Advice on collecting debt owed to me for house sale

mintosedinburgh

Hi everyone,

I need some advice please!

I live in Scotland and around 4 years ago I put a property in the centre of Edinburgh on the market.

After a few viewings, I had an offer. Great, so the proposed buyer went down the route of the offer, acceptance, finance etc and we got an entry date set and the missives got signed.

The gentleman who was buying my property rang our solicitor an HOUR before he was acually due to collect the keys to say he needed more time and didnt have the finance arranged.

This was a bit of a shock as the removals had already been and moved my contents into storage. The property I had bought, I had to change that entry date due to this problem.

So weeks go by and the buyer kept on changing the entry date, by this time I had a mortgage for the property he was due to buy and then the new property I had already bought. I borrowed £20,000 to bridge and within two months he pulled out completely from the sale. I put the property back on the market and sold it again, with no issues to someone else.

Now, this guy owes me around £8,000. Costs for pulling out of the sale once the missives had been signed and also for the cost of the loan.

He said he would pay it, then he had no money so I took him to court. He didnt turn up.

He was then issued a decree and from that time he hasn't paid anything at all to me. He is charged 8% every year he doesnt pay up.

I have all the paperwork (which is a lot) confirming he will pay the debt.

I dont know what to do now, our solicitor says they have done all they can to chase him up for payment, I was thinking of going down the debt collector route but surely he can declare himself bankrupt and write off the debt he owes me? Also, some of these places ask for a fee, which I am concerned I will lose if they cannot get a payment from him.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks

E

Emmzi

why have you left it 4 years?

and, I'd have a chat with a debt collector, get their opinion and costs. They may be able to attach earnings, or funds in a bank account, or put a charge on any property he owns.

mintosedinburgh

I didnt leave it 4 years, this happened 4 years ago and the solicitors work has taken 4 years to get to this point. Its interesting reading through all the paperwork as the last correspondence was from another solicitor saying that no payments have been made and that they do not know if he will pay up.

First of all the buyer says he had no money, then he was self employed, then he didnt own a property and lived with father.

I just got nowhere with it all and gave up. I was thinking about it all the other day and asked the solicitor for the paperwork, which I have gone through today and £8k is a lot of money and I would quite like it back!

Running_Horse

Wow. I thought the Scottish system was superior to England. Can't imagine this dragging on for years down here.

Emmzi

sherriff officer would be your best bet then.

They can take it as far as sequestration, that might make him think twice. But you will need to pay up front.

http://www.smaso.org/faq.php

mintosedinburgh

Thank you Emmzi

I am going to look into this

bris

Emmzi is right, you have already done the hard part by going to court, the sherriffs officers have a lot more power than a debt collector.
Having said that you still can't get blood out of a stone, but if he has anything the sherriffs officers will get it for you.

mintosedinburgh

Thanks everyone, I think you are right.

I am going to ring them tomorrow and see what the cost of this might be.

G_M

I'm just staggered by the naivity here. 4 years! "solicitor says they have done all they can to chase him up for payment,"!

What is going on here? OK, I don't know the Scottish system but if "He was then issued a decree" surely there is an established series of steps for enforcing that? That the solicitor should know about? Or the OP could find out by asking the court/bailiff? Or googling?

4 years!