BIG Catalogue debts

1tar

Hi can someone please give me some advice as I'm going out of my mind with worry.. I owe £10'000 to kays catalogue and £3'000 to simply be catalogue. My husband left me just before xmas and I cannot afford to pay these debts. I have 3 children and am now in receipt of income support. I and my children are still in the marital home of which me and my husband share a mortgage. I have just written to the companies offering token payments but they say its ot enough!! I have just read somewhere that they could apply for some sort of order that could make me sell my house to pay the debt. I'm really scared now. I read on another money forum site that catalogue companies and other non priority debtors could do very little in order to get the money apart from a ccj. Where do i go from here I dont want to lose my house. many thanks.:(

bubblebath_2

Dear 1tar.

I'm sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

Whilst I appreciate that this is a huge sum of money to you and I. I don't think that you have a worry of them selling your house to pay back that amount. £3 k for one and 10k for another.

What would they do? Kick you and your kids out on the street while you're on income support?

I actually think the worse that they can do in the time being is issue a CCJ against you and you will explain to the courts exactly what you have said here.

'You've lost your job and are on income support' and they will see your income and expenditure and know how much you can afford.

You say you've offered a token payment? Is that a settlement payment or a monthly one??

Is it the catalogue's harassing you or the debt collection agencies (these people use a tonne of empty threads to scare you into paying but if you don't have the money then you can't pay it, simple)

Income support is just that/support. It's not actually supposed to go on debt.

Stand your ground and just be honest with your situation.

Give National Debtline a call. They can offer you advice and send you info in regards to different options for you. They could liase with the catalogues for you to set up a suitable debt plan.

Best of luck.

cc4rhu

Imagree with a lot of the above. Stick to your guns, make your token payments - not a penny more. There isn't really a lot they can do. Default notice, possible CCJ or charging order. They'll threaten the worst, trying to scare you. They can't get baillifs or anything so don't worry about that line.

Contact stepchange or another free company and they'll do all the letters etc for you.

Petlamb

Thing is, if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. They can't have what you don't have. I think having one of the debt charities, such as Step Change on your side might make you feel better (I know it has helped me) and they can also explain to you what is and isn't within these companies powers. They will try to scare you, but don't take everything they threaten as gospel.

Good luck with it all, I know how stressful debt problems can be xx

cheekylu

Hi

Sorry to hear about your situation, I also have catalogue debts and I contacted the CCS which is now called Stepchange I think, they were very helpful and made a budget plan etc sent it to me and I also had a phone conversation with them, they work out how much you can afford at the end of the month to pay your debts. I then sent out the budget plan etc to my creditors and they have accepted my token payment of £2 a month.

1tar

Thank You for all your replies, my kays account is still with kays, I'm only about 4 payments overdue at the moment but they want around 1500 now to get the account up to date of which i just dont have. they we're phoning me at least 5 times a day so i changed my number to a fake one on the account so at least that's stopped for now. my simply be account has been passed to Reliable Collections who keep sending me nasty letters one of which said that they checked files and they know where i am, I've never disputed where i am, i wouldn't of been reading their letter if i wasn't there, that did make me laugh at just how stupid they are!!. I offered £5.00 per month, they sent a letter saying that wasn't enough so I've just carried on making the payment anyway. They then send letters like they've never heard from me. I read somewhere that you can send a letter requesting the original signed credit agreement and they only have so long to get it to you and if they dont they cannot enforce the debt, could anyone shed any light on this for me please. I you dont mind me asking cheekylu were your catalogue debts as big as mine and did they accept a small payment?? bottom line i dont want to loose my house and I'm terrified of having to go to court. many thanks for all your advice.

smi85

3 grand! That's a lot of nice clothes. Sell them.

antrobus

1tar wrote: »

... I have just read somewhere that they could apply for some sort of order that could make me sell my house to pay the debt.

You mean a charging order.

If the catalogue debt is in your name, and the house is in both you and your husband's names, then they can't get a charging order. The best they can do is get a restriction, which only applies when you sell the house, can be ignored, and doesn't give them ability to force you to sell the house.

At least that's my understanding of the law.

ghostmadlittlemiss

Although slightly bluntly put, smi85 has a point. Would you be able to Ebay any of the stuff you'd bought? You probably won't get what you paid for it back but the extra money could really help. Just make sure you calculate the postage price first (plonk the items on some kitchen scales then add a bit on top and check Royal Mail's website to see what it'll cost you) and start the auction at 99p, not 1p, or the fees for selling will wipe out part of the money you need to post the items. Lessons I learned the hard way!
Kayleigh

FireWyrm

With respect, £13,000 on catalogues at approximately 34% is just ludicrous. It also represents far more than some clothes, so what else is there that you could potentially sell to finance the debt?

The catelogue companies are unlikely to just let this rest, so you need to formulate a plan asap. They will almost certainly go for a CCJ, so unless you want to continue acruing the debt at 34%, I suggest you attempt to consolidate it into a cheaper APR loan. Normally, consolidation isnt a wise choice, but Kays are not known for being nice about freezing interest and this could quickly baloon into something unmanageable.

In any case, they are about to trash your credit file, so I would also be making plans to live long term without any form of credit for the forseeable future. Brace yourself, this could get worse before it gets better as your bank might decide to call in your overdraft for instance.

Please dont be complacent here because neither catelogue is going to be nice about this. StepChange can certainly help you, but there is no 'getting out' of this. The presence of a 'signed agreement' is misleading as of the Communications Act of (I think) 2004 which means that by simply ticking the Ts&Cs box on the website, it counts as a signature. They dont need a paper copy to enforce their claim and you make the mistake of relying on that as a defence.

The truth is that a charging order is unlikely, but for debts of this size, not impossible under certain circumstances.

cheekylu

1tar wrote: »

Thank You for all your replies, my kays account is still with kays, I'm only about 4 payments overdue at the moment but they want around 1500 now to get the account up to date of which i just dont have. they we're phoning me at least 5 times a day so i changed my number to a fake one on the account so at least that's stopped for now. my simply be account has been passed to Reliable Collections who keep sending me nasty letters one of which said that they checked files and they know where i am, I've never disputed where i am, i wouldn't of been reading their letter if i wasn't there, that did make me laugh at just how stupid they are!!. I offered £5.00 per month, they sent a letter saying that wasn't enough so I've just carried on making the payment anyway. They then send letters like they've never heard from me. I read somewhere that you can send a letter requesting the original signed credit agreement and they only have so long to get it to you and if they dont they cannot enforce the debt, could anyone shed any light on this for me please. I you dont mind me asking cheekylu were your catalogue debts as big as mine and did they accept a small payment?? bottom line i dont want to loose my house and I'm terrified of having to go to court. many thanks for all your advice.

Hi

Yes mine are similar to yours I owe £4000 on very and £1000 on littlewoods and other smaller amounts on other catalogues. Because the CCS did me a budget and worked out what I had left to spend on debts I think the catalogues had no choice but to accept what I offered. Definitely give them a call they will help you x