Arrears or Financial Difficulties
We are very aware that borrowers face challenges every day. If you are concerned about arrears or financial difficulties in respect of your credit facility agreement(s) (your “Facility”), we want to engage with you with a view to resolving those difficulties and helping you to meet your obligations.
How can we help?
We have summarised below the procedures adopted by Pepper in seeking to assist SME borrowers in arrears or financial difficulties, or if you are worried about falling behind on your repayments. For more information, please read the Information Booklet for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Legal & Regulatory or contact a member of our Commercial Property Finance Team
There are four simple steps:
1. Communication:
It is in your interest that you engage with us about your arrears and/or financial difficulties. We want to work with you with a view to finding a solution for your situation. By addressing it early together, we may be able to avoid the position becoming worse. You can contact our Commercial Team on 0818 866 666, Monday to Friday from 9am to 5.30pm.
If you inform us that you are at risk of going into arrears or you are in arrears and inform us that you are worried about going into financial difficulties, we will offer you the option of a credit review to discuss your situation. If you accept the offer, we will conduct a credit review. This means we will look at your credit facilities, loan security and any alternative arrangement that may be in place and consider your particular circumstances. We will identify what options are available to address your arrears or financial difficulties and whether our financial difficulties process can be applied to your case.
2. Financial Information:
To make sure we have a detailed understanding of your finances, we will need certain information from you in order to assess your case. You will find more details in Understanding Your Finances.
3. Assessment:
When we have all the information we need, we will assess your situation in order to work out the most appropriate solution for you. We will give careful consideration to:
- Your financial circumstances, including your overall personal and business debt
- Your current ability to make repayments
- Your previous repayment history
- Your income from any rental property
- Agreements or facilities you may have with other lenders
- Valuation of your assets
- Your financial accounts
- Any additional information relevant to your current financial circumstances
As part of our assessment of your case, in certain circumstances we may ask a third party to carry out an independent review in order to evaluate the future viability of your business. If we do this, we will let you know beforehand and will provide you with a copy of the report we receive following the independent review.
4. Resolution:
We aim to find an approach to deal with your financial difficulties. We try to make a decision within 15 working days of receiving all of the information we need from you. If we have been unable to finalise a decision within that time, we will tell you the reason and how long it will take to reach a decision. When we make a decision, we will write to you to tell you if we can offer you an alternative arrangement or not.
You have the option to appeal to our dedicated SME Appeals Board if you are not satisfied with:
• The withdrawal or reduction of your credit facility
• A special term or condition required in order to provide you with an alternative arrangement
• Our refusal to offer you an alternative arrangement
• Your refusal to accept an alternative arrangement offered to you
• Having been classified as “not co-operating”.
Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Appeals Board within 20 working days from the date you are notified of a decision.