Money and
debt advice

Supporting your financial wellbeing.

Please note we are not currently taking on new customers for our debt advice service as it is fully subscribed. The below is for information only, for now. We will take new cases on again as soon as we are able to. If you need help now, please consider contacting another agency – see list below.

National services

Christians Against Poverty: capuk.org/get-help/help-with-money-and-debt

Citizens Advice: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/

National Debt Line: nationaldebtline.org/

Step Change: www.stepchange.org/

Local agencies

Bedfordshire

Salvation Army: www.salvationarmy.org.uk/budget-and-debt-advice/debt-advice

Milton Keynes

MK Money Lifeline: www.mkmoneylifeline.org.uk/

Northamptonshire

Accommodation Concern: www.accommodationconcern.co.uk/

Community Law Service: www.communitylawservice.org.uk/

How can we help you with your debt?

Our free debt advice service can advise you on how best to deal with your debts. Take a look how we can support you in the video below:

A Debt Advisor will assess your financial situation as a whole; this means:

• Checking your income and advising how to increase it, referring you to our Welfare Benefits Advice team if appropriate.
• Advising you on how to reduce your outgoings.
• Consider your debts and advise you on which are priorities and why.
• Advise you of the solutions you could pursue to bring your debts under control. For example, this could be arranging affordable repayments to your creditors, or it could be considering formal insolvency options. We will tailor the advice to your circumstances and what suits one person may not suit another.
• Help you follow through your chosen solution, or if we are unable to, refer to you another agency who can help.

We will need you to sign a form giving us authority to contact relevant parties on your behalf, and you will need to sign our Debt Advice Service Agreement.

We will need to agree with you what your income and expenditure is, so we do need you to be transparent with us about your circumstances in order for us to advise you.

What if I have rent arrears with Grand Union?

We are still happy to advise you. The only time we cannot help you if you have rent arrears with us is if we are taking legal action to take possession of home, as there is a conflict of interests. In this case you should contact another agency for advice. Click here for more information about other agencies.

Are you interested?

If so, please contact Customer Services on 0300 123 5544 and ask to be referred to the Debt Advice team. Alternatively, you can email us at [email protected] and someone will call you back.

Our Debt Advice service is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority; our FRN reference number is 822130.

Vulnerability

We recognise that many customers approaching us for debt advice are likely to be vulnerable in some way. We adapt our service and expectations of customers to reflect this.

Complaints

We hope you will not have cause to complain about our service, but in the event that you do please note we have a separate complaints procedure for this service because it is subject to the Financial Ombudsman instead of the Housing Ombudsman. Click here to read the Debt Advice Complaints procedure.