Can a bailiff come over regarding CCJs

smartcar3

Just wanting advice. Please don't judge me.

I'm 23 and took out an Amigo loan worth £10,000 to pay off some debts and help towards a funeral cost. I was then made redundant at work after a series of stress induced seizures and have had to claim disability benefits.

My original payment to Amigo was £385 a month. Obviously, I can no longer pay this and haven't paid it since April of this year.

They began contacting me and I offered them reduced payments. Nope, wouldn't accept reduced payments, turned to my guarantor who is my boyfriend.

My boyfriend paid it off for a few months, up until June before his hours at work were cut and he now earns £500 less a month. He's seeking out a new job but little luck.

He called Amigo who said he could reduce payments to £250 a month, they wouldn't reduce it any further. Even with us both pitching in, we couldn't afford it. One month we barely even ate because we couldn't afford to after making the Amigo payment. My boyfriend told them this on the phone and they didn't care. They basically said that they would pass us off to their legal department and serve us with a CCJ :-(


I'm only 23 and never had severe debt troubles before. Yes, I used the Amigo loan to pay off some of my debts but they weren't serious debts and certainly no threat of a CCJ. I don't know what a CCJ is or how it works really. The Amigo loan is registered in both my parents address and my boyfriends home address.
We're willing to come to an agreement when we are served a CCJ but how does this work? Will bailffs go round to my mum and dads and try and seize their things? Or will they only do this if we fail to respond to the CCJ?

sourcrates

Hi,

CCJ aka county court judgement, you need to respond to the claim form when it arrives, you should get a pre action letter first, which may allow you to come to an agreement with amigo.

If not, and it progresses to court, you would most likely admit the debt, you then fill in the income and expenditure forms, showing what you can afford to pay, and return the whole lot to the address stated.

Judgement will be granted against you, and you will be ordered to pay what you have said you can afford.

Keep to the payments, nothing further will happen, if you don’t, Baillifs are just one option your creditors have to enforce their rights.

If the payment is too high, you can apply to lower it, don’t worry, you do not normally have to appear in person, it’s all done online and by post.

DCFC79

Who was / is your loan guarantor ?
If you dotn pay they will go after the guarantor.

Shakin_Steve

DCFC79 wrote: »

Who was / is your loan guarantor ?
If you dotn pay they will go after the guarantor.

"turned to my guarantor who is my boyfriend."

PixelPound

Go seek advice, CAB or similar, because a reasonable offer should be accepted. I assume your account wasn't defaulted but probably now is. As Sourcrates has said they have to go through a process before it can get to a bailiff. They may have refused your payment, but they will send pre-action paperwork where you can make an offer before any CCJ - you fill out a realistic budget (not one that skrimps to meet payments but realistic on how much of your money goes on food, bills etc, get debt advice on compiling a budget if you need).

If it got as far as court, then your admission will include an offer of payment, which so long as its backed up by figures should be accepted (can't see a court refusing a reasonable offer based on circumstances even if Amigo want more).

Bailiff, or other enforcement options can only be done through non-payment under the court order, so long as you keep to the agreed payments you won't get a bailiff. If circumstances change later you can apply to have order varied, though a fee may be incurred, so still no bailiff.

Craig1981

email or put in writing your offer of payment and include income and expenditure for both you and your boyfriend. quote their 10 promises they advertise as follows:

""Our promises
If your loan falls into arrears we make the following 10 promises on how we will deal with it:
We will treat you with respect and courtesy at all times.
We recognise that you don't want to be in arrears and we will always work with you to get you back on track as quickly as possible.
We will only collect on cards or direct debits where we have an agreement with you to do so.
We will do everything we can to respect your reasonable requests on how and when you wish to be contacted.
We will always keep you informed and give you advanced warning before we take any action.
We will never contact you more than necessary to come to the best possible solution.
We will always attempt to collect from and contact the borrower first before approaching a guarantor for payment. We will continue to make every reasonable attempt to collect from the borrower as long as the account remains in arrears.
We will never charge you for late or missed payments, letters, texts, phone calls or any of the work we do.
We will only use courts to enforce a debt as a last resort, when all other possible alternatives have been exhausted.
We will never repossess or force you to sell your home.""

i seriously doubt they will consider going to court, to try get a judgement against you if you have fallen on hard times and offering affordable payment arrangement, let alone escalating to bailiffs which will cost even more

Craig1981

this will give you all info needed if you do receive court paperwork and a date for the case
https://www.gov.uk/county-court-judgments-ccj-for-debt

National_Debtline

Hi smartcar3 and welcome to MSE,


Other posters have given some good tips about responding to claim forms, and if it gets to that stage, hopefully now you feel more confident how to deal with them. But, just because they have threatened court action, doesn't mean they will follow through immediately (or at all).


To start with you need to do a SOA - http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php and make sure that you and your boyfriend budget for all your household bills/ needs first (such as gas, electric, water, phone, travel, food, etc). This is a non priority debt, and Amigo will receive an offer of repayment from the money that is left over. If they refuse the offer, you should send it anyway and keep track of what you have paid.


If they are unhappy it may go to a debt collector or county court. Debt collectors are not bailiffs and have no right of entry or repossession and the other posters have cover the county court process well. This will be damaging to both your credit file and your guarantors. Best of luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

macman

Since he is fully liable, they will most likely first pursue your b/f rather than incur the expense of court action and recovery of goods, which are last resorts.