Advice needed please on 1 big debt

ClaireLR

Hi everyone,

Newbie here so please be nice!

I was wondering if anyone could give me some much much needed advice,

My partner took out a loan around 8 years ago with Royal Bank of Scotland. At the time he was in a bit of a debt mess and was struggling to pay of credit cards, loans and store cards and therefore some months he was missing payments on his RBS loan. When he missed payments he was rung by them and told that they would "reloan" his loan, i.e. lend him some more money to pay them what he owed to try and get himself straight the following month. I wasn't with him at the time but he tells me that they did this about 8 times, every time over the telephone. When we first met he told me about this debt but said that they had not been in touch with him for about 3 years, and that the last time he had spoken to them he had agreed to pay £25.00 a week, he d paid it for a few months and then stopped and they hadn't chased him for the money for the past 3 years. I told him to get a credit report which he did and this showed that the debt was at almost £31000. a few months later they got in touch and starting asking for some payment. We asked them the minimum they would be willing to accept and they said £187.00 a month. At that rate it would take years to pay off. We asked them for a breakdown of what was owed and they told him that the original loan was £12000, almost £5000 was for insurance charges and the rest was made up of interest! At that point they told us that if we had £14000 we could pay that and they would write off the rest of the debt. They had at least stopped adding on interest at this point.

We weren't happy and so wrote to the financial ombudsman requesting that we could see some paperwork to prove that my partner had agreed to these extortionate interest and insurance charges. To cut a long story short, they wrote back saying that RBS had not done anything wrong and enclosed a screen print of my partners account, all this showed was what he "owes" to them. There was nothing signed to say that he had agreed to the level of interest/insurance he was being charged.

We then went into a debt management plan together and started to pay this off. Now we have stopped doing the debt management plan together as my partner is currently out of work so I do this on my own to sort out my debts. RBS have therefore been sending letters again requesting payment. At the last letter my partner rang them and told them to take him to court.

Basically we need some advice on what to do next. It seems excessive that they can charge this amount of interest and they don't even have any proof that this was agreed. I was wondering if my partner would be best off making himself bankrupt? Or what would probably happen if this went to court? He can't do an IVA or debt management plan by himself as he is out of work and also this is the only debt he has. We've been told by Payplan that unless you have 3 debts they will be unable to help. Also doing a debt management plan together when he does get a job isn't something we really want to do as I found it a struggle to live before to be honest, Payplan take every last penny and there didn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel re how long we would be paying things off for.

Any advice on what we could do next would be much appreciated.

mrsspendalot

I am new here, but everyone is very friendly, and I guess they will advise you to post a statement of affairs detailing your income and outgoings. Sorry can't be any more help ... it is only my first week!

mrsspendalot

I wonder if any late payment charges etc can be reclaimed also ... I have seen threads about reclaiming bank charges etc. Someone on here will know more than me anyway

smashedbooboo

Did your OH actually go into bank and sign anything for these loans. Or was it all done over the phone. They should have a signed credit agreement with him. I suggest you send off £1 to them asking for Consumer credit agreement and also a subject access request. This will cost you £10. But will supply all the info you need to see what has been charged and when. There is apossibility you could claim back your payment protection insurance. Send off letters and tell them you are disputing the account. If you want to pop over to https://www.consumeractiongroup.com they have all the template letters you need to do this. But please make sure you come back to this site and give us an update as to how you go on. You are looking for the letter requesting your CCA and also a SARN. I will be posting soon the letters myself when j have them together. Good luck hun xxxxxxxxxx

smashedbooboo

Is this debt still with RBS. Or has it been passed to a debt collection agency. There could well be charges you could claim back on this account. Also go and have a look at the reclaim bank charges forum. They are great over there. Loads of advice for you if you have extra charges added on, xxxxxxx

ClaireLR

Hi smashed booboo

Yes as far as we know the debt is still with RBS. The letters that he has been sent have another company name at the top but RBS at the bottom in small letters. They look like they re from a solicitor but I'm pretty sure that its RBS just using a different name. The phone numbers on these letters are the same, for there collection centre in Telford.

As for signing anything, he tells me that he didn't sign a thing. I will visit the website you have suggested and have a look. What is a consumer credit agreement and subject access request, I've never heard of these before!

Thanks for the advice so far.

ClaireLR

Hi again smashed booboo,

Ive just been on the CAG website you recommended and clicked on the template library but cannot find the templates you recommended, could you help me please?! Sorry but Im a bit of a technophobe, its taken me hours to figure out this website!!

smashedbooboo

Ok hun, first thing you need to do is sign up or else the template library will be blocked. Its only like signing up to this site. Once you signed in it will become available to you. You could pose your question in the debt action forum on that site. What is the name on the letter you have. Even though it says RBS at the bottom what is the one at the top.

ClaireLR

I've now registered and it's still only coming up with 12 templates, none of which are the ones I'm looking for!! What am i doing wrong!!??!!

I'm on my Sisters computer atm so don't have the letters with me but from what I can remember thety were from debt management services, the address at the bottom was the RBS address at Telford, and the phone number was the same too.

Any advice re the website??

smashedbooboo

ok chick. give me five will back shortly. will go and have a look for you

smashedbooboo

ok am back, go to CAG into forums. Scroll down to 1st forum. That is the welcome. Next Scroll down until you see a heading with debt action forum. click on general. scroll down until you see Sticky, crditors and DCA letters. The letter you need is letter N. When you have done that come back and we will find the SAR you need from here.