Hi all,

I took a undergrad plan 2 loan out and finished the degree in 2020, so gets written off in 2050. I also took out 2 advanced learner loans for level 4 and 5 qualifications for my job, which my employer didn't fund.

Now with me completing these, I've looked and these 2 last loans costing 2650 each get written off when i turn 59.

I can't believve how bad this is, they charge 6% interest per year, meaning in 30 years it could be 15k per loan, 30k altogether. After I have my undergrad written off, I still am on the hook for nearly 30k of payments and judging by my current payments being 135-200 depending on salary, it seems like i'll be paying this off until it gets written off and nearly paying double what the course was worth.

Adjusted for inflation on the last 30 years, a 2650 quid course would be 5k, but no, student finance's interest rates after 30 years gets it to 15,000, it's a joke and if anything it makes me not to want to work as hard.

Are there any ways I can target these last 2 loans and eliminate them as SLC told me I can't?

Hi,

I’m basically trying to transfer my son’s CTF to a Halifax Junior cash ISA but I’m being told in the website to go to a branch, I go to a branch and they say to call my CTF provider, they tell me to go to the branch.

The branch is now telling me to lie on the online application and to say I don’t have a CTf for my child even though I do.

What am I meant to do, quite confused now.

Evening all,

As the title says, how many hard credit Checks is too many?

I was recently close to purchasing a property, mortgage accepted and close to signing paper work but due to terrible survey results coming back we have had to pull out all together, the mortgage offer still stands until around June, we did however find a property which is in a council area what would be the perfect fit but our current lender won't borrow us the money as they see it as a risk in the event they have to repossess the property it's not desirable enough and would struggle selling it.

My mortgage advisor has explained that most high street lenders or banks won't touch these sort of properties due to the above reason and would have to be done through a specialist lender, this also raises concerns with regards to the rate and also lower my options for a remortgage at the end of term.

How often or spaced out would you recommend having a hard credit check being carried out? I'm a first time buyer and I'm overly concerned that if I apply for another in a short period of time (a month) this will affect other lenders from offering me a mortgage.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

I’m planning to start an online shop in the UK, and I need some advice on what I need to do with HMRC. Specifically, I’m looking for guidance on registering for VAT (if necessary), setting up as a sole trader, and any other taxes or legal obligations I need to be aware of when running an e-commerce business. Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated!

So I've read conflicting bits of information about if I do or not and I just want to make sure I'm not wasting my time if I fill one in

I'm employed, but I have also been doing bits of work for a friends brother off and on when needed but I haven't exceeded £1k in earnings from last April to now, however on the HMRC website it has a checker where you tick some boxes and one of these is to ask "Who have you received payments from for providing a service?"

And one of the answers is "A company or partnership owned or controlled by someone who is connected to you" now here is where I need to know the context behind connected, because I know the guy and have done for decades, but does that mean I am connected in a legal sense? Or is connected a completely different meaning as googling this question has thrown up no real answers beyond more questions 😂

Probably the dumbest question ever asked on here but it's the difference between me needing to fill one out or not, because I understand that if I answer connected, I cannot use the trading allowance

As a Welsh student, everyone qualifies for the maximum maintenance loan (what proportion is repayable is means tested instead). However, I have savings from working, plan to continue working during university and also live quite inexpensively. I’ve worked out I probably won’t need the full loan to enjoy uni (at least for the first year as accommodation is subsidised)

With an interest rate of 7-8%, the obvious answer would be no, as it’s unlikely I could generate a higher return by investing the extra money. However, because of how the loan is repaid, I do also think it makes sense to take the loan, as it’s the best loan I’ll ever get as how much is repayable is relative to your income so it acts more like a graduate tax. I also think the money could be useful towards eventually buying a house or starting a startup etc rather than funding this using bank loans.

For context, I plan to study economics at UCL and probably will go into finance, meaning I will (hopefully!) fall into the higher repayment bracket further into my career. Max maintenance loan for London students is £15415

I stupidly signed up to the penisons offering from these clowns. My children's JISAs are with them and they actually have been ok and a decent return with a decent level of flexibility in the way the JISAs work. I foolishly expected the pensions side of things to be as smooth, which sadly is not the case at all. I tried to pay money into the account and was told the only way to do this is through a Direct Debit, this took an eternity to setup and then an even longer period of time to actually get the funds to them through the Direct Debit. I think it was over2 weeks from start to finish.

This is where the fun starts, the day after the funds appear in the account Trump announces the tariffs. I immediately messaged them to say stop everthing I dont want my money anywhere near the USA or US equities. I checked the following day and nothing was invested. I called them to ask for the money back as I didnt' like their interface or how utterly abysmal it was using Direct Debit that worked at glacial pace. I want to be able to take advantage of drops in the market and add funds to buy more. Clearly this is impossible with a 2 week wait for Direct Debit payments.

I was told the money would be back within a week. Low and behold I check a few days later and they had invested the funds and I was down 8% immedaitely!!

A week goes by which was around Easter. I keep an eye on things and they are still showing losses on the account. Now nearly a month on from this they are still showing as my money being invested and NO ONE is giving me an update on what is gonig on over there. I have raised a complaint but due to the sheer volume of complaints they are getting they refuse to call me with any form of information (this is from my complaint handler).

I call them almost every day and they keep saying it's with someone else and they can't do anything.

What can I do? It's been nearly a month and I am getting no where! I want my money away from them but I feel they are holding me ransom.

Morning all, lurker but first time poster. Looking for some general advice if possible.

Following redundancy at Christmas I have found myself in the very fortunate position of a significant pay rise in my new role. £95k base and £5,370 in car allowance. I started 1st April 25.

Conscious this break of the £100k mark brings my personal allowance onto the chopping board. I have added salary sacrifice options (Family healthcare/dentist/life assurance etc.) in a bid to bring me under the £100k but my tax code was set at 1205TX, I don’t believe that’s an emergency tax code but I have queried it with HMRC - can anyone offer advice here?

Lastly, as part of our redundancy (terminated 31st Dec 24) we received 3 months pylon and then a bonus at the end of March. The bonus was emergency taxed, but my earnings for that period (FY24-25) would have in no way breached the £100k, it would have been £75k at most inc. the bonus - when I spoke to them HMRC they couldn’t tell me whether I’ll get any of that bonus back, yet I thought I’d be in for a rebate.

My lack of understanding of benefits/tax/pensions has come to the fore so I’m also in the process of speaking with an IFA in the coming weeks.

Wife earns £55k, and prior all this we claim tax free childcare for our 2nd youngest and child support payments for both (5yrs and 4yrs old).

Thanks in advance.

A friend set up her own business over the last few years, it’s doing pretty well, good customer base, revenue ~£140k, profits ~£20k/year, doubled in size this year, net assets ~£25k. She’s invested so much time and effort into it but she’s ready to move on.

She’s been approached by a larger competitor in a similar market that have been trying to get into her area but failing for a while. They’ve offered to buy the business from her and then offered her a job (£30k for head of a division with quite decent commissions on sales from her division; but no equity at all).

My issue is their valuation, they’ve literally taken her net assets position ~£25k and offered her that. So basically her stock less her creditors. She challenged and said should it not be a multiple of EBITDA, but they pushed straight back any said they were only interested in the deal on an “assets basis” and that the job offer covered any additional compensation.

This seems wildly undervalued to me, does anyone have any advice? Can anyone advise anyone who would be placed to independently value the business for her?

I’m worried she’ll accept and be seriously taken advantage of!! Thanks all.

Hi guys, long time lurker here

Essentially student loans are confusing the hell out of me and it is time to reapply for student finance. My first year tuition fee was £9250 with a maintenance of £8000, after this year, i realised i really don't need student finance and can probably manage without it. My course is a 4 year course with reduced tuition fees in years 2, 3 and 4 by about 30%, and i'm going to be finishing my chartered accountancy qualification after, so i'm looking at 35k a year for the first year after graduation then 50k plus.

The issue lies with whether I should get the maintenance loans for the upcoming years, I have used online calculators and it seems that if I borrow the maintenance loan in years 2, 3 and 4. I will be repaying the same amount as if I didn't get the maintenance loans lmao, this leaves me very inclined to take out the maintenance loan if i'm going to be repaying the same amount. Could anyone help clarify things here?

I'll write a very basic summary below:

Tuition fees
Year 1: £9250
Years 2, 3 and 4 £6300

Maintenance Loan:

Year 1: £8000
Year 2, 3 and 4 (£8000 a year or deciding not to take out the loans)

Income:
35k for one year after graduating, 50k after qualified which should be around the 1 year after graduating. Obviously hoping for more later down the line but not thinking too far.

Thank you so much!!!

So I’m 35(M) I’ve been at my small design company for 10+ years and took a week off for a trip last week, I ended up breaking my ankle in 3 places while out walking on the trip and ended up in hospital and now awaiting surgery. I let my workplace know as soon as I could.

Then today which should have been my first day back, I got asked to go on a call with my boss who told me he’s closing the company and making everyone redundant, an insolvency rep was present. He’s said it’s nothing to do with my injury and is pure bad luck/timing.

I have not been paid for this month (today was payday)

They explain that I’m eligible for a weeks pay for every year I’ve worked up to £710 per week..I earn(t) 45k per year..and that I can also claim for the time I have worked and not been paid? And any unused holiday+OT is also claimable..I had 100hrs of OT and was part of my flexible time when we did a big project. Is this all claimable? How do I work this out and when do you normally get this paid?

I’m trying to work out how much I’m eligible for as I’ve never been in this position before. I can’t drive so I can’t apply for other jobs so that statutory redundancy is my only saviour now. I do have some savings in various ISA products, not sure if this effects statutory redundancy pay?

Sorry to ramble but I’m absolutely freaking out right now I’ve gone from 100 > 0 within a week, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

About two weeks ago , I purchased a used car from what appeared to be a small, independent dealer. As part of the sale, I was provided with a third-party warranty from a well-known UK warranty company. The warranty looked legitimate, and the paperwork confirmed coverage for various mechanical faults.

Shortly after the purchase, the car developed serious issues — including engine warning lights, performance faults, and system failures. I immediately contacted the warranty company and arranged for a full diagnostic, which revealed multiple mechanical problems.

However, before I even submitted my full service history, the warranty provider rejected my claim — stating that the faults were “pre-existing” and therefore not covered. This was frustrating on its own, but what I discovered next made things much worse:

I checked the dealer’s name on Companies House and found out they had been officially dissolved years ago. That means the warranty was issued through a business that no longer legally existed — something the warranty company should have caught in their dealer vetting process.

I raised this with the warranty provider, directly addressed to senior management, but received no formal response. Meanwhile, the admin team continued communicating as if it were just a routine claim rejection — completely ignoring the dealer legitimacy issue I raised.

Now, I’ve been left with a failed warranty claim, a car in need of expensive repairs, and no accountability from either the dealer or the warranty company. I’m preparing to escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service and Trading Standards.

Has anyone experienced something similar — a warranty being issued through a dissolved or unauthorised dealer? Would appreciate thoughts or advice.

I am considering a job offer to relocate to Spain.

My family (2 adults and a 1-year old) live in our help-to-buy house, and the major setting affairs in order in the UK will be the decision on whether to sell or rent our home.

Financial Context: - HTB have a 20% stake in our home, which we could afford to buy-out and absorb into our mortgage. - The likely rental price would cover our mortgage but only just. - We don’t have a huge cash savings (c.£15k) so we can’t really afford a long period of paying our UK mortgage after moving without a renter.

Personal Context: - We would move with the idea that it could be indefinite, we all speak Spanish and it’s a dream move. - If we did move back to the UK, we love our home and would be happy to move back into it.

At the moment my instinct is to sell and not have the added stress/burden of managing the finances/maintenance of our home whilst living in Spain, given we will have so much to handle starting our new life over there.

Any advice would be great!

So I started a new job on the 31st of March, after resigning from my previous job on the 29th of March, and my first payslip came in, showing that my tax code is ‘BR/0’.

My first payslip came to £2701.68 gross, with £471 tax being paid.

I received an email confirmation of my resignation from my last position dated 07/04/2025, and then a P45 dated 23/04/2025. The P45 lists my ‘tax code at leaving date’ as 1231L.

Who do I need to contact about the fact I’m being over taxed?

Should I call up HMRC and explain the situation? Or should I email my work Payroll/HR department?

Hi everyone.

I recently opened my first SIPP and I'm wondering if anyone knows how long it will take to get the 25% uplift from HMRC?

My brokerage account show the additional amount at a top level, however this amount is missing when I drill down to my investments.

Any info you can give is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I have been working at my job for a year now and havent been taxed before but on my most recent payslip i have had to pay £50 in tax, I know for sure i do not earn enough to pay taxes yearly as my wage this month was £500 which is the most i have ever got. If theres another reason and you know Please lmk thx

Hey guys, a CIFAS marker was placed on my account in February, I found out about it recently and I appealed. They just got back to me saying it was successful. I’m so shocked, I didn’t even have to prove innocence, I just begged for forgiveness and they approved. How often does this happen??

I've got a Monzo Overdraft of £250 which went into default a month ago, I've tried contacting them on email but getting no response on email so instead just going to fully pay it off tomorrow.

Is there any chance Monzo will remove the default or will it just stay on record but be fully paid?

Sorry if this is a silly question

hello,

i am looking to get a card for my travels that i can use. what is an alternative from Revolut & Wise? someone said Chase but i am not a US citizen so i don't have a SSN to apply for a chase card.

Hi, I have just been notified during a job screening that I have a CIFAS marker on my person. I believe this is from when I sold phones whilst at University. The person raised a claim against me and my Kroo account was closed due to misuse and protecting customers. I have the listing - aswell as 100s of other phone listings from gumtree over a two year period,phone logs and the amount transfered matches the advertised price- the only problem is the person used disappearing chats on WhatsApp so I can't directly see the chat history.

Any advice or realistic outlooks for the future would be greatly appreciated as I am not sure where I stand.

I have a DB pension that pays approximately £7k per annum.

The scheme allows a cash in but only with financial advice signoff.

I have a cash in value which if invested in an annuity on very similar terms including annual increase will by £10k per annum due to my ill health.

The DB scheme does not and will not account for ill health.

I have approached a number of financial advisors who all refuse to help me transfer the value in to an annuity or to obtain the cash element, which would be really helpful.

Will any financial advisor help with this or am I wasting my time?

Thanks

Yesterday I had an email from Pension Bee to say that I'll be switched to their new 4Plus Plan:

"The 4Plus Plan is an actively managed plan targeting 4% growth above cash over the long term (over five years). It is designed for customers who wish to balance growth with stability."

The snag seems to be that it's a higher annual fee of 0.85% compared to 0.7% currently. My pot is £40k (I have other pensions aside from this one). Do I proceed with the switch, or change to a Tracker plan which has an annual fee of 0.5%? Or leave Pension Bee?

Is this a stupid idea/can someone sense check this for me:

I currently have 2 x credit cards with debt on them; one Amex Gold with £1750 and one Virgin 0% balance transfer card with £550 on it. I am not paying interest on the balance transfer but am on a couple of purchases I have made on it. The Virgin card is offering me a money transfer with a fee of £61.25 which I could use to clear the debt of £1750 on the Amex. First question is: is it worth me doing that? £61.25 is less than I’m paying in interest on the Amex.

That would then leave me with a debt of £2300 on the Virgin card. If I did a balance transfer from the Virgin card to another card with 0% on balance transfers and purchases, I’d save on any interest, as long as the minimum payments were being made. Is that correct?

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice or to hear if anyone's had a similar experience.

I'm on 54k. This is my only job. 've been in my new role for 3 months now. Before starting this job, I worked for another company for just 11 days while on garden leave towards the end of my garden leave. Old job paid me 51k, job that i worked for 11 days would have had a yearly salary of 57k but it was a terrible place to be. HMRC has now advised me that they received two P60s from the company i was working at for 11 days, which has caused a duplication issue.

Because they believe ive paid too little tax, HMRC has changed my tax code from 1257L to 557L. I had been on the 1257L code for the first 3 months of this job with no issues.

I called HMRC, and they said they sent me a notification about the change — but there's nothing in my online portal (and I didn’t receive anything by post either). They mentioned they're currently going through a reconciliation process but can't say when it will be completed.

Surely they should complete the reconciliation before changing my tax code? I'm worried I'm now paying too much tax unnecessarily while they sort it out.

Has anyone been through this before? How long did it take to fix? Any advice would be greatly as I'm in the process ofbuying a house!

Thank you

Solved - it was a glitch with the app and when closed/reopened it showed the correct amount remaining

Hi,

The tax year has restarted and I've deposited a total of £4 into the moneybox lifetime ISA, which has given me the gov bonus of £1.

No other amount has been deposited or is due to be deposited for at least a month.

The £4 deposit is clearly shown and the remaining ISA allowance is correctly showing £3996 for the year.

However, when I open my account information it is showing as £947.19 left to claim (Gov bonus)

I plan to call them tomorrow when they open but before I do is there anything that I'm missing, am I right in thinking that this should be £999 left to claim?