joint bank account, unauthorised overdraft

costaerer

bit complicated.

my wife is on a dmp with about £6000 of debt, nothing too major i know, but its ruining my credit rating because we had a joint bank account which incurred LOADS of charges and is now £1300 overdrawn.

i really want to take my name off this account, purely for the fact of mortgage reasons in a few years, and this is the only thing tarnashing my credit report!!

i have read that if the account is in negative balance you cannot seperate the account.....

what is the best way? im still getting hundreds of pounds of charges to the account every month!! the overdraft is getting bigger not smaller.....what can i do?

costaerer

can you balance transfer to a credit card?

Emma1988

But surely if your going for a mortage they will have to take in what you wife is earning/in debt with so it wont make a difference if you have a different account of not? or am i getting the wrong end of the stick? hope someone on here has some good advice to give you

costaerer

ok that part of the story is totally irrelevant lol....

i hate lloyds tsb anf some woman in another country whos voice i barely could understand was on the other end of the phone.

anyway i cant be taken off the account while the balance is negative!

DarkConvict

To remove you from the account, would make her solely liable for the debt on the account. They will never do this, as it would mean they can only chase 1 person instead of 2 for repayment. Until the account is out of the overdraft you will never be able to be removed.

Think about it yourself, if 2 people jointly owed you £1500. Would you really let one off them off and say the other person has to pay it all themselves, at that the person you would be leaving it with to pay would be the one in debt trouble already and currently in a DMP. It would never happen.

As to linked credit files, I agree, sharing a mortgage will keep you linked together until the mortgage is paid off. You are never going to be able to break the link between you until all joint products are closed.

Eager_Elephant

If your wife is in a DMP and you are not does that mean you can service your debts (if any)?

Is the joint overdraft in your wife's DMP?

How much over the authorised amount is the overdraft now?

Without knowing the above I would suggest that you speak to Lloyds about making an arrangement to clear it. If they have an arrangement they MAY stop interest and charges providing you keep to the arrangement. Once this is clear you can close the account but it will still show as a negative on your credit file.

Forgot to say that if the overdraft is in your wife's DMP they may still add charges etc as obviously there is someone else to chase who on the face of it can afford to pay it back.

EE

costaerer

well i called lloyds and they said that there wont be any more charges added as long as we keep to the dmp.
the dmp is just in my wifes name.
they extended the authorised overdraft to like £1300 but they are adding more charges all the time. the balance is about -£1400.

worried_jim

They will not add any more charges if you are in an agreed payment plan with them, if you are still incoring charges this will be because the plan is not been kept to, for instance they will want x amount by x date of the month and your dmp is probably paying late every month hence the charge. Once the account is back into credit you can take your name off it, although it wont matter much because it is now back in credit so not a problem.
Find out what the agreed limit is today and pay funds in to bring it under this to try to keep ahead so if the dmp are late one month you won't break the agreement. I hope the account is no longer being used ?

costaerer

no its long not used lol. most of the overdraft is charges!!

so even if the overdraft is only a 'temporary authorised' one because of dmp, once im in it i can be removed? or i think maybe it needs a plus balance before you can take off?

worried_jim

You cannot be removed form an account until it is in credit, whether the overdraft is agreed or not, credit only I am afraid. Once the account is in credit and stays that way for 6-7 months it wont have that much of an impact on the credit file, unless the account is closed off as a bad debt and moved onto Lloyd's consumer debt recovery dept , if this happens it will be on your file for six years.

costaerer

my credit file has a few late payments and mainly AP's for this overdraft.