My dad owed a few banks a large sum of money. What can my family do?
Recently my father finally come cleaned that he owes a few banks (Citi, DBS and Standard Chartered) loans amounting of up to 400k.
It really came as a shock to us as he has been loaning from them since a few years back.
Worse still, he recently got retrenched and is currently unemployed. Due to his unemployment, he’s unable to pay his debts and therefore decided to ask my mum for money to pay his interest.
I’m currently at a lost of what to do especially that I’m still in university. Are there solutions where it is possible to reduce loan interest rates as currently its at about 20%.
My mom informed me that she heard of certain organisations that can negotiate with banks for lower interest rates. I really want him to declare bankruptcy as well but he is reluctant as it will affect his job search.
Netizens’ comments
- You can’t help him if he does not want to declare bankrupt. The reality is that he is bankrupt. Deny reality does no one any good. You can take care of yourself by taking cpf/bank loan for uni, work part time for your own expenses. Shouldn’t be too hard.
- 100% declare bankruptcy. Sorry, it will be a tough decision, but frankly, you can still find employment in most sectors (maybe except govt or financial services) despite being a bankrupt.
- My ex bf family was in similar situation where during an economy downturn many years back, they could not repay their debts. The father declare bankruptcy. After that, things seemed to have settled and they are doing very well now.
- Check in with CCS (Credit Counselling Singapore hor, not Chan Chun Sing) and see what they advice. My bro and SIL also had issues with their debts and managed to get help from them with the repayment plan. Think they managed to get the interest lowered or stopped accumulating.
- Do not let your mum pay the interest only. Talk to the banks first and secure lower interest rates or better yet, seek to restructure the debt first before paying down some portion of principal.
Someone else here said to find out where the borrowed money went. Yes, pls do. If he comes clean about the loan, he also needs to come clean about where it went. That may be a more complete picture for your mum to decide if she should help too.