Statute Barred...

asbestross_2

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to introduce myself on the forum and explain my circumstances.

Im 25 years old and dealing with debt, as seems most of us are. From a very young age I was always without money, so naturally as I'm sure you can understand as soon as the elusive age of 18 came around, i had anything that the banks could throw at me. Concerning now to me how on an income of only £12,000 I was able to get two credit cards for £4,000 each, an unsecured personal loan of £6000 and an overdraft of £2000. Which, rather stupidly i squandered and am still living with the nightmare of it.

Being young and nieve I ignored the debts, assuming that they will go away until came the point when I moved house. Everything seemed to go quiet and has been since. I moved to portugal in 2006 and returned in 2008 and getting back on track with a gorgeous house, steady job and good income.

So having matured somewhat rapidly over the past few years, i decided it was time to stop acting childish and face the music on the over indulgence of my youth. After checking my credit file I discovered that I owed over £20k in debt to the original bank. A T-Mobile contact later and sure enough I received a letter from a DCA chasing payment for these debts. So following suit, i sent them a letter asking for a breakdown of all payments, correspondence, interest, charges etc etc. This arrived a little under a month ago, and i started the painful task of putting together a payment plan, without informing the DCA of this first i decided to check my legal stance and quickly realised that they had no contact with me for the past 6 years ... yep you guessed it £20k of debt in statute barred accounts.

This left me in somewhat of a strange predicament, as over the years i quickly learned that honesty gets you everywhere. After much turmoil, i drafted a letter up, and sent it to the DCA recorded delivery.

A week afterwards I received a call from the DCA informing me they had received my letter but as I had contacted them to inform them of this situation it counted as acknowledgement of the debt and therefore it didnt apply ... needless to say i was prompt to point out their mistake and requested again, clear indication of any contact acknowledging the debt they had received from me in the past 6 years. "I'll gather this and send it to you right away" was the response i had.

After returning home from work today, there was a letter behind the door. As of today, they accepted the statute barred status, and have written off the debt.

Not something I am proud of but its a certain second chance I feel i've been given.

My main question is, does a statute barred account have to remain on your credit file, or do you have legal right to have this removed?

Hope you are all in good health, and look forward to offering any advice I can if possible...

Ross

di3004

asbestross wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to introduce myself on the forum and explain my circumstances.

Im 25 years old and dealing with debt, as seems most of us are. From a very young age I was always without money, so naturally as I'm sure you can understand as soon as the elusive age of 18 came around, i had anything that the banks could throw at me. Concerning now to me how on an income of only £12,000 I was able to get two credit cards for £4,000 each, an unsecured personal loan of £6000 and an overdraft of £2000. Which, rather stupidly i squandered and am still living with the nightmare of it.

Being young and nieve I ignored the debts, assuming that they will go away until came the point when I moved house. Everything seemed to go quiet and has been since. I moved to portugal in 2006 and returned in 2008 and getting back on track with a gorgeous house, steady job and good income.

So having matured somewhat rapidly over the past few years, i decided it was time to stop acting childish and face the music on the over indulgence of my youth. After checking my credit file I discovered that I owed over £20k in debt to the original bank. A T-Mobile contact later and sure enough I received a letter from a DCA chasing payment for these debts. So following suit, i sent them a letter asking for a breakdown of all payments, correspondence, interest, charges etc etc. This arrived a little under a month ago, and i started the painful task of putting together a payment plan, without informing the DCA of this first i decided to check my legal stance and quickly realised that they had no contact with me for the past 6 years ... yep you guessed it £20k of debt in statute barred accounts.

This left me in somewhat of a strange predicament, as over the years i quickly learned that honesty gets you everywhere. After much turmoil, i drafted a letter up, and sent it to the DCA recorded delivery.

A week afterwards I received a call from the DCA informing me they had received my letter but as I had contacted them to inform them of this situation it counted as acknowledgement of the debt and therefore it didnt apply ... needless to say i was prompt to point out their mistake and requested again, clear indication of any contact acknowledging the debt they had received from me in the past 6 years. "I'll gather this and send it to you right away" was the response i had.

After returning home from work today, there was a letter behind the door. As of today, they accepted the statute barred status, and have written off the debt.

Not something I am proud of but its a certain second chance I feel i've been given.

My main question is, does a statute barred account have to remain on your credit file, or do you have legal right to have this removed?

Hope you are all in good health, and look forward to offering any advice I can if possible...

Ross

Hi Ross
Bumping this up for you.;)

Tixy

As the debt is statute barred it would normally have 'dropped' off your credit file already - as the defaults etc only stay on for 6years. Does it definatley appear on your report? Is this because they have recently posted new defaults against the debts?

dfh

well done x x x

asbestross_2

Hey guys,

Thanks for the welcome, i contacted Equifax to discuss it with them today, as although they have not had contact they lodged a default under my name at the end of 2008 ... a tad naughty as this was also lodged just after the accounts reached statute barred.

They said they will discuss with the creditor and ask them to confirm the account status and explain why a default was lodged after so long. The lady I spoke to explained that if they haven't had contact then they wont be able to provide lawful justification of the default; in which case equifax will remove it.

Keep ya all posted

Tixy

I imagine the creditor sold the debt on just after the statute barred period was up (for peanuts), the DCA picked it up and first thing they did was register a default - which they aer not allowed to do, hopefully you'll get it removed soon (hope you haven't got a mortgage or anything big to apply for in the next month or so)