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[flamingate]

Can you include additional debts, into an 'already running' DMP which has been in place for months? - will a debt management company allow this and alter the plan?

If a DMP was created months ago, with the income expenditure etc done, and 'certain' debts were Not included in the debt as we wanted to manage these particular debts ourselves eg Electric bill
water bill, a low amount credit card all left out of the plan. ie these are not new debts bit debts that we thought we could control ourselves. Can these debts now be 'included' in the plan?

Would we have to add an additional amount of £ in the monthly payment?

[Melissa S]

Hi flamingate
As far as I am aware you can add these debts to your DMP but your creditors may start to add interest again if they have previously frozen it if they are to receive less money now.

If you are able to pay more to your DMP if you are adding more debt then this will help soften your creditors.

if you were paying something towards these other debts alongside your DMP then you should pay extra to your DMP once they are included.

However, if the new debt is very large then this may be an issue and you may need to consider another option if your creditor refuse to stop charging interest and charges.

it is really best to include all your debts when you start a DMP as it is very rare that it is possible to keep your DMP payments if you are paying other debt as well putting your entire DMP at risk in the long run.

[James Falla]

Hello flamingate

It is actually quite usual for someone to need to add additional debts into a DMP that is already up and running. As in your case you might have originally left a debt out of your DMP which you thought you would be able to manage or a new debt might have come to light.

When this happens you simply need to speak to your debt management company and ask them to add the new debt to the plan. Of course this will reduce the amount that each creditor receives going forward and so as Melissa has rightly said this might trigger problems with some of the original creditors.

You might be able to overcome this if you can increase the amount you pay into your DMP overall so the original creditors continue to receive the same amount. However if this is not possible any unhappiness from them should settle down in 2-3 months after they see the new payments coming through regularly unless the size of the debt that has been added is very large. If this were the case sometimes it is even worth considering changing from a DMP to a more appropriate debt solution.

You can read more about how to add debts to an existing DMP in this article: Can I add new debts to my existing debt management plan?