Where do I start? 10+ year old debt

InaTizzy_2

just one more thought re: the electoral roll and credit reference agencies... am I right in thinking that if I moved out, put myself on the electoral roll and didn't give details of my previous address, then sat pretty for 6 years.. it would be as if I had never had credit? surely no credit reference agencies would have my details related to the new address and no way to tie them up with money owed at other addresses?

sounds like I've over simplified things in my head and it wouldn't work like that at all, just thought I'd give it a thought!!...

Watalie

InaTizzy wrote: »

Nope, no joint accounts but I think she would want one to keep an eye on the money, make sure I'm not doing anything stupid (although I'm adamant I've learnt my lesson!)

I have all the passwords etc to my partners online bank just to keep an eye on stuff I hope one day, I'll not need to do it anymore.

Good Luck with it - seems like you are ready to sort it out

RAS

If you signed up on the electoral roll last year and have not been hounded by debt collectors ever since, then these debts will almost certainly be statute barred. One sniff and they are onto it like sharks.

Do not open any joint acounts with your OH in the short-term, until your rating improves.

What you both might want to do is to do your credit checks and share them at intervals, so you can both see what is going on.

Regarding the credit records associated with houses, this used to be the case. Then banks started lending money and giving cards to 18 year olds, whose antics wrecked their parents' credit records, prevented them moving house etc, and people who moved into houses previously occupied by debtors found themselves black-listed, so the law was changed.

GF needs to get her head round, you were stupid once upon a time. It appears that because you did bnot understand the law, you were stupid more recently? Now you know the law, it is nothing like as awful as you thought and you can sort it out.

InaTizzy_2

Thanks RAS, that's a breath of fresh air to know. I'll still go through checking my credit reports and if they are statute barred then great, if not then I'll tackle that when I get to it. The problem with the girlfriend isn't so much the money, and I doubt the stupidity of what I did is really the issue because it happened 10 years ago. It's the fact that I recently had some issues with pay day loans, borrowed money from her parents to repay them and now owe them £1800 and that I lied to her about the pay day loans in the first place and now these debts have cropped up into the conversation and I effectively tried to deny any knowledge for about 5 minutes. That's what she's angry with me for, I can't say I blame her though.

re: the first sniff and they're on to you, I remember an ex girlfriend hassling me to get a bank account sorted out and I knew the moment I did that it would be a big red flag to debt collections agencies and low and behold, a week or two after my application for a new bank account, I got a few letters through but nothing more than that really (which I duly ignored.. again)

RAS

Concentrate on clearing the debt to her family and show her your credit records and things may start to improve over time.

There are lots of good ideas here, No-spend days, money saving old style, freebies, clicks, surveys and so on. Might be worth having a look round so you can pay this off quicker?

RAS

PS, Some jerk will come after you for the SB debts, but you just need to send them one letter and bye bye.

InaTizzy_2

re: paying it off quicker, I'm a web designer and along with my day job, I take on what extra work I can in the evenings and pretty much all the money coming from that will be heading her parents way!

DarkConvict

The other thing to remember is debt collectors do not just rely on a credit record, there are several places they can query to try and find you. So if you have not been contacted you have obviously stayed off the radar. Although the closer you get to 6 years the higher the chance you get flagged by a company system to make a last ditch attempt to get you to pay and reset the 6 year clock.

InaTizzy_2

hehe, makes me feel like John Connor in Terminator 3... living 'off the grid'... well that's vaguely good news! Spoken briefly to my partner, she's still pretty angry with me but her biggest concern was would we be able to get a mortgage if I have debts that are statute barred?

and what's the likelihood that a debt for say loans and credit cards would get a CCJ? do they reserve CCJ for more important things like electricity bills, council tax, etc.? or am I likely to have been stitched up with a CCJ when I wasn't reading my mail?

SouthCoast

but her biggest concern was would we be able to get a mortgage if I have debts that are statute barred?

Suggest that you do a SAR request to National Hunter:

http://www.nhunter.co.uk/data.html