You don't need a lawyer, however you need to ensure that your power of attorney is properly worded... there may be copies of limited power of attorneys at the book store under legal document templates.. etc

You need to be careful.. to ensure the wording is done well enough to protect yourself and your client.

I had my lawyer build a limited power of attorney for myself and clients when I was doing credit repair.... it is doable...

What province are you in? What kind of debt? How past due are these accounts. Creditors will entertain offers after 3 months at the earliest. Generally speaking once the account is past due 6 months to a year, creditors are more responsive. As time pass the settlement amount should go down. You most probably will be looking at 15% to 30%. Remember to offer a lower amount than 10% to start.

Yes, they need it to ensure the legality and privacy of any negotiations. Otherwise, they could get in trouble with the Registrar. But why not just tell your friend to offer them 30% and go from there. It's not rocket science.

I'm trying to help a friend settle some debt - he sent a letter to his creditors indicating that I would be acting on his behalf.

One creditor refuses to speak to me - says - according to the privacy act - I need a POA, that a letter from him is not enough. Is this true??

If so - can we do up our own poa -or does it have to be done thru a lawyer??

thanks

Sorry to hear of the passing of your family member, I know firsthand how other's problems seem trivial when dealing with grief thus I appreciate your response. I also appreciate the honesty of RichardC in that he says he owns a Debt Settlement company but is willing to give somewhat impartial advise. So my question to you would be Is it woth going it the DIY route when 1)the debt belongs to my common law and not me. None of these Credit cards are co-signed or linked to me in any way thereby making communication with these creditors difficult as they are claiming they will only make arrangements with the debtor himself. 2) This debt involves about 5 credit cards of 1000 or more with the max being 16000 and the total debt being about 20000-25000? 3) He is not well spoken enough to deal with the creditors himself and just gives up when they say no. 4) I handle the family finances and want to know that any arrangements made are able to be met.

I was at a close family member’s funeral all day. If you need help on DIY settlements, send me some info and I will look it over tomorrow.

On the home page of canadian-money-advisor...if you look halfway down it shows you the members, average_joe is there or you can search his handle on the member search function.

AJ I know you are out there, say something already and help this member out.

My take on DIY debt settlement is different from others out there, but that’s because I own a debt settlement company and I've seen some real messes over the years from DIY'ers.

Here's my article on it: http://totaldebtfreedom.ca/articles/article_10.htm

Thanks for the advise. So how do I get a hold of Mr Average_Joe? And what do you mean by ending up with more problems than starting out with. Is that possible if an agreement is made and you stick to it?

With power of attorney you can.

But make sure you do your research on how to administer the process before you do anything. DIY debt settlement is not easy; make sure it gets done right so your husband doesn’t end up with more problems then he started out with.

A user on here by the name of Average_Joe can offer you some good tips as he has had some success in that area.

Can I, as common law partner, propose a debt settlement plan directly to the creditor(Citibank), on behalf of my common law husband? I am not on this acct nor am I a co-signer.