credit card debts - unsecured & written off

eastonnite09

Hi - I'm sure this has probably been raised before but I couldn't find anything on it so thought I would ask.

My father is 75 and lives on his state pension. He has managed to build up debts of approx. £22k. He no longer has credit cards and is repaying the debt to seven lenders via a debt management programme.

Can these lenders instruct balliffs to take things from their property to cover the debt or could they try and secure a charge against the property? I believe they cannot do anything now if the debts are unsecured although on eventual sale they may be able to claim.

Also, I have read about debts being written off if the credit card agreement does not specify certain criteria - can anyone elaborate on this?

Many thanks.

Tixy

Bailiffs could not be instructed unless the creditor (or debt collection agency) started court proceedings against father and obtained a CCJ first.
If any do issue court proceedings then father needs to respond to the paperwork and ask to pay in installments. The judge should not order him to pay more than he can afford and assuming he keeps up with the repayments ordered then no bailiffs can be instructed.

Re a charging order - usually a creditor can only try to obtain a charging order if ordered CCJ payments are not kept to. There is an exception that if a creditor takes him to court and the judge agrees that the repayments he can make are so small that the debt would never be cleared its possible they may issue a forthwith judgement (ie pay all straight away) and when he cannot do this the judge could then allow a charging order application. If this happens then he may still be able to fight it (he'd need to get proper advice if it ever gets to this stage from someone like national debtline).

If a charging order was granted nearly always these just 'wait' until the property is sold. There is such a thing as a forced sale charging order but these are very very rare and really not something to start worrying about if they don't even have CCJs yet.

Who is father doing his DMP through, is it a commercial company who are charging him a fee each month? or is it one of the charities who don't charge a fee and pay all his payment on to creditors? If its the former suggest he switches to the latter.

Credit card agreements - some old agreements didn't contain all the correct legal terms etc. If this is the case then they become legally unenforceable, you can use this to file a defence against a creditor trying to obtain a CCJ. But the debts are not written off and they can still continue to chase/report to the crdit reference agencies etc.

eastonnite09

Thats great - thank you very much

eastonnite09

To confirm; the DMP is through the CCCS. Thanks

CollectionsExpert

unsecured debts, if not paid/maintained properly can be passed to agents/solicitors who may be able to use charging orders as previously explained. however, most companies are more than happy to continue recieving payments from someone like the CCCS and wouldnt normally pass the debt on if the payments are regular and if the correct amount that was offered is being paid