3rd Party

isaac2007

Hello and many thanks for your help.

I have a substantial debt which I believed to be statute barred as it was many years old.

However the collector has sent me a printout from what appears to be their internal accounting system showing two payments. These were made by my partner at the the time in APR and MAY 2007, without my knowledge. The debt is solely in my name. Does this constitute admission of liability on my part?????

Thank you

RAS

The first question is whether there was a clear 6 year period of non-payment before April 2007. If so the debt is STILL statute barred and you need to send the standard SB letter.

I would also suggest explaining to your partner that their actions have made matters worse for you.

GeorgeUK

I would advise contacting the nationaldebtline to clarify the position.

If the debt is soley in your name then i would have thought that the payment would need to come from you. Otherwise DCA's could buy debts that were nearly statute barred and make a penny payment to them so that they were no longer nearly statute barred. I did a thread on this recently querying what would happen (made the text white so it was hidden as someone was concerned it may give the DCA's ideas).
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1193727

I'd definately seek confirmation on this as YOU have not made a payment towards the debt for 6 years or acknowledged the debt in writing.

isaac2007

Thank you all for your help on this,

just posting incase anyone needs to know for future ref.

Spoke to nationaldebtline who are forwarding me OFT rules regarding DCA's. This states as RAS says that if a six year gap has passed the Limitation Act applies even if payments are then made on the account after that time, it is still Statute Barred. I think I may be lucky in this case, if you can call it that. From what I can make-out, nothing was paid to and no admission of liability was made for at least a six-year period before the payments in APR & MAY '07.

I'm now sending another letter quoting the Limitation Act to see what they have to say to that.

Will keep you posted and many thanks again.......

RAS

Hi Issac

Glad you are OK. Please make sure that OH understand the need not to make payments to a DCA or other creditor wihtout talking to you first. I know DCas are scary and they meant well but it could have been and expensive bit of help.