withdrawn full & final settlement

rosylips56

A few years ago my marriage broke up with a huge amount of debt. About 5 years ago I was awaiting remortgage to include funds to settle all the credit card, bank and loan debts. I received an offer letter from a debt collection company on behalf of Alliance & leicester (the largest debt - a £14k loan) and they offered a settlement figure of £7k. Unfortunately the minute of agreement and legal stuff took a month or two and they refused to extend this reduced settlement offer. I was eventually forced to pay it off via lawyer at the original amount £14k as settling this was a prerequisite of getting the mortgage. With all this PPI publicity and a bit more strength, I am wondering a) if there is anything I can do to question why they would not hold off with the settlement offer and if I can get any refund and b) if ppi was included in the loan without me being aware of it. I came off quite badly in the divorce settlement as I was downtrodden and depleted without much fight left in me and am now wondering if there is anything I can do as I feel I should have challenged the debt collection company on just why they could not extend the offer in the circustances. Anyone have any suggestions? (All I have in evidence is the letter offering the reduced figure but no previous paperwork regarding the loan)

MusicalLawyer

1.) Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about these settlement offer. They offered you a settlement to pay X date, you didn't accept, therefore you automatically rejected their offer.

2.) You can see if PPI was added to your original loan. If it was, you need to be able to prove that the PPI was mis sold in order to get a refund. You would need to send a SAR request to the loan company, along with £10. This means they will have to send you ALL information they hold on you under the Data Protection Act 1998, which includes a Credit Agreement / terms you had agree'd to, as well as a list of transactions. From that you'd see if PPI was added to your loan or not.

rosylips56

Yes I can imagine that's probably the case but I find it quite obscene that a debt collection company is able to offer a huge reduction and then completely ignore the fact that they have done that and revert to the full sum due. I know this may be standard practice but I feel I want to raise this with the company and the Ombudsman if necessary.

I explained my situation to them offering to pay the reduced sum offered within the following few weeks but they would not sway. It almost seems that because they knew I was raising funds then they were not willing to compromise any more.

MusicalLawyer

It isn't standard practice - it is one of the basic principles of Contract Law.

They offered you to pay the debt off for £7,000.
You didn't pay/accept this offer, therefore you automatically rejected it, rendering them wanting the full amount. They didn't have to offer you the F&F in the first instance.

neverbefore2011

rosylips56 wrote: »

It almost seems that because they knew I was raising funds then they were not willing to compromise any more.

Almost? It's a dead cert! What would you have done?

rosylips56

So being honest doesn't pay? I shouldn't have told them I was trying to raise money via remortgage? It was a huge reduction - they could afford to drop the offer by 7k for a limited period only.....seems quite unscrupulous!

neverbefore2011

rosylips56 wrote: »

So being honest doesn't pay? I shouldn't have told them I was trying to raise money via remortgage? It was a huge reduction - they could afford to drop the offer by 7k for a limited period only.....seems quite unscrupulous!

You owed the money, right? You managed to repay it, right?

Like you say, they offered a huge reduction, but then they found out that you could afford to pay the full amount

In return, your credit history is unblemished

Ask your window-cleaner for a basic lesson in economics x

rosylips56

Haha - no I couldn't afford to pay the full amount at all. I have struggled ever since to make ends meet due to getting an interest-only mortgage that I will never be able to repay in order to get them off my back!! This was before the days of being able to claim back all the letter charges and late payment fees etc etc that strangely enough people are able to claim back now (I expect your view of this is....you were late in paying yeah? so you pay the fees! )

Sadly I cannot afford a window cleaner for my 100 year old windows that are rotting away.

rosylips56

wrote:

Like you say, they offered a huge reduction, but then they found out that you could afford to pay the full amount

It appears that you have the same narrowminded view as they have - I had the funds therefore I could afford to pay the full amount!

Haha - no I couldn't afford to pay the full amount at all. I have struggled ever since to make ends meet due to getting an interest-only mortgage that I will never be able to repay in order to get them off my back!! This was before the days of being able to claim back all the letter charges and late payment fees etc etc that strangely enough people are able to claim back now (I expect your view of this is....you were late in paying yeah? so you pay the fees! )

Sadly I cannot afford a window cleaner for my 100 year old windows that are rotting away

neverbefore2011

rosylips56 wrote: »

Haha - no I couldn't afford to pay the full amount at all. I have struggled ever since to make ends meet due to getting an interest-only mortgage that I will never be able to repay in order to get them off my back!! This was before the days of being able to claim back all the letter charges and late payment fees etc etc that strangely enough people are able to claim back now (I expect your view of this is....you were late in paying yeah? so you pay the fees! )

Sadly I cannot afford a window cleaner for my 100 year old windows that are rotting away.

Maybe now is the time for you to default - a debt which you settled 5 years ago is not going to be refunded to you now!

Seriously, if you are in serious trouble, then there are lots of avenues to explore, that's what this forum is about, but nobody can help with a debt which was settled five years ago

Windowcleaners are like moneylenders, they expect to be able to collect payment, but sometimes they can't, so they set their prices accordingly

rosylips56

OK that's all I wanted to know. Like many people whose marriages break up after a long long time, they are not able to think straight and therefore make decisions that are not the best. People are able to claim back PPI which was mis-sold, yeah? Is it not forseeable that one day the FSA may stop debt collection companies making and withdrawing offers at random and wouldn't it be prudent for them to see evidence that the person can afford to repay and not getting themselves into an even worse financial situation? Just saying...... I did experience the most relentless harassment from many of the debt collection companies at the time so I really do not have any sympathy for 'the corporations' who bled me dry with all their charges and who intially tempted me with increased limits over and over. Most of them got their money back tenfold.

Seriously....it's going to cost me a fortune when I can afford to have my windows cleaned?!!!