past credit accounts debts

Hello and welcome to DFW

Let me start by saying I can't help on the bankruptcy side of things - it might be worth just posting that as a one liner on the bankruptcy sub-board (see here), however, hopefully I can help on other matters, My suggestions are:

1) Statement Affairs
You need to sit down with your daughter and prepare her statement of affairs (if you haven't already done so). An explanation of preparing an SOA can be found in the SouthernScouser post here. You will need this anyway to send to her creditors to prove she can't afford higher payments. See the point below ref: reducing the payments. I would also look at www.entitledto.co.uk to check whether she is able to claim any more benefits.

2) Post on DFW
If you wish (its recommended) you can post this on here and the good folk here will offer their opinions on how she could potentially lower her outgoings or get more benefits, etc to enable her to make higher payments.

3) Requesting CCA (see also 4 before doing this)
You can also request the CCA (consumer credit agreement) and letter of assignment (this gives the DCA the right to collect the debt on behalf of the original creditor). There is a standard letter to request these items. The key here is 1) send the letter recorded 2) enclose the payment (photocopy the letter and postal order/cheque) and 3) stick to your guns and if they don't come up with the CCA, do not make any payments until they do! This is critical as they will continue to bully you into making payments. They are required to provide a signed CCA from your daughter in order to prove the debt is hers. If they fail to do this, their power to chase your daughter, in law is diminished. You are taking advantage of the Freedom of information act by requesting this information:

Dear Sir or Madam

Account number - xxxxxxxxxx

This letter in no way acknowledges that I hold a debt with your organisation or any other.


With reference to the above account, I would like the following information provided to me at your earliest convenience.
Your faithfully

4) Statute Barred Debts
Also, are any of the debts over 6 years old? They may well be statute barred. Here is a link to a letter you can send. She must be honest about this, but if she has not had contact with anyone relating to specific debts at all over the last 6 years, she MUST NOT make contact with anyone - she must instead prepare this letter as although they can chase for payment, she does not have to oblige with payment and they cannot legally push her into paying. Bad news is I suspect she has probably paid them at some stage and woken up the account again, but perhaps not. Might be worth getting a copy of her credit file to check on the status of some of the debts.

5) Reclaiming Charges
We are in limbo-land with this because of the current court case, but provided the judgement falls in the consumers favour, your daughter should press on with claiming any charges. Unfortunately due to the age of the debts and your daughters lack of evidence, I suggest you actually make a information request now anyway - it will cost £10 per application (see the Claiming your bank charges board and Martins article for more information on the process). Also be warned, if HSBC are still her current bank, she will need a parachute bank account to use because they are likely to cancel her account when she claims back any charges.

6) Reducing Payments
Having completed an SOA and established your daughter's financial situation, you can then approach the creditors/DCAs for the active debts and ask them to accept reduced payments. I will warn you, they will refuse initially, because their job is to get their money back, but you can continue pushing and make the regular lower payments. Here is a letter format you can copy and paste and amend to suit your daughter's circumstances - you must send any correspondence to any of these organisations recorded delivery and you will need to enclose the SOA you compiled with this particular letter. Provided you have been honest about income/outgoings, if it goes to court, the court is more likely to side with you that you have clearly been honest and tried to pay off the debts under financial difficulties. Generally paying a lower but regular payment can keep the wolf from the door, but obviously the debts don't go away. You can also offer to make full and final settlements, but obviously your daughter would need to be able to afford these.

Finally, I think your daughter should contact CCCS or Payplan or another debt charity - don't approach other companies who will charge you for the privilege (see Martin's articles about these organisations). This will help support your daughter and potentially reduce the number of calls she may get from them.

Sorry its such a long post, no doubt others will have posted while I was compiling this veritable tome for you! Good luck!

... and it doesn't disappear into the long list of posts.....