Debt collectors and a child care debt

BlueMoon18

Hi all!

I received a letter this week from LRC (legalrecoveries.com/) regarding a childcare debt of £4500. This built up until September last year, over the course of 3 years while I was a student and struggling to afford much. The Nursery were aware of my situation and kept letting my girl come when I missed payments.

Anyway, I heard nothing from the Nursery regarding a repayment plan after she left. I suppose my question is: what will LRC be demanding? I am not able to afford very high repayments - potentially £50 per month. I am still repaying a council tax debt (£100 per month for another 6 months).

They were lucky to catch me at current address — I hand the keys back to landlord on Saturday, they want a response from me tomorrow (Friday).

What is best for me to do at this point?

Sorry I don’t have the letter with me currently - will find it later and try to add the details. Thanks.

National_Debtline

Hi there


Assuming your daughter no longer uses the nursery you can treat the debt as a non priority because they will have limited powers to recover it. Whereas your council tax debt must be treated as a priority because the council have more powers.


A debt collection agency (DCA) like LRC are not bailiffs, but simply a different company now trying to collect the debt. To negotiate with them you will need to complete and send them a statement of affairs (SOA). This will show them your normal income and outgoings, arrangements on your priority debts and what you can afford to offer them. You can complete one here http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php.


To give yourself some time to get your SOA together you can start by sending LRC a hold action letter, this will ask them to put everything on hold for 30 days. You'll find a sample letter here https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Hold-action-on-your-account-%28sole-name%29.aspx.


I would also recommend getting in touch with one of the free debt advice agencies for more advice on what other options you may have available.


Best wishes


Susie
@natdebtline

midnight_express

No wonder so many nurseries are going out of business.

sourcrates

midnight_express wrote: »

No wonder so many nurseries are going out of business.

Im sure it wasnt the OPs intention for matters to take this course.

[Deleted User]

How large a debt are we talking about?

sourcrates

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

How large a debt are we talking about?

£4.500 bob.

sourcrates

OP are you 100% sure the bill is correct, the reason I ask is that some nurseries have a reputation for very bad mis-management.

When my eldest daughter was 4, she went to a local nursery, and was entitled to, I think, it was 12 hours a week free, something like that, and that’s all the time she spent there, just her free government hours.

Then one day a bill arrived for just over £1000, they had billed us for hours she was not even there, so I disputed the debt, and they passed it on to a debt collector, I told them the bill was a mistake, they would not listen, so I put it all in writing to the DCA and the nursery, never heard from either of them again, no apologies, no, sorry we got it wrong, just silence.

Still irks me to this day.

CrazyCatLady

Its great you get free hours at nurseries but the hours you do have to pay at nurseries are very expensive so I sympathise with the OP. Sometimes you're better off not sending them to nursery for those hours and staying at home yourself but it's not always possible to be able to do that.

[Deleted User]

midnight_express wrote: »

No wonder so many nurseries are going out of business.

Send me a postcard from that perfect world you live in