FIRSTPLUS - NO ACTUAL LOAN AGREEMENT?! Can anyone on this board advise?

melf_2

Hi there,

I posted this on the Loans board but have only had a couple of replies, does anyone on here know anything that may help me?

Very briefly, we took out a secured loan from FisrtPlus in May 06 for £70000. Due to huge debt problems we sold our property in December and paid FP £48000. The settlement figure they gave us was £83000 so we now have a balance of £35000. As we did not, and still do not have a new property (living in temp accom) the loan is unsecured (only proof is through our solicitors who have a fax from FP confirming this) Problem is that we have not had a new loan agreement. We have requested it over and over again, like talking to a brick wall. Put in official complaints, all recorded delivery to FP, FLA, FSA, Ombudsman but no one is able to help. Trading standards is looking at it now. Sought legal advice and best advice we received was 'go bankrupt'. Great.

Where on earth do we stand? I've managed to get one person to tell me our payments are £400pm for 25years. Refused to put in writing to me and they are ignoring all letters. Obviously we had agreement for the secured £70000 but what now? Should we have a new agreement?

Anything we can do???

fermi

This does seem to an issue that requires legal advise.
Your current legal advisers don't seem very helpful, so you could try asking on this forum:

http://www.swarb.co.uk/phpbb/

This is for legal issues over a wide range of topics. See the index:

They may just say go BR as well, but it's worth a shot perhaps.

Richard_S

melf wrote: »

Hi there,

I posted this on the Loans board but have only had a couple of replies, does anyone on here know anything that may help me?

Very briefly, we took out a secured loan from FisrtPlus in May 06 for £70000. Due to huge debt problems we sold our property in December and paid FP £48000. The settlement figure they gave us was £83000 so we now have a balance of £35000. As we did not, and still do not have a new property (living in temp accom) the loan is unsecured (only proof is through our solicitors who have a fax from FP confirming this) Problem is that we have not had a new loan agreement. We have requested it over and over again, like talking to a brick wall. Put in official complaints, all recorded delivery to FP, FLA, FSA, Ombudsman but no one is able to help. Trading standards is looking at it now. Sought legal advice and best advice we received was 'go bankrupt'. Great.

Where on earth do we stand? I've managed to get one person to tell me our payments are £400pm for 25years. Refused to put in writing to me and they are ignoring all letters. Obviously we had agreement for the secured £70000 but what now? Should we have a new agreement?

Anything we can do???

melf,

Are you planning to use FirstPlus to buy a new house? If not why do you want another agreement with them?

As things stand they are just another unsecured creditor. I'd guess that the reason they're not contacting you is that they'll be trying to decide what their next course of action should be.

Richard

silvercar

I wonder if you should actually have a new agreement. If FP offered you an agreement and you didn't want to sign, what could they do?

The original agreement included a charge on your property, this must have been removed to allow the sale to proceed. So there will be solicitor's papers from FP releasing the charge on the property. Apart from that they may not have been any other paperwork produced. Presumably you are in breach of the original repayment schedule as that would explain them giving permission for the house sale. Presumably they are also accepting the payments you are making to them. There may be no further paperwork to find.

melf_2

Hi there,

Yes First Plus originally had a 2nd charge on the property we sold, they released the charge for the sale to complete. We had kept up with payments until then (albeit by using credit from cards etc). We haven't made payments since we sold the house a) because we can't afford to hence why I'm on this site and b) even if we could afford it we haven't had a new agreement from them telling us what our new loan terms are? I was told once on the phone that the payments are £400pm but they refused to put this in writing to me. Our solicitor had problems with them too, they didn't actually release the charge until March this year when we sold the property in December. We were unaware of this until I contacted the solicitors in Feb.

We may well be in breach of the agreement, all I've kept asking for are new documents. Because we paid £13000 in penalties for ending the loan early (we took it out MAy 06 for £70000, settlement in Dec 06 £83000) I thought that meant that we should have new terms etc. If they are still using old terms should we have paid this penalty?