Service Charge pressure while on a DMP? Please help.

Hi guys,

I really hope you can help. Please excuse the length of my post – I wanted to give as much accurate information as possible and not leave anything important out. Before I start, I am a firm believer in paying ones debts, but we’re getting desperate and I’m not really sure who to ask for help at this point.

I’m dealing with the issue on behalf of my partner.

The issue is a Service Charge debt from an estate management company.

My partner and her (very soon to be) ex-husband purchased the house we live in about 10 years ago. Since they moved into the property (which they purchased jointly) the estate management company decided to send ALL correspondence (invoices) to her ex-husband only, with no mention of her.

Not to make excuses, but to give you a full picture, her ex-husband was a very irresponsible man, and it would now seem that (unbeknownst to her) he hadn’t actually been paying it (and several other joint debts which she’s now paying off on a DMP – he refuses to contribute at all) for several years. This is somebody who actually resigned from a job whilst they were together, and then devised an elaborate plan to keep it a secret for several months. He's not a bad person, just completely irresponsible and doesn't seem to understand the ramifications of not paying money that he owes.

When I became aware of the problem (by opening a letter addressed to him – I know I shouldn’t have, but I was concerned as people had started turning up at the door to repossess his car, chase money, etc, and I wanted to be sure the same didn’t happen again) I called the estate management company. This was at the beginning of this year. I explained that her ex-husband no longer lived at the property (and hadn’t done since 2012) and that I was now living in the property with my partner.

I explained that I would like to commit to making all future payments, and would be happy to set up a direct debit. The estate management company advised me that, as her ex-husband was the only person they had on file, they could not discuss the account with me, nor could they allow me to make payments against, or set up a direct debit against the account. I asked if my partner could give them authorisation to do this with me at the time, and they explained that this was not possible as she was not the account holder or person responsible for the outstanding, and that they would pursue her ex-husband for the outstanding monies through their own channels.

In September ’14 we then received a letter from a firm of solicitors, this time addressed to BOTH my partner and her ex-husband, demanding the full amount be paid.

It was over a £1,000.

I called the firm of solicitors the same day I received the letter and explained the situation again. They asked me to put it in writing to them and e-mail it over, which I did. I explained the whole saga with the incorrectly named/addressed invoices and correspondence from the estate management company, and received no response at all from either them or the firm of solicitors they had employed to chase the debt. Instead of a response, the estate management company just sent a thick envelope to the house with a stack of re-printed invoices showing BOTH names – my partner and her ex husband, dating all the way back to 2008 when it would appear he stopped paying.

I then e-mailed the estate management company explaining what had happened again, and asking if I could lodge a formal complaint and also be sent information explaining how I lodge a further complaint with the Financial Ombudsman regarding their handling of the matter. I sent that by e-mail, and never received any response whatsoever.

The firm of solicitors they employed to chase the debt finally sent me a response to my original letter by e-mail (29 days after I e-mailed it to them) again demanding full payment, and advising that it doesn’t make any difference whether my partner received any previous invoices or communications (or, in this case, knew about the debt at all) because she “should have known”.

My partner is currently on a DMP paying substantial debts accrued partly by her and (largely) by her ex-husband, as well as having to pay the full cost of their ongoing divorce by herself. He doesn’t pay a penny towards the debts, or the divorce costs. This means that my partner is not in a position to repay this debt on top by herself. The estate management, nor the firm of solicitors, seem interested in pursuing her ex-husband for a penny.

The letter from the solicitors advised that if full payment wasn’t received by a date in mid-October, she would suffer all sorts of ominous court costs, etc. I replied a few days after this was received explaining my partners situation again, pointing out that the estate management company had not replied to my request to log a formal complaint (despite their website promising to acknowledge all complaints within 24hrs) nor my request to send me information explaining how to log a complaint with the financial ombudsman. I again pointed out to them that I am completely happy to set up a direct debit for future payments, and that I’m even happy to pay the outstanding debt accrued since the beginning of 2013, when I moved into the property.

6 weeks later, yesterday, I received an e-mail response to my letter from the firm of solicitors, advising that they will not accept my offer, and that my partner is fully liable for the outstanding. They are now saying that if I don’t cough up the £1,200 in full by Friday, they’ll contact my partner’s mortgage company.

To be completely honest I’m at a bit of a loss as to why they’d contact the mortgage company (since we’ve never missed a mortgage payment?) – does that make sense to any of you?

Please help. What do we do now? As I said at the beginning of my long post, I’m not trying to make excuses for anybody or avoid paying any debts, but I really don’t know what to do at this point. I know they’re only letters and they can’t physically hurt us, but my partner is constantly anxious and following the most recent e-mail she’s so worried she’s having trouble sleeping.

I’m doing my best to reach a resolution and resolve this problem for the both of us.