Articles written by NMH

With the UK fast catching up with the American’s celebrating Halloween, now’s a great time to prepare for the Halloween parties of 2011. We’ve had our ghouls and goblins hunting for the best places to get everything from your witches’ outfits to your dangling skeletons!! Here’s our top 5… • We found a great website [...]

A record number of people were declared insolvent in England and Wales in 2010 although the number of new cases fell in the last three months of the year. There were 135,089 people declared insolvent last year, said the Insolvency Service. However, there was a 13.6% drop in the last quarter of the year compared [...]

Time was when Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) was all the rage when taking out personal loans, or even mortgages! Theoretically it was, and still is, a good way of protecting the loan repayments perchance health problems develop which prevent you from working, or you are made redundant. The problem is that not everyone is eligible [...]

The OFT has imposed requirements on three associated companies, The Bankruptcy Protection Fund Limited, Consolidated Finance Limited and Alpha Mortgages Manchester Limited, to improve these companies’ practices when offering bankruptcy annulment services to customers. Bankruptcies can be annulled by a court in certain circumstances, including when bankruptcy debts and expenses of the bankruptcy have been [...]

Following the announcement of severe cuts in public spending last year, we are now starting to see the impact of these on services offered to the public, with the latest casualty being the provision of free debt advice services, with the removal of the Financial Inclusion Fund last week. This Fund amounted to £25m a [...]

In a further step towards a cheque free economy, banks are to phase out the ability to guarantee personal cheques with effect from 30th June 2011. To help understand the impact and what steps need to be taken as a result, we’ve put together a few Questions & Answers to highlight the issues: What is [...]

2010 turned out to be a difficult year for many households in Nottingham, with the city featuring highly in the league for personal insolvencies for the 2nd year running. Official records show that, whilst 10% down on 2009 figures, 3000 people in Nottingham took out some form of insolvency solution, either with an Individual Voluntary [...]

As utility bills, fuel and the general cost of living rises in the UK, Britons are feeling the pinch. According to a recent Savings and Investment report by Scottish Widows, 36% of the UK adult population are not saving for the future as a direct result of increased living costs. The report goes on to [...]

As the Bank of England holds the interest rate at a historical low, Britain’s high street banks and building societies are bumping the authorised overdraft rates up to a record high. In fact the average rate charged for overdrawn customers in August was 19.1% (according to Moneyfacts), the highest level since the Bank of England [...]

2010 turned out to be a further difficult year for many households in Manchester, with the city featuring highly in the league for personal insolvencies for the 2nd year running. Official records show that last year 2352 people in Manchester took out some form of insolvency solution, either with an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), Bankruptcy [...]