former tennants debt

Katykat

My daughter has received several letters from a debt collection firm on behalf of United Utilities. The letters have been addressed to a former owner of her house. My daughter has owned her house for 5 yrs, & has no contact or forwarding address of the previous owner. In the begining, my daughter sent these letters back unopened with the message " no longer at this address" on the envelope. The last one, she opened, & then sent it back with a covering letter stating that Ms ******* has not owned or resided at this address for more than 5 yrs. Now she has had another letter, still addresses to the former owner threatening legal action if she doesn't reply in 7 days. She has now sent an email threatnening THEM with legal action if the harassment continues and she has informed them that she has legal documents and utility bills to prove she is the owner of the property, but she is not obliged to supply this proof. However, she is worried that the debt is applied to the property rather than to the former tennant. Is this correct? She cant afford to pay for credit checks & anyway, why should she.

WEEGIE

Katykat wrote: »

My daughter has received several letters from a debt collection firm on behalf of United Utilities. The letters have been addressed to a former owner of her house. My daughter has owned her house for 5 yrs, & has no contact or forwarding address of the previous owner. In the begining, my daughter sent these letters back unopened with the message " no longer at this address" on the envelope. The last one, she opened, & then sent it back with a covering letter stating that Ms ******* has not owned or resided at this address for more than 5 yrs. Now she has had another letter, still addresses to the former owner threatening legal action if she doesn't reply in 7 days. She has now sent an email threatnening THEM with legal action if the harassment continues and she has informed them that she has legal documents and utility bills to prove she is the owner of the property, but she is not obliged to supply this proof. However, she is worried that the debt is applied to the property rather than to the former tennant. Is this correct? She cant afford to pay for credit checks & anyway, why should she.

AS far as I am aware, the debt is not tied to the address, if she checks her Credit file she will see that that debt you refer to is not on it. My concern is she has sent them a letter with her contact details and this company may use this to chase HER for the debt, some of these Debt Collection Agencies can be ruthless, no doubt someone will come along and tell you more. Tell her not to worry about it.

4743hudsonj

Debts are always associated with people and not addresses. You daughter has done well so far, the harrasment act comes to mind when threatening them with legal action.

She has 2 options, keep up the fight with the potential of no result

or sit back, relax and recycle the letters like any other junk mail and forget about it.


IF, and this is a big if, they come knocking. tell her to slam the door and refuse them entry, if they persist call the police. They will not be bailiffs (even if they say they are) and have no right to entry or her possessions (neither would a bailiff for that matter as its not her debt).

Tell her to ignore it and erase all worry, if she needs reassurance, experian and the likes offer free trials which she could use to check her credit file. Just make sure she cancels it after.

RobertoMoir

Ignore the letters. Really. They can't do anything to her as its not her debt and opening the junk and stressing about it is clearly only upsetting her and you.

DVardysShadow

As advised above. And she should not give them a phone number, otherwise she will really discover what harassment is ....

Katykat

Thanks folks, she will feel easier now. In the beginning, she did just bin the letters, but twice she has returned them unopened & wrote " not known at this address" on the envelope. It was only this last one she opened as it said on the front URGENT- NOT JUNK MAIL. They dont have her name or phone number so I'll just tell her to ignore any further letters.

PopeSock

This guidance from the Office of Fair Trading may also prove useful.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf

boliston

Wow that sure is a distracting avatar!

mum2one

Also a thought at to why the agency has started again (even thou its ur daughters house), could be to do with the statue of limitations - no contact for 6 yrs debt free, thats most prob why thats started.

Good advice from the other posters, if they do turn up and cause probs ring thepolice.xx

Katykat

Gets me noticed Boliston :T
I think the 6 yrs limitation is possibly right. Just makes me think though. The debt being chased is £37. It surely must have cost both the original organisation and the debt collection agency more than that up to now. I'm not condoning debt, but I would have thought a little common sense should apply here. ( how naive am I ????)

DVardysShadow

Katykat wrote: »

Gets me noticed Boliston :T
I think the 6 yrs limitation is possibly right. Just makes me think though. The debt being chased is £37. It surely must have cost both the original organisation and the debt collection agency more than that up to now. I'm not condoning debt, but I would have thought a little common sense should apply here. ( how naive am I ????)

These accounts are effectively written off by the original owner. Then they are sold in bulk to Debt Collecting Agencies to recover some money. For example, the £37 you are talking about was probably part of a bundle of 1000 accounts worth £37,000 with 1 year to go before Statute of Limitations and might have been bought for £1850. So the new owner may find it economically better to harass everyone equally and ignore all return correspondence apart from payments rather than sort through, find the story behind each debt and decide whether to pursue.