Stopping debt collector letters - previous homeowner

elantan

i had this same thing even had a baliff and at on a seperate occasion the police (he had been involved in a car accident and gave our address this was three years after he had moved) at the door for the guy and demanding to know who i was i tried writting the letters and phoning everyone i would say half took not but the other half still write to me regularly infact just today i got a letter in for him over 6 years later i wish you well with dealing with this nothing really has worked for me i can laugh at it now

fairly_good_fairy

thanks elantan - we got a letter from the solicitors of a local restaurant chasing up an unpaid £200 food and drink bill and saying we had to be forcibly removed from the place by the police at the time. The letter was addressed to a William Hunt. When I rang up the solicitors I asked them if they had not checked the name - y'know, William Hunt, Bill Hunt - I've never heard a solicitor laugh on the phone before!

Teacher2301

That's a good one - I'll use that when we get a cold caller phoning us

msmicawber

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've been getting letters and phone calls for the last 3 years about the previous tenants' debts and just return the letters with 'gone away' written on them and tell callers that they've got the wrong number. I'm currently getting text messages to the land line telling me to ring and 08 number urgently, which I see belongs to a debt collector, so I just delete them.

They can't do anything to you, and it does tail off eventually.

tameruk

Hi there, i've been following this thread and wanted to ask about a similar but slightly more personal situation:

My mother-in-law is getting calls and letters looking for her son from collection agencies, but she has been advised by him to ignore them and tell them "he doesn't live at this address any more"

He's been defaulting on his payments for at least a year now and is hoping that after 6 years they will give up and cancel his debt.

First of all, i wanted to ask - is this 6 year thing true? Secondly, what risk is he putting his mother in by leaving her to defend his whereabouts from the collection agencies?

We've seen a program on TV where the mother has to watch while bailiffs remove her belongings to pay for her son/daughters debts, but her reaction to that is "it's only like that in England, they aren't able to do that here in Northern Ireland".... is this really true?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

rog2

Hi tameruk - it IS true that your MIL does not have to give information about her son to Debt Collection Agencies. If he no longer lives at her address, then she has no legal obligation to give them his current address.
Debt Collectors can not send in bailiffs without a CCJ, and even then, they would have no right of access to her home if her son no longer lives there.
The '6 year thing' certainly DOES exist - if your MIL's son has made no payment towards, nor acknowledged in writing, a debt for a period of six years, then the 'debt' will be covered by the Limitations Act, 1980, making it 'statute barred'. This means that once the debtor has informed the creditor, or DCA that he no longer intends to pay the debt as it is 'statute barred' then he can not be pursued, through the courts, for this debt. Neither should any Debt Collector continue to try to collect the debt.

That said, however, your MIL's son MAY be on a sticky wicket if he is simply trying to avoid a debt, by hoping that if he lies low for long enough the debt will become statute barred. Equally, if he is still living at your MIL's house, then he COULD be forcing her to comit an offence by telling debt collectors that he 'no longer lives at this address'. If the debt is only a year or so old, and debt collectors are aggressively chasing it, then they MAY try to obtain a CCJ. If they are successful, then this may prevent the debt from ever becoming statute barred.

We really need a bit more information to be able to be more specific.

msmicawber

Hi tameruk,

I don't know whether there's any difference in NI and the mainland, but doubt it as it's the same system of law. He's responsible for his own debt, not her, though it must be horrible for her to have to deal with..

The six year rule applies with most debts - so if he's made no contact (including payments) for six years, then the debt becomes statute barried. This doesn't apply to recovery of benefit overpayments, mortgages and tax, though, to the best of my knowledge.

msmicawber

I see good old rog got in first with a fuller answer!

rog2

msmicawber wrote: »

I see good old rog got in first with a fuller answer!

The only thing I'm NOT sure of, in relation to the Limitations Act, though is whether Northern Ireland is SIX years, or FIVE, as in Scotland.
I'm going to do a bit of research on that one.

ziggy2004

we had this problem too it got so bad that I got a stack of cards with the following printed on it:

Mr X no longer lives at this address we bought the property on 01/01/2004 the selling sollicitors were ( name and address solicitors) we do not have a forwarding add for mr x please stop sending letters to this address and remove it from your files.

I attached these to the letters and send them return sender

I also quoted this at everyone who phoned ( we stupidly took their tel nr)

this stopped all of them apart from british gas who tried to make us pay their old electric bill I send them details 3 times which the convieniently never received - even recorded so I eventually told them that I had the proof but was not sending it again and if they wanted it they could come and get it I then got a letter saying my account was cleared

I wish you could automatically arrange for all of this to stop when you move though would be so much easier