Parents debt. Do I offer to settle, or am I screwed?

Elle7

I'll try and keep this concise!

My mum has bipolar. She has terrible credit, and during my childhood, took out a lot of overdrafts etc in my name. In most cases, such as Barclays, I've managed to have these closed/removed, especially if they were taken out before I was 16.

Littlewoods is the big problem. I have an account there with £4,000 owing. I opened the account, but occasionally ordered things for her. I was training at the time, and she would give me £40/50 towards the payment, so I thought she was paying things off. It was only when I lost my job that I realised what she'd done.

Now, there is very little evidence against my mother. She is very mentally ill, and is now sectioned. She has left me and my sisters with thousands and thousands in debt, and the police have been useless.

Littlewoods have run out of patience and are now issuing missed payments onto my credit file, which is trashing my chances of ever getting a mortgage.

I can agree a smaller payment with them, but I'll never pay it off that way. I can't afford to give them £4,000, or pay the minimum payment, which is about £450 a month.

If I can't secure a conviction, which is looking unlikely because my mum won't be out any time soon, am I stuck with this?

I feel so stupid for not checking.

hohum

I didn't want to read and run - i hope someone will be along to offer advice. Just wanted to say I'm sorry you find yourself in this situation, it must be very hard. Have you talked to any of the debt charities, it seems quite a specific situation but if your name's on the account, I would think that means you own the debt unfortunately. other posters may know better!

katejo

I am also not in a position to advise you but you have my sympathy. I really hope that this can be resolved in your favour.

sourcrates

Elle7 wrote: »

I'll try and keep this concise!

My mum has bipolar. She has terrible credit, and during my childhood, took out a lot of overdrafts etc in my name. In most cases, such as Barclays, I've managed to have these closed/removed, especially if they were taken out before I was 16.

Littlewoods is the big problem. I have an account there with £4,000 owing. I opened the account, but my mother bought things. I was training at the time, and she would give me £40/50 towards the payment, so I thought she was paying things off. It was only when I lost my job that I realised what she'd done.

Now, there is very little evidence against my mother. She is very mentally ill, and is now sectioned. She has left me and my sisters with thousands and thousands in debt, and the police have been useless.

Littlewoods have run out of patience and are now issuing missed payments onto my credit file, which is trashing my chances of ever getting a mortgage.

I can agree a smaller payment with them, but I'll never pay it off that way. I can't afford to give them £4,000, or pay the minimum payment, which is about £450 a month.

If I can't secure a conviction, which is looking unlikely because my mum won't be out any time soon, am I stuck with this?

I feel so stupid for not checking.

I am assuming the Littlewoods account would have been opened way prior to April 2007, would I be correct ?


Littlewoods are terrible at keeping the correct paperwork,


one solution for you may be to make a CCA request to Littlewoods, that is a request for a copy of the original credit agreement, if they cant supply it, or it does not comply with the CCA 1974 then there is a chance the debt may not be enforceable through the courts, and you may not have to repay it.

On_my_way

Firstly, I feel for you. It is a lot of weight upon your shoulders that was not of your doing.

I would encourage you to write to the companies explaining the issues and that you cannot afford to pay what they are asking.

The second thing to do immediately is to have a serious audit of your mother's assets and see if there is anything that can be sold to go towards the debt.

There are many people on here who know far, far more than I do about how to deal with these problems and may draft a letter for you.

Keep on trucking,

sourcrates

Just to add to my previous post, if you ignore Littlewoods, the debt will pass to there inhouse debt collectors, NDR payments, who can still be as inflexible as Littlewoods themselves.


If you ignore NDR, the debt will then be passed to an external debt collection agency, with whom you would be able to make an offer of whatever you could afford, and in the end it would be accepted,


but,


my advice above would be your first option,


make the CCA request, and see what they get back to you with,


post back if you need further help, or feel free to PM me if you require any further clarification.

RAS

elle

I strongly suggest that you deal with either Step-change or probably more useful National Debtline.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan?_ga=1.217342161.630319081.1401729524#help

They may be able to get Littlewods to co-operate becuase they will have experience of this sort of case.

On the otherhand if you allowed your mother to use the account they may take the view that you are legally liable.

eyeopener2

Lovely credit firms aren't they?

RAS, as usual, is being sensible. Go through one of the charitys and you may get some cooperation although my instinct would be to CCA them, prove the debt unenforceable and then see what they say.

Ringing National Debtline or Stepchange or payplan is probably a more sensible solution though, so do as RAS suggests.

Good luck, I feel for you.

sourcrates

RAS wrote: »

On the otherhand if you allowed your mother to use the account they may take the view that you are legally liable.

Not wanting to take anything away from the excellent work that National Debtline do, and with the greatest respect to David from nat det line, they will only be able to advise you on repaying the debt, in your particular circumstances I would strongly recommend the Course of action I have outlined above first and foremost.


The issues you have raised make it a particular difficult issue to deal with, and the CCA route may be the only real viable option for you, that does not involve a long drawn out battle over who is legally liable.

National_Debtline

sourcrates wrote: »

Not wanting to take anything away from the excellent work that National Debtline do, and with the greatest respect to David from nat det line, they will only be able to advise you on repaying the debt, in your particular circumstances I would strongly recommend the Course of action I have outlined above first and foremost.

Hi there,

We can (and often do) discuss fraud issues with our callers. We can also discuss consumer credit act enforceability (or the lack of!). Our service does, however, fall short of being able to provide qualified legal advice - we're unable to discuss whether or not a particular case has a realistic prospect of success. A number of us are legally qualified beyond the training we have had inhouse. We can certainly talk about procedures and rules but as I'm sure you'll understand only within the scope of the service we provide. If there is a clear fraud issue on the balance of probabilities I wouldn't be overly comfortable in telling any of our callers that they'll need to be repaying the money if there is a potential challenge or dispute to be raised.

Hope that helps!

David.

Elle7

Thanks for all the replies.

Legal liability is something that I have discussed with the police. They are fairly happy that they could prove that my mother placed the orders without authority, and that there was nothing I could reasonably do to have prevented this. I didn't share my password, for example.

I'll start with a CCA request, and hope that they don't have one. If the y do, I'll write the whole story out again and deny liability for the current debt.

It's a bit nerve-wracking, this! It feels like such a huge amount of money to owe.