10 yr old credit card debt, statute barred?

shuggy75

Hi, my partner recieved a letter from Aktiv Kapital asking for a debt to be paid from 10-11 yrs ago for £2200 when she was with a previous partner. The letter arrived at an address we have been living at for just over a year. There has been no contact of any sort between herself and Barclays,( who Aktiv Kapital say the original debt was with) and no payment has been made, for at least 10 years.
This has came at a very bad time for us as we are due to be married in 2 weeks so you can imagine the extra stress!
I believe that this debt is statute barred due to the limitation period of 5 years(we live in Scotland) being well over.
I was in the process of sending a letter to that effect to Aktiv Kapital when i thought that it could cause problems to my credit rating, and possibly affect my home,( it's in my name.)
Can anyone tell me if this is the case or should i just go ahead down the staute barred route?


Thanks in advance.

Tixy

Hi and welcome

It sounds like you are fairly certain this would be statute barred. You might want to jut check that there is no court order against this debt (which would prevent it being SB).

If there is not and it is SB then the debt no longer exists, it has been legally 'extinguished'. And there would be no way it can affect either hers or your credit rating. Activ would not be entitled to enter anything on her credit file at all for an SB debt. Though that said might be worth checking again in say 3months to check that they haven't.

Have you got a template letter to send? If not - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11571227&postcount=3 (2nd letter for you).

Good luck with your wedding.

shuggy75

Thanks, that is a great help, how do i go about finding out if there is a court order against the debt? Is there a template for that? I wouldn't even know who to send it to, directly to Aktiv?

Tixy

Sorry, didn't explain myself. If there is a court order (decree in scotland/ CCJ in england) then it should appear on her credit file. In theory she should know about it if there was one, but sometimes when moving address etc its possible that court papers would go missing.
They would have needed to have got that decree years ago (before it became statute barred). If she checks her credit file and it doesn't appear then you should be fine.

I'm not sure if there is a full register in scotland, there is one in england/wales but either way it would be on her credit file.

Edit - there is a register for Scotland for reference see here http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/scotland/factsheet.php?page=12_credit_reference_agencies#chapter10

shuggy75

I'll get on to that now, much appreciated.

shuggy75

Would it be helpful for me to send a 'prove it' letter to Aktiv prior to sending the unenforcibility letter? How should i go about that? Would they have a record of any decree/ccj against my partner?