Old account suddenly come back?

Mummyto4kids

Hi I hope someone can help, I am not sure this is the right spot for this but here goes!


I had a credit agreement which started back in 1999. It was for a car, through a high interest company - and I defaulted in the last year of the agreement which was 2004. There was approx. £1300 still owing, and I set up a payment plan. I paid regularly for about 5 years and then queried why the balance wasn't going down at all other than by a couple of pounds each month and was told it was charges. I then complained in 2009 and said it felt like I had paid enough, the payments over 5 years came to double the amount I had defaulted on, I was told they would look into this and come back to me. I never heard anything after that and assumed that they had accepted my complaint. They also couldn't provide a copy of the original credit agreement, they said this was due to the amount of time since it was taken out.


Suddenly yesterday a company who I have never heard of wrote to me, enclosing 9 statements which are called "notices of default sums" running back from last month back to 03.03.2010 saying due to an admin error I haven't been sent these statements and should have been because I was in default of my payments. It also says i am exempt from any charges during that time because they hadn't been sending the statements, but that this is irrelevant because no charges have been applied. The balance apparently is still £1200 and they asked if I would contact them to make a payment arrangement. There are no credits or debits on this account for all of this time and I am just wondering whether they can do this after all this time?


I haven't contacted them because I called CAB and the lady I spoke to was really nice and said that it was a bit suspicious that it had turned up this week when in 3 weeks time it would almost definitely be statute barred if in fact it wasn't already but I am not really sure what that means - she has told me to go in and show them the statements if I need help dealing with it


Does anyone have any experience of things like this please?
thank you

rizla_king

yes, fishing for a payment in the hope that yopur daft enough to make one and stop it becoming statute barred.

sourcrates

Hi,

So the last time you made a payment to this was in 2009, is that right ?
If that's the case it would of become statute barred sometime last year.
Under the limitations act 1980, if no payment or written acknowledgement is made for any period of 6 years, then the account will be statute barred.

This means they can't take you to court to force you to pay, so basically you can tell them to whistle.

If your sure of your dates, you should send them a letter stating the account is statute barred, info here :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/25%20EW%20Time%20limits%20for%20recovering%20debts/Default.aspx

Mummyto4kids

Hi yes it was 2009 although I don't know the definite dates, but will that matter if I write to them and don't know the exact month? I've changed bank accounts since then in 2010 so don't have the transactions that I could look up but I know it was around my daughters birthday in June 2009 as I made a last payment then complained and my payments got put on hold while the other company who had the account looked into it. This isn't the same company though its a new one.
thank you for your help

sourcrates

Mummyto4kids wrote: »

Hi yes it was 2009 although I don't know the definite dates, but will that matter if I write to them and don't know the exact month? I've changed bank accounts since then in 2010 so don't have the transactions that I could look up but I know it was around my daughters birthday in June 2009 as I made a last payment then complained and my payments got put on hold while the other company who had the account looked into it. This isn't the same company though its a new one.
thank you for your help

It's up to them to prove its not statute barred, not up to you to prove it is.
I would send the template letter and put the ball in there court.
If you need any help, please post again.

National_Debtline

Hi

It’s fine to use the sample letter sourcrates linked to even if you aren’t sure of exact dates. The onus is on the debt collector to prove the debt isn’t statute barred or leave you alone.

EDIT - cross posted with sourcrates

James
@natdebtline