Current Practice And Future Legislation

Dez-Titute

debt_doctor wrote: »

Hi all,

Just thought I would post this internal e-mail form one of my trusty colleagues who went to a forum abour current practice and future legislation. Any thoughts / comments ???

DD


Dear all,

Following a very interesting Discussion Forum meeting in XXXXXX yesterday, I thought I’d circulate my very sketchy notes on what was discussed. There were two guest speakers; XXXX XXXXX Official Receiver for XXXXXXXXX , and XXXXXX XXXXX from the policy division of the Insolvency Service.

Most of what was said is vaguely common knowledge, but though if it was all in one place in an email it might be useful- also means I can bin my scraggy notes.

General updates included that there is the new Mental Health Evidence Form which creditors will soon expect if requesting write offs or preferential treatment for clients with mental health vulnerabilities and that it was available on the MAT website now.


DD

Hi DD,
Interesting reading,

Been on the MAT website http://www.moneyadvicetrust.org/images/080919_integrated_guidance_final.pdf

And wondered which of the Debt Charities use the
DMHEF & also what has been the response from the creditors who have receive it ??

Could this also be used when going BR and would it help the OR ??

Cheers DEz

debt_doctor

Hi Dez,

This is very, very new and I know for certain that none of the advisers at our Bureau have used one yet, although we do challenge debts as unenforceable if we believe it could be shown that at the time the contract was taken out the person did not have the 'capaciity' to enter in to the contract, and we gather information from health care proffessionals to do that.

I'M going to put my sceptical head on ( the one I wear most of the time TBH ! ) and say that I doubt it will do much to persuade creditors to accept those with mental health issues as valid.

I feel that this initiative is meant to do two things;

1) Prove grounds for a contract to be irredeemably unenforceable where the person had no mental capacity to enter the contract

and

2) to prevent creditors putting pressure on those who are temporariliy unable to deal with the pressures of debt due to a mental health 'issue' such as anxiety, rather than a mental illness such as bipolar disorder, for instance.

My response to that is that the grounds to prove 'capacity' are already available to debt advisers, and im afraid that creditors simply dont care enough about those suffering from anxiety due to debt issues and consider it a lame excuse, which of course it isnt.

The only way in my opinion to stop creditors hassling those suffering from anxiety and stress is to pass legislation to properly enforce such things as the OFT debt collection guidance by way of financial penalty, and for the genuine threat of removing the credit licence of persistent offenders.

I think CAB's will no doubt take part in this, but only those clients who receive ongoing casework. Most of the other debt charities as far as I know do not do casework, they operate on a 'one off' basis.

We shall keep an eye on it and see if it brings improvement.

Best,

DD