarter from the monies held in trust on your account.
Any secured creditors eg Car loan or house mortgage will continue to be paid by you and will have been taken into account in your budget.
When you have made all your payments the agreement will be completed and we will advise ASFA who will in turn send you a letter confirming you have completed.