'Priority debts' are debts that can cause you particularly serious problems if you don’t do anything about them. You need to work out which of your debts are priority debts and deal with them first 1. Identify and deal with your priority debts you’re struggling to deal with your priority debts you have more than 1 priority debt and you need help deciding which to deal with first 2. Deal with your other debts Once you’ve got your priority debts under control, you should look at all your other debts. They’re ‘non-priority debts’ because the problems they cause are less serious. Your...

You’ll be responsible for a debt if it’s something that the law says you have to pay, like council tax or water charges. You’ll also probably have to pay a debt if you’ve signed a contract to say you agree to give money to someone. This could be something like a: credit agreement, for example if you’ve bought a washing machine or taken out a credit card tenancy agreement, if you rent If you’re responsible for a debt it’s called ‘being liable’. It means you’ll have a legal duty to pay it. If you’re not liable you should be able to challenge the creditor. A creditor is any person...

Making a list of your debts Collect together all the information about your debts, such as contracts, bills and statements. Your debts might for example include: rent arrears credit card debts council tax arrears energy or water bills money you’ve borrowed from friends or family Make a list of your debts and write down the details of each debt. These details might include: who you owe the money to - this is your ‘creditor’ when you first missed a payment how much you owe - this might be in a recent statement your account or reference...