Advice needed on UK debts

movingabroad26

Hi there people,

I will shortly be moving abroad and wanted some advice on what happens to my debt in the UK?

I have heard a couple of rumours about this situation, firstly that if you move abroad with outstanding debts in the UK, they will be automatically written off after a period of time. If this is the case what is the amount of time?

Another thing I have heard is conflicting to the first point, that if you move abroad your creditors will chase you down for the debt.

My current debt situation isn't massive, I owe approximately £3000 on a personal loan and around £4000 on an outstanding car finance agreement. I have written to my car finance company for a settlement figure as I used to work in the motor vehicle trade and therefore got the car at trade price so I was thinking maybe if I sold the vehicle privately I could make a profit from the car.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

hur575

i do not think your debt will be written off unless you plan not to come back

missile

I believe after 6 years you can "forget" the debt. They cannot recover debt if you skip the country, but they will hound any family you may have left behind in the UK. In the end those who pay our debts fund those who do not and I guess it depends on whether you have any morals?

movingabroad26

Hi guys,

thanks for the advice so far. I dont plan to return to the UK in the very near future, maybe for a holiday every now and then but not to resume residency here.

I do have family left here and am slightly worried that they will be hounded by my creditors but as it is a personal loan surely this wouldnt be the case as I dont have any guarantuers (dont know if this is spelled correctly... lol). Not only this but 90% of my family remaining here have a different surname so without my creditors labourously tracking down every single person with the same surname as myself I dont see how this could be possible? Are the banks really that savvy to track down everyone with my surname in the country, write to them requesting if they know someone by my name? Judging by how they are dealing with my claim for my charges request, It seems highly unlikely. (Might I add that I have followed advice from this site and found it very useful in claiming back my bank charges. I am at the stage now where I have written my second refund request to them for a conditional offer of £1000 for a claim of £1274 but havent received a response as yet, they have 6 days left!!!)

Has anyone reading this emmigrated and experienced this debt situation first hand and if so what was the experience? What did your creditors do and what extent did they go to?

I know it seems as though I am "running" from my problem but the way I see it is, the bank kind of swindled me into the loan in the first place, not explaining the APR and simply getting me to sign on the dotted line and when it was too late I realised I was paying a loan rate of 29.8% APR. I have tried paying off more than double my minimum monthly payment every month and even doing that I was told that it would take until 2009 to pay it off in full (I only took the loan out over a 5 year period 4years ago!)

Thanks guys