Please help - old debt

Andi2000

Hi All, hopefully someone can offer some advice on my situ, seems to be conflicting info on the internet when I search.

Firstly, I'm fairly embarrased about this situ and this is warts and all.

I ran up a large unauthorised overdraft (£1,020) with the Halifax bank as a student in 2001 and was unable to pay this off and being young at the time foolishly ignored the debt and ended up with a CCJ. This was issued in February 2004.

Again through my own stupidity I never actually followed through with the CCJ and to be honest the whole issue fell from my mind, I didn't receive any chasing until a letter in 2007 which I never acted upon.

Now I am sat here in 2012 and a random debt company have contacted me saying I owe them £1,894. I am no longer as foolish as I was then so I want to resolve the matter, however bluntly I don't have that kind of money.

Investigating this type of situation it appears that debts over 6 years old are wiped from the record and there is no longer an obligation to pay them.... is this correct?

I've checked my credit report and it is clean, with no mention of this debt.

Do I legally have to pay this debt off? Can this debt collection agency affect my credit rating? It strangely doesn't make any threats of doing so it just says I need to pay it.

Sorry for the long email and thanks in advance to any help or advice given.

iolanthe07

Investigating this type of situation it appears that debts over 6 years old are wiped from the record and there is no longer an obligation to pay them.... is this correct?

Partly. A debt more than 6 years old (five in Scotland) is "Statute Barred" and, though it still exists, cannot be pursued through the courts. However, the Statute Barred rule does not apply when a CCJ has been granted. You may want to ask the CAB whether this debt is Statute Barred or not.

RAS

Hi

The debt cannot be statute barred because the CCJ was issued.

But the creditor would have to go to court because 6 years had elapsed since the CCJ was issued and it is HIGHLY unlikely that they would be granted permission to reinstate the debt, as long as you attended and advise the judge of the time lapse.

There was a guy who ended up owning a house for which he had not paid any mortgatge for 18 years because the mortgage provider had failed in all those years to enforce the possession order.

Time is on your side, but if you get court papers, you must defend the case.

Andi2000

Thanks for the replies. This seems to be the general gist that I got when looking into it.

Sorry I have some more specific questions...

Would the courts accept simply lack of contact and age of debt (over 8 years) as grounds for statute barred?

Would this debt company know it went through a CCJ? They are completely knew to me so I suspect they've just bought it.

Can this debt company pass any details to credit ratings companies? I'm guessing they can't given that its already been through the credit agencies once?

What should I do now?

Many thanks!

fermi

Andi2000 wrote: »

Would this debt company know it went through a CCJ?

Possibly not.

Would not be unusual for a debt like this to be sold on, with the buyer never knowing that there was a CCJ associated with it.

Andi2000 wrote: »

Can this debt company pass any details to credit ratings companies? I'm guessing they can't given that its already been through the credit agencies once?

No, they can't.

iolanthe07

Would the courts accept simply lack of contact and age of debt (over 8 years) as grounds for statute barred?

No. The Statute Barred rules are clear and the County Court does not have authority to change them

Can this debt company pass any details to credit ratings companies?

Yes. You still owe the money; the question is whether the debt can be enforced.

What should I do now?

Wait for the court papers to be issued and do not admit the debt or make a payment at this stage. If you're lucky the whole thing will blow over. You've ignored the debt for many years, so your credit rating is probably trashed anyway.


Would this debt company know it went through a CCJ?

Yes, probably. They will have bought the debt for peanuts and should have all the relevant documents.

iolanthe07

My post crossed with Ferm's, who probably knows more than I do, but I think they can pass on details to credit rating agencies because they now own the debt.

fermi

iolanthe07 wrote: »

My post crossed with Ferm's, who probably knows more than I do, but I think they can pass on details to credit rating agencies because they now own the debt.

The CCJ in 2004 means it must have been defaulted on credit reports prior to that.

Soooooooooooo...... That default and all account details would have been completely removed from the credit reports by 2010.

Once removed like that because of 6 years passing from default, no creditor, even one buying the debt, is allowed to re-enter a default or record details on your credit record.

If this was a much more recent account with a default that hadn't expired yet, then of course the purchaser would be allowed to update that info.

But that is not in any feasible way the case here.

Andi2000

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Can this debt company pass any details to credit ratings companies?

Yes. You still owe the money; the question is whether the debt can be enforced.

What should I do now?

Wait for the court papers to be issued and do not admit the debt or make a payment at this stage. If you're lucky the whole thing will blow over. You've ignored the debt for many years, so your credit rating is probably trashed anyway.

As I understand it (and as someone already posted) I don't think they can re-submit the same debt again to the credit agencies? I'm obviously not certain on this.

Currently my credit rating is very good (960/1000) I'm assuming because this has long since been and gone on my report.

Having said that, my credit rating is the biggest concern as I am looking to get a mortgage so if anyone with direct experience of this kind of scenario could comment I would be very gratefull as I obviously need to avoid this affecting my rating in anyway whatsoever.

Edit - Just seen Fermis follow up, thanks, that is reassuring.