291 – COVID-19 and Debt Update: Dealing With Your Creditors

The Hoyes Michalos Team is working from home, so today’s podcast was recorded yesterday morning in my guest boardroom, so the sound quality isn’t studio quality, but we wanted to get the information out to you; here’s the rundown of today’s show, with time stamps: Dealing with Creditors during Coronavirus: https://www.hoyes.com/blog/dealing-with-creditors-during-a-financial-crisis-like-the-coronavirus/ 1:15 All HMA offices closed to in person meetings, but we are working from home by phone or video 2:25 Limitations Act of Ontario suspended – creditors have more time to sue you 3:40 Right of offset – don’t bank where you owe money 5:30 How to deal with your landlord if you can’t pay your rent 6:22 Mortgage deferral – what it really means 7:24 Should I worry about my credit score? – Equifax and TransUnion offering free credit reports Links: https://www.consumer.equifax.ca/personal/products/credit-report/ and https://secure-ocs.transunion.ca/secureocs/credit-agree.html 10:58 Canada Emergency Response Benefit – CERB - $2,000 per month four months https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan/covid19-individuals.html 15:00 CERB can’t be given as security – will Payday loans – using Tom Cooper’s Twitter: @tomcoopster 20:39 Six month suspension on student loans and four month deferral on taxes 22:30 What are lenders doing?  My discussions with senior lenders – will they give you a break? 25:13 Proposal Amendments – help if you are in a consumer proposal and can’t make the payments 28:10 Stories from clients – many people have gone from a good income to zero Final Comments 43:00 Don’t Panic with respect to your debt – the courts are closed, no-one will sue you this week