Left UK with 8000 pounds of debt, what's the best way to start clearing it from here?

delboypass

Student loans are different i believe. These might not clear after 6 years.

MissSunshine

Remember having this hazzy drunken convo about what happens if you run up a load of debts, then skip the country with a person who worked for NatWest debt recovery. She reckoned they had the powers to track you down and obviously didn't go into details of how they did it.

I have no idea if they can make a charge against your home in Canada.

Did any of the companies you owe know that you're Canadian??

As it's now 9months since you left UK you also need to consider that the £8k debt will have increased as they'll have be adding on charges/interest, you might even have been CCJ'd.

Could you not explain situ to your husband's family (i'm assuming they're in UK), ask to use their address for correspondance, but tell all you owe that it's your new address and don't tell them you live in Canada, then you can find out exactly what you owe and try to get their bank details to do transfers.

Do you still have UK a/c and did you use online banking??

If so then you can get loan in Canada to pay off all your debts, transfer (costs about £15) the loan amount to your UK bank a/c and set up one off pymts to each that you owe, which should be FOC. If you don't have their a/c details still do transfer and use UK a/c cheque book and post from Canada direct to those you owe. The canadian postmark probably won't be noticed and if it is they won't care if they're getting full settlement.

Good luck whatever you do

tinalives

Can OP actually be CCJ'd despite being uncontactable?

BrokeBrokeBroke

MissSunshine wrote:

I have no idea if they can make a charge against your home in Canada.
Could you not explain situ to your husband's family (i'm assuming they're in UK), ask to use their address for correspondance, but tell all you owe that it's your new address and don't tell them you live in Canada, then you can find out exactly what you owe and try to get their bank details to do transfers.
Good luck whatever you do

Surely this would just make things much worse as my in laws would be getting phone calls/letters etc, as even if we make arrangements this might happen.
What has really been bothering me is whether they could make us sell our house, which I guess they can't. What I was really looking for was someone who knows what kind of power these tracing companies have once they find you abroad/What kind of power the UK courts would have.
Thanks everyone for their replies.

MissSunshine

No because letters would be addressed to you which inlaws could post/fax for you to deal with and co's are only allowed to speak to the person whose name the debt is in, so inlaws could say you're not available.

First thing you need to do is find out how much you owe. I can recommend both Skype and Net 2 Phone for phoning overseas on the net, cheap and good clear line. You don't have to tell them where you are. You might have more bargaining power if you mention you're no longer resident in UK, they'd rather have some payment than none at all.

Just remember it's a small world and if they want to they can easily find out where you've gone, so get in there first.

quixy_2

I think if you were in the eu... i might err on the side of caution.... but canada????!!! Thats VERY far away and a big enough country to get lost in......!

Besides if its less than 20k and you don't owe ****holes like amex your pretty much clean and dry.

I can't understand other posters talking about owing the Uk! Christ have you seen how much profit these w(b)ankers make?

Best of luck to you. I'm proud of anyone who gets to rip off big business.

Debt_Free_Chick

quixy wrote:

I think if you were in the eu... i might err on the side of caution.... but canada????!!! Thats VERY far away and a big enough country to get lost in......!

Besides if its less than 20k and you don't owe ****holes like amex your pretty much clean and dry.

I can't understand other posters talking about owing the Uk! Christ have you seen how much profit these w(b)ankers make?

Best of luck to you. I'm proud of anyone who gets to rip off big business.

Thanks - and the rest of us customers end up paying, some way or another, for the attitude of those like you.

In case it has escaped your attention, almost all the UK banks are global now. They own banks in other parts of the world. And - were you not paying attention in your History lessons at school? - Canada is part of the Commonwealth and has very close ties to the UK.

In any event, it really is not wise to encourage someone to walk away from their debts whilst trying to convince them they are "immune". A word of caution is always advisable.

MissSunshine

quixy wrote:

I think if you were in the eu... i might err on the side of caution.... but canada????!!! Thats VERY far away and a big enough country to get lost in......!

If OP had just 'disappeared' yes, but she's got a mortgage in Canada, which i'm assuming is from a bank!!!!!

I live in the Middle East and UK do make lots of profit, as does every lender in the world, but i wouldn't have had a clear conscience if we'd just forgotten our UK debts when we left, and as we bank with HSBC here we really couldn't have 'hidden' for very long!!!!!!!!

iceburn

i been reading this site, and other sites lately cause the three armed robberies in our retail area and now my wife need me in the retail all day / everyday is having its toll. (ie income has drastically drop!). Looking at my options, and it seem the two that are open to me is either remortgage (if they will allow it) or IVA. Hopefully they will do it. Anyway enough about me :-). Now the reason writing this message is cause whilst looking for info I found this info on a debt site. (found it by accident.) And it actually answer your question in great detail.

http://www.debtquestions.co.uk/topic_of_the_month.php

But in summary it seem Canada and UK have reciprocal agreements over recovery of debt. And if they are granted CCJ, bankrupt over, etc in uK they can transfer it to Canada and make you sell your house. It than goes to how they trace a people (summarise form of course for obivous reasons.) So anyway it might be worth contacting them and pay it off or setup IVA. The latter I can't really assist since I am just looking into it myself at the moment. ie will £360 be acceptable for £40,000 of debt.

Anyway hope this helps and wish you the best of luck.

Mark

stevo25

i have a very close friend who has £70k of unsecured debt and is paying it off @ £200/month this is an agreement she set up with the individual debtors yes there will be a yearly increase but shes making the buggers wait