Cca

Distressed08

Hello all, this is my first post after lurking for years!
We are currently 4 years into a DMP with Stepchange but still have about 4 years to go. I am now thinking of trying to organise some full and final payments but after following this forum have been reading about CCAs.
What are they and how do they work? Some of our credit cards where applied for in the mid - 1990's.
Any advice would be appreciated, I still feel like we are pushing against a huge wall when it comes to the damn debt!!

sourcrates

Distressed08 wrote: »

Hello all, this is my first post after lurking for years!
We are currently 4 years into a DMP with Stepchange but still have about 4 years to go. I am now thinking of trying to organise some full and final payments but after following this forum have been reading about CCAs.
What are they and how do they work? Some of our credit cards where applied for in the mid - 1990's.
Any advice would be appreciated, I still feel like we are pushing against a huge wall when it comes to the damn debt!!

Hi,

A formal CCA request, is a request for information about your credit agreement under sec 77/78 of the consumer credit act.

Basically as long as there is an outstanding balance on your account, your original creditor must supply you with a copy, or a reconstruction, of your credit agreement, when asked to do so.

If they can't comply for any reason, or what they send you does not comply with what you asked for, then the account may become unenforceable in the courts.

As your accounts were opened prior to April 2007, when the law changed, you would need to scrutinise what they send you, as missing terms and conditions can also render agreements of that age unenforceable.

You can find information and a template letter here :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Information-about-your-agreement-under-the-Consumer-Credit-Act-%28sole-name%29.aspx

Distressed08

Thank you for the speedy reply.

National_Debtline

Hi Distressed08 and welcome to MSE,


Just to add to what sourcrates has put, which is all great - a CCA request would cost £1 and the creditor has 12working days to reply. It only has to be a 'true copy' of the agreement, so, as mentioned above, it could be done by patching agreements together to show an accurate representation of what you signed. Plus a true copy does not need to bear a signature.


Failure to reply could cause the debt to be unenforceable until they do, but I would suggest a bit of caution here. If you stopped payments into your DMP because of this that doesn't necessarily mean the creditor doesn't have the information you are asking for - it could arrive later. And failure to pay anything might make the creditor more inclined to chase the debt. However, I understand that you are considering doing this as leverage in a full and final scenario, so hopefully you won't have to worry about this sort of thing. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline