How long do debt management plans last?

A DMP is an informal agreement between you and your creditors to give you longer to pay back your non-priority debts.

You make one affordable monthly payment and this is divided fairly among your creditors.

If you come to us for your DMP, when we ask your creditors to accept lower payments, we’ll also ask them to freeze interest and charges. We can’t guarantee they’ll agree to this, but they usually do.

It’s important to bear in mind that a DMP may affect your credit rating as creditors are likely to report that you’re not making your full contractual monthly payments.

Although there’s no definitive answer to this, to get a DMP, you’ll generally need to be able to afford big enough monthly payments to allow you to clear your debts in a reasonable amount of time. Your DMP provider will tell you what they consider a reasonable amount of time. 

Creditors may be reluctant to agree to a DMP if the amount you can afford to pay each month means it’ll take you much more than 10 years to clear your debts.

On the other hand, you’re unlikely to be able to get a DMP if you have enough disposable income to repay your debts within six months.

If your creditors agree to a DMP, the length of your specific plan will depend on the amount of debt you have and how much you can afford to pay each month.

Many last between 5 and 10 years.

We’ll work out how much you can afford to pay each month and, if it’s enough to pay off your debts in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll come up with a payment plan to put to your creditors.  

Once we’ve come up with the plan, we’ll be able to tell you what your monthly payment will be and how long it will take you to pay off your debts. 

The timescale given will be based on the assumption that your payment stays the same throughout your plan and that all of your creditors agree to freeze interest and charges.