Very old debt help! Restriction?

Markus251

Hi all,

Years ago i got in e mess and had ccjs. I was paying these as per the agreement until i started getting letters from different companies saying i now needed to make my payments to them. These were every few weeks and each time I received a letter the amount owed had drastically increased even though the terms of the ccj were supposed to prevent that. (no kore interest or fees added etc).

Anyway, I spoke to a lady at my local county court and explained I didn't know who to pay and looking at my letters I had with me neither did she! She advised to stop payments and then the original creditor would contact the court and then i'd get a court letter etc and that way i'd know who to pay. I stopped making payments and heard nothing.

6 years passed and my credit file was now clean once more. I'd still heard nothing. I'd not been in hiding, they knew my address and I was still on the electoral register.

About 6 months later my girlfriends father passed away leaving her £40k. As we were in rented housing my girlfriend wanted to buy our first home. Using 40k as a big deposit and leaving us with a 30k mortgage.

At this point we cleared out all old paperwork and other things as you do when moving. This included all the debt paperwork as I figured now that around 7 years had passed with no contact. (probably stuid to throw away but cannot change that now).

Anyway, our house was bought late 2012. Ive learnt from my past mistakes and everything gets paid in full and on time now. Guess I was young and stupid back then.

My problem is now out of the blue after almost 12 years, I get a letter from Mortimer Clarke solicitors regarding one of my old CCJs!! It states that they had applied for a Charging Order.

Right at this time my girlfriend is suffering with mental health issues to the point she recently attempted to take her own life. She is currently unable to work and this letter has knocked her recovery back a lot.

I have had a letter now from Land Registry that an application has been made for a 'Restriction' on our property and we have to respond by 27th December 2017 if we want to accept it or dispute it.

I now have no idea what to do as I have no idea who the original debt was with now nor have any paper work of payments etc. Also its a bit much being almost 12 years with NO contact at all. My girlfriend is worried we'll lose the house or when we come to move on in the future that we'll have to pay out of the sale of the house and we therefore might not be able to get a suitable property because of that.

She is fuming and really getting down as she put in 40k to buy this house and until recently was making all the mortgage payments herself. I'm just joint named on the mortgage with her.

What do I need to do now? Who do I write to? How can I dispute this? We have no means to pay anything to them now with only 1 low income for the foreseeable future.

Help very much appreciated.

Markus

DCFC79

Whose name is the house in ?

Not 100% sure but didn't think a charging order can be placed on a house not in your name unless I have it wrong.

Maybe a debt charity would be useful to call like stepchange or 1 of the others that are free.

Markus251

Hi and thanks for the reply.

Our house is in both our names.
It was an Intrim Charging Order not a full charging order. I know they cant give a charguing order. They can only give a restriction which is what the land registry has wrote to us about. We now need to accept that or dispute it but there are no more details from Land Registry. They are just letting us know they've received an application to place a restriction on the land/property.

Clive_Woody

Give StepChange a call (free phone number) - they are a debt charity and will be best placed to offer advice and guidance on how to handle this.

First thing is getting all the information about the original debt and clarifying what happened regarding CCJs and court action previously. StepChange should be able to advise on how to do this and what to say.

Land_Registry

Markus251 - we will only have the limited details provided re the charging order itself. You would need to contact the named court for any more details or the creditor themselves.

It makes little difference that it is an interim and not full charging order from a registration perspective. It is still a charging order relating to a debt.

As you are joint owners but the charging oirder is against just one of you it can only be protected on the register by way of a restriction.

There is a useful thread on here called Charging order - the myth which may be of interest although it focusses on what happens next when you want to sell etc

However eggbox will also be able to help with explaining how to get more details re the debt and how to approach the issue