Older debts

Simmy_P · 27 October 2015 at 7:00PM

Hi all, this is my first post here and I hope it makes more sense to some of you than it does in my head!

Myself and my partner got into some bother a few years back and took out more money than we could realistically afford to repay. Coupled with losing my job and having an unexpected birth in the family, we struggled to get out of that mess.

I'm pleased to say that over the last couple of years, our situation has improved and a lot of our debts are now being paid off in manageable chunks. I have however finally looked at my credit file (I'm not keen on paying for it, and I've recently found a reliable-looking free one) and noticed that I have a few creditors attached to my file who I had overlooked (or back in the day, ignored and hoped it would go away - no such luck!). Obviously, being in a slightly better place now, I'd like to get rid of these nuisances which are ruining my credit score. These debts are just under 5 years old now, and are (understandably) in a chronic state of 'default'.

I heard from somebody that defaults are wiped off your credit file after 6 years (like bankruptcies, etc). The way it was described to me made it seem like I could just ignore this, and after 6 years, it will vanish even if I don't pay it. That sounds very strange to me, so I just wanted to check it out with some of the more street-wise members of this community. I would be grateful if somebody could clarify the following;

Do debts, such as the ones I've described above -

a) Drop off your credit file after 6 years, regardless of whether they're paid or not?
b) Drop off your credit file 6 years after you have STARTED regular payments?
c) Only disappear 6 years after they're completely paid off?

This is probably something which is answered on another page of this website, however a quick search hasn't yielded much fruit. I'm very sorry if I've missed something obvious!

Thanks in advance