We Negotiated $8,000 Off a Client's Collections and Saved the Deal. No Consumer Proposal Needed.

Our client walked away with five collection accounts cleared, including one with a judgment, and $8,029.92 less debt than they started with. They did it without filing a consumer proposal.

Here's how it came together.

The deal that wasn't going to work

When this file came in, the numbers didn't line up. Our client had five accounts in collections, one of them with a judgment attached. The payments had gone delinquent along the way, and the balances had grown.

At that point, a lot of people get told their best option is a consumer proposal. Sometimes that's true. In this case, we didn't think it had to be.

What we did instead

We went to each collection agency directly and negotiated.

Collection agencies often buy or manage old debts for less than the balance owing. That means there's usually room to settle for less, especially when they know payment is coming in full, in one shot, from a mortgage closing. A real lump sum on a real date is a strong position to negotiate from.

We worked through all five accounts one by one. Every one of them settled for less than the balance.

The numbers

Original creditor	Balance owing	Settled for	Saved
F********	$11,801.00	$7,727.00	$4,074.00
F*******	$2,545.00	$1,654.25	$890.75
T**** M*******	$3,619.44	$2,050.00	$1,569.44
T**** W*******	$1,666.00	$880.00	$786.00
S****	$1,419.00	$709.27	$709.73
Total	$13,020.52	$13,020.52	$8,029.92

That's $8,029.92 that stayed with our client instead of going to collectors, and every account on the list was cleared.

Why skipping the consumer proposal matters

A consumer proposal is a legal process, filed through a Licensed Insolvency Trustee, that lets you settle debts for less than you owe. It's a real tool and it helps a lot of people. But it comes with a cost: it shows up on your credit report for years and can make it harder to get approved for financing down the road.

By negotiating directly and paying the settlements out through the mortgage, our client got a similar result on the debts that could be settled, without that mark on their credit.

If this sounds like your situation

Collections and judgments don't automatically kill a deal. Neither do missed payments. If you own your home and have equity, there may be more room to work with than you've been told.

Every file is different, and we'll tell you honestly what's realistic. Call us at 587-900-0036 and let's look at yours.