Help need for a guarantor

AlexJack_2

I very naively agreed to be a guarantor for a friend and have discovered to my horror that not a single payment has been made on the account.

I am now footing the entire bill.

This is not fair. My friend has not answered the creditors calls and now ignoring mine.

Do I have any rights is there anything I can do?
What happens to my credit?
What happens to my home?

Some body please help there is no information out there that is simple for me to understand.

Thanks in advance.

gb12345

AlexJack wrote: »

I very naively agreed to be a guarantor for a friend and have discovered to my horror that not a single payment has been made on the account.

I am now footing the entire bill.

This is not fair. My friend has not answered the creditors calls and now ignoring mine.

Do I have any rights is there anything I can do?
What happens to my credit?
What happens to my home?

Some body please help there is no information out there that is simple for me to understand.

Thanks in advance.

You have no rights as basically you agreed to pay the lender back if your friend didn't pay.

As to what happens to your credit and home - nothing as long as you make the payments until the end of the loan period (assuming they haven't already put late payment markers or defaults on there due to him not paying - have you checked your credit history?).

If you don't pay then you will basically be trashing your credit record for the next 6 years and will likely end up with a CCJ.

Do you have the friends current address? You could try legal action, but whether it will actually get you any money back is debatable.

Tixy

Do I have any rights is there anything I can do?

This is what you signed up for unfortunately.
Legally you are responsible for the debt.

What happens to my credit?

It does depend on the agreement - but usually the loan will be recorded on your credit file and if it is then it will show any missed payments, if the friend missed many payments before you started to pay then you also may have a default registered on your credit file.

What happens to my home?

Probably nothing.
If you keep up with the repayments then nothing. If you don't keep paying the creditor could try to take legal action to obtain a CCJ against you and if still not paid they could even try to secure a charging order against your house.

manzanilla

Some "friend" - I am afraid you have just learned a very expensive lesson the hard way

dresdendave

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, had you asked on here: my "friend" wants me to be a guarantor on a loan, should I agree?, you would have been told resoundingly by numerous posters, DON'T DO IT!!!

Sadly now the cold facts are, you agreed to guarantee repayments on the loan, you are now being asked to honour that committment. Unlikely to be any way out of it I'm afraid.

DCFC79

Another reason why people need to be aware what being a guarantor involves.

Unfortunately this is what apparent good friends do, they stop making the payments and leave the friend to deal with it.

vikingaero

It's a win win for some of these sharp companies:

Lend to some dude at 29.9%+ with a perfect credit guarantor schmuck when the dude defaults.

Perfect guarantor schmuck may as well have gone down to their bank for a 5.5% loan and donated it to the dude - it would have been cheaper in the long run.