Online Debt Consolidation

Hundreds have flocked to the UK over the past year in order to declare bankruptcy after finding a loophole in the legislation that allows nationals from Italy, Austria or Germany to wipe out their debts in a British court.

If a person has lived in the UK for 6 months or more then they can be declared bankrupt, with their debts written off a year later. This is a relatively short time frame when compared to Germany, where it takes an average of 7 to 8 years to declare bankruptcy.

With any EU national able to live in the UK hundreds of people who have realised this, especially Germans, have come to the UK to write off their debt problems.

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According to Nationwide building society, credit card users could avoid overpaying around 500mn in interest a year if their debts were repaid in the right order, The Guardian reports.

Credit card holders are often charged hundreds of pounds extra in interest because their cheapest debts are repaid first. This `adverse order of payments` means the more expensive debts last longer and therefore accumulate more interest.

However, some credit card providers do not operate in this way. As The Guardian points out, Nationwide and Saga use customers` payments to clear the most expensive debts first. More..?

The government has proposed a consultation to look into the regulation of debt management companies, the number of which has grown significantly over the past year but is still largely unregulated.

Debt management companies act as a go between for customers who have debt problems and their lenders to come to up with debt solutions such as reduced repayment terms and Individual Voluntary Arrangements.

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New figures from the Financial Ombudsman Service “name and shame” high street banks who top the list with the most consumer complaints.
Lloyds and Barclays topped the list of the banks most complained about in the first half of 2009.

RBS-NatWest, Abbey and HSBC were also in the top five.

Barclays had 8,283 complaints made against them which equates to 12 per cent of the total complaints made about the financial services industry from January to June 2009. Llo

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