The 2019 ISA season is now in full swing, and it's as good a time as any to focus on financial planning - and, within that, looking ahead to your retirement years to ensure financial security.
If you have difficulty with your loan repayments
The first thing to say is that if you are having difficulties with keeping up repayments on your Lending Works loan, for any reason, please contact the Lending Works team as soon as possible. We will help in any way we can but we do need you to let us know your personal circumstances as soon as possible.
Please email us on cs@lendingworks.co.uk or contact us by telephone on 020 7096 8512.
Missed payments
In the event of a missed payment, if we do not hear from you within one working day we will attempt to contact you by email. We will attempt to arrange an alternative payment method with you taking into account your personal circumstances. At any time, Lending Works may re-present the Direct Debit which we have set up to take your monthly payments. If payment is not made within five working days of the scheduled due date we may pass the account on to our debt collection team.
During this time, the Lending Works debt collection team will continue to make regular contact with you. It is our preference that you keep in touch with us to rectify the situation and resume regular payments as soon as possible.
If we are unable to agree a payment plan with you or you continue to miss payments we reserve the right to instruct our debt collection agency Daniels Silverman at any time who may decide to instigate legal action.
We will consider instructing Daniels Silverman commencing legal action as a last resort; however, in individual circumstances it will be necessary.
If your account has already been passed to Daniels Silverman please contact them directly on 0800 694 2272.
Fees and charges
If you miss a payment on the scheduled date and we do not receive payment within five working days of the due date a charge of £15 plus VAT will be added to the account for each letter that we send to you and Lending Works will send a maximum of three letters.
If Lending Works go on to instruct Daniels Silverman to act on behalf of your lenders you will be liable for all of their costs and they will be added to your account but only once the account has been put into default. We’ll give you notice before we report your account as a default.
Daniels Silverman’s fee will be 15% plus VAT of the arrears including any late charges; however you may be liable for further costs and charges if any further services are required. Examples of other costs that could be incurred are field collection agent’s fees, debt counselling or litigation costs. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list and other costs may be incurred.
Your credit rating
Lending Works is a responsible lender and we are committed to sharing relevant information with credit reference agencies.
This means that once a month we report to credit reference agencies that payments have been made on time, are late or have been missed. Lending Works considers a payment late if it is more than five days later than the scheduled payment date.
When regular payments are made as per the terms of your loan agreement this will help to improve your credit score. Late payments, defaults and debt collection agency referrals all have a negative effect on your credit score, which will affect how likely you are to be granted credit in future.
Late and individual missed payments on your credit search show that you have missed payments in the past and therefore you are more likely to miss payments in the future. Not only does this mean that you may have difficulty obtaining credit in the future, it also means that the credit that is available to you may come at a higher cost.
Please refer to our guides on Credit Scoring and Underwriting for more information about how negative information on your credit search and score will affect you.
Financial advice
Lending Works does not provide financial advice, however there are a number of organisations that can help if you are having financial problems. The following organisations provide this service free of charge:
- Citizens Advice Bureau: www.citizensadvise.org.uk
- StepChange Debt Charity: www.stepchange.org or 0800 138 1111
- Money Advice Service: www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk or 0300 500 5000
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