Help, advice needed please

Catty552

Hi guys,
I'm really hoping you can help me out. Yesterday my ex gave me a letter that was posted by hand through his letter box. It was a removal notice from HMCTS wanting to recover £1,277.02 worth of debt. I haven't lived at that address for over 4 years so it was a bit of a surprise.
Anyway, I called the courts today and spoke to the bailiff, he said as the address is wrong I'd be best calling the solicitors dealing with it directly. He gave me their number and advised me to call them to arrange repayment options. I asked what the debt was for and he confirmed Welcome Finance. I took out a loan with Welcome Finance in 2001 for £1000, I paid most of this back but lost my job 6 months before paying it all back so went into arrears. Approximately 7-8 years ago I arranged a repayment plan with the help of the CAB to pay Welcome Finance back, I also put a claim in for mis-sold ppi and got about £800 knocked off the debt. It seems to never end. Anyway, now they must of taken me to court to get this removal notice but there is no way I can pay this amount back to them in full and I don't know who to even contact regarding it.
Please could anyone offer any help or suggestions in regards to this confusing matter.

Regards
Cat

[Deleted User]

Call the solicitors and see if you can agree a repayment plan.

Clive_Woody

Talk to one of the free debt charities such as StepChange

https://www.stepchange.org/

StopIt

I can understand your confusion, so let's break it down a bit.


The reason why court papers would have been served to your old address is that would be the address Welcome finance would have given to the DCA when they sold the debt.


The DCA involved would have employed the solicitor involved to enforce the debt at court.


You say you were in a payment plan arranged by the CAB? When did you stop paying this? Normally a creditor doesn't escalated a debt in a payment plan to a court claim so I assume you stopped at some point?


If you have no defence to the debt and accept it is yours, you cannot challenge the debt via a Set Aside at court. This is available if you didn't receive the claim AND have a defence against it. It costs £255 and resets the claim to the start, allowing for a defence.


In this case, contact the solicitor to ask for a payment plan, also asking for any enforcement to be suspended as long as you meet the payments agreed. County Court bailiffs have little power, and the debt cannot be escalated to High Court enforcement, so there's not a lot they can do there, but the solicitors can arrange to ask for an Attachment of Earnings from the court, so do not ignore this notice.


If you need any specific advice, ring the CAB or National Debtline who can assist further.

sourcrates

Hi,

Have just read your other post on the same subject, it would appear to me that the debt was not written off as you suspect, but was actually sold on, and the new owner took you to court (using old address details) and have obtained a CCJ against you.

This now limits your options, the easiest way to deal with it is to make a written proposal of payment to the creditor, don't bother trying to correspond with the bailiff, as its seldom very productive.

Don`t allow the bailiff access under any circumstances.

Stop it sums up your options quite well, above.

BethRobinson

Pay up pay up pay up.