A little basic advice please !!

LonyTilly

I'll be brief. Due to various problems finance got into a terrible mess. Slowly pulled it round to an acceptable position by talking, offering and keeping up with repayments that were just acceptable. Morally I feel 'its my debt - I'll pay' but I have had 1 card w/off due to situation (T'you A####) and have had to CCA 1 x catalogue who were being totally unreasonable and obnoxious. (It worked)
Main bone now is 1 x overdraft / 1 x personal loan with my ex bank. Both are now with a collection company who I believe have bought them. ( 1 x 2.5K and 1 x 15K) I've been paying when able for the last 2 years and at present I pay a small amount to chip away. This is all based on the fact that I have been made redundant and will receive soon (ish - 2 months) a lump sum that will clear these 2 on a 'F and F' figure. They are content at present. I am led to believe from previous correspondance that the 15K could be F and F on about 6K.
Mrs now wants to CCA them for both. I want to avoid hassle ! O/draft is joint / loan is mine. The loan was taken out in Oct 2007 SO the Q is
'' .. with that date am I able to CCA them and does the fact that I have been paying and talking indicate that I acknowledge the debt''

Thanks

and whilst buying a new car would have been nice

Hannah_10

Yes, paying means you've acknowledged it, so any hope your Mrs had that it'd go statute barred is out. If requesting the CCA's for the other 2 debts is so that you can hopefully find an issue with them then this is only has any potential to be worth bothering with if they were taken out before April 2007.

£6k is 40% of £15k. That's far too much if the debt has been bought, you want to be making a F&F at half that or less. Wether the debt has been bought or is just being recovered on behalf of the original creditor makes all the difference to how low you can negotiate the F&F. As does the age of the debt and your means to pay. You're currently paying a tiny amount infrequently, so I would say chance a really cheeky F&F to start with, like 12.5% (which would be £1,875) and see what they say. They can only say no.

Do all this in writing by the way, the phone is never a good idea with a DCA and also we can check the wording on your F&F letter to make sure they're not doing you. Sometimes they word it so it's not a F&F at all and then chase you for the rest later.

New cars are over-rated. I got a ten year old one serves me fine me'ansome, come from out Stenalees it did, just by St Austell.

podperson

It depends on what you are wanting from the ccas really. If you are looking to make the debts invalid then yes will probably be a great deal of hassle. If you are hoping to have invalid ccas to put you in a better position to negiotate lower full and finals then that could be a possibility. Would have to make sure that when you send offers state that you acknowledge no responsibility to the debt but are offering them xx% as an offer of goodwill on the condition that neither them nor any other company will pursue you for the debt at any later date.
The problem you will have will it as that if they are unable to provide a valid cca then you will need to stop paying straight away and if this is before you get your money through then will obviously be getting harrassed by debt collectors.