Advice please on clearing a secured loan that has been sold on from GE Money to Arrow

dogcrazylady

I am looking for advice. In 2007 I took out a 25k secured loan with GE Money. In hindsight a stupid thing to do. Personal circumstances with my ex partner forced me to to consolidate debt he had ran up in my name. He promised to pay and didn't, so I covered it until I lost my job in 2009. I was some time out of work and after I was getting paid a much lower wage. With mortgage arrears etc I just continued to pay the mortgage and left the loan. After much stress and ignoring letters, I finally took control in 2013 when the police assisted me in removing my ex partner from my home. I contacted Christians against poverty for help and made an arrangement with GE Money, I was paying about £100 on top of the loan payment. They took me to court in 2014 to get possession. The judge granted a Norgan agreement, meaning I could pay the balance over the term of the loan. My original repayment was £257.75 per month. During the loan they had raised interest rates and made it £276.95 not sure how as base rates have gone down. At court I agreed to pay in total £402.46 per month. which I continued to pay. In fact I am over paying at £420 per month and have been since 2015. However the balance still kept going up not down. In 2016 the off loaded the loan to Arrow. I continued to pay at the same rate. The loan balance kept going up and in October it peaked at £59,645.58. I contacted Arrow, who agreed for me to pay in interest free. So now it is going down. In October 2017 They sent me a letter stating my arrears balance was in excess of 26k of which missed payments were £10,733.61 arrears related interest and charges were £15,663.04.
I am now arrears clear on my main mortgage, and have cleared off nearly all other debts and this is like a noose around my neck now.
My question is; Is there anything I can do to help reduce the balance? Are there any charges I can claim back?
I know I sound like I have been negligent in not sorting sooner, but I was going through a really difficult time personally and was suffering from anxiety and depression. I am now in a good place. I have a better job, and I have dealt with debts one by one until they are all sorted except for this.
Does anyone have any advice?

sourcrates

Hi,

That is the killer about these type of loans, variable rate interest, that combined with arrears, and then charges for being in arrears, soon mount up.

59k a whopping amount considering the original loan value.

You have no recourse to sec 78/79 CCA as legal action has been taken, not even sure if it would be CCA regulated anyway, do you know if it is ?

If it is CCA regulated, have they been sending you regular account statements, by regular i mean at least once a year ?

dogcrazylady

Thanks for the response.
Yes it was a whopping amount. Now down to Just over £53k.
I will check if it is a regulated loan. I can't remember getting annual statements. But like I said earlier. With all the stress from my personal situation and the debt, I was not really as on the ball as I usually am.

sourcrates

If it is regulated, and they fail to send you a yearly statement, they are not entitled to charge interest or default charges for the period they were not compliant.

So you could claim back all interest and charges, for any periods longer than 12 months when they didnt send statements, if that were the case.

dogcrazylady

I have just sent a SAR to GE Money to see what info I can get back. I made a request to Arrow, but they only sent me 6 years. They say that is all they have to keep.
I am awaiting a response from GE Money. I only sent off for the info yesterday and they have 40 days to respond.

sourcrates

Keep us updated.

fatbelly

It should be CCA regulated. 25k was the max in 2007, and it sounds like that was what was borrowed.

That gives you an angle in relation to CCA1974 s129:

Time order - mortgage and secured loan

A court can change the loan terms to 'whatever is considered just'.

But you will need specialist help.

It's also possible (but a slim chance) that the original agreement was poorly constructed and unenforceable but I suspect that GE had sorted the issues by 2007 and, again, you would need a specialist to look at it.