Do debt management plans adversely impact your credit score?

Enrolling yourself with a debt management plan may give you enough breathing space in your monthly budget but will this step adversely impact your credit score? As the entire lending industry is based on credit, more and more people are getting concerned about the impact of their financial moves on their credit rating. However, debt management doesn?t hurt your credit score like debt settlement companies since you end up repaying the entire amount but in small and affordable monthly payments. As you?re going through the debt management plan, it is most likely that you won?t get any new line of credit. Read on to know more on debt management plans.

Protecting your credit score through debt management plans

When you enroll yourself in a DMP, the credit counseling agency will get a single monthly check from you and this check will straightaway be given to your creditors. The time span within which you can become debt free depends on the total debt amount that you owe but usually it gets over by 3-4 years. As you enroll yourself with the debt management plan, a comment that you?re repaying your debt through a credit counseling agency appears on your report and stays there till you pay back the account in full and such a comment will never hurt your credit score in the least. Consumers who participate in credit counseling agencies shouldn?t be punished with their credit scores.

Taking out new lines of credit becomes difficult

While you?re already participating in a debt management program, you won?t be able to qualify for new lines of credit as most debt management programs will not allow you to take out new loans while you?re repaying your debt. Moreover, when you approach a credit card company about taking out a new card, they will hesitate to lend you as they?ll see that you?re already down with debt that you can?t manage on your own. On the other hand, you may come across some other creditors that may see a DMP as a positive thing as this shows an initiative to repay debt through professional help.

Late payments to the counseling agency may hurt more

When you?re already repaying through a credit counseling agency, the comment won?t hurt your credit score but if you fall back on the monthly payments to the agency, this is going to hit your credit score badly. After the creditors reduce and revise the interest rates and the monthly payments, you should make the payments on time. But if you still default on the payments, you will certainly hurt your score badly even after getting help from a DMP.

Before you choose a credit counseling agency, make sure you shop around and compare and contrast the services that they provide so that you work with the best. Try and choose a non-profit credit counseling agency so that you can be sure about the authenticity of the results that you get. Manage your finances and make timely payments to avoid hitting your credit score.

About the author:
Rick Murphy is a regular writer with Debt Consolidation Care and is also a contributory writer with other financial sites. His expertise is woven around various aspects of the debt industry . He is a financial writer who excels in writing finance articles. He has immense knowledge on the recent contemporary financial issues and loves to contribute his articles to various blogs, communities and websites. Some topics covered by him are the benefits of consolidating your credit card debts, the pros of debt management and how it impacts your credit score and the emotional and financial toll of going ?through a bankruptcy

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