Second Charges & Interest??

Big_Dan

We have 2 charging orders on our property which we are currently trying to sort out so that we can remortgage but the charge holders are trying to rob us blind (in our opinion).

Both CCJ's/Charging order were granted whilst we were having temporary financial problems due to the collapse of my business at the time and as a result I suffered badly with depression etc so we did not do alot to defend the court action.

1st charging order is with Link Financial who purchased a GE Money loan £6549r.

After assignment of the debt we received one call from link asking for full payment which we could not afford at the time (obviously) but we offered to make a token monthly payment of £20 until we were in a better position to which the caller replied "court papers will be in the post".

Subsequently a CCJ, Interim Charging Order, Final Charging Order and permission to charge 23% interest on the debt were obtained by them despite us sending correspondence to the court to attempt to fight this and advising we had not refused to pay at each stage.

The debt according to LINK is now £13789 which is about £6000 too much in our opinion and should never have been inflated as much as it has.

2nd Charging Order - From an estate agent.
We agreed to sell our property via an estate agent and during the consultation advised we did not want to pay more than 1% as we had been quoted by a competitor,

however on signing the paperwork it was written out as a fixed fee agreement meaning we paid over our agreed 1% when the property was sold for less than the asking price.

A cheque was sent to the agent advising of the above for the full 1% commission but they refused this and returned the cheque taking us to court at the same time as above when we were on our bums

They got a charging order for £3045 and have today sent a request for £5128
£3045 + £1929 interest(?) and £153 Final charging order costs?

I don't even think we should be paying the full £3045 let alone interest and costs on top.

Any advise on what we can do and if we pay the debts off to get the mortgageicon through

can we still reclaim any overpayments or are we accepting the debt if paid in full?

macman

If you signed an agreement with the EA for a fixed fee, then you don't have a leg to stand on. What does the contract actually say?
It's common for an EA to set a minimum fee on cheaper properties, as the work involved to sell a £50K property is not necessarily less than that required to sell a £500K one.
If the debt were to be found in their favour, then they can add interest and their legal expenses.

National_Debtline

Hi Big_Dan and welcome to MSE,


This is a complicated situation, and I would suggest getting more personalised advice from one of the free charities when you can. At this stage, the Link debt and interest appears to be the biggest concern with them claiming a 23% interest rate. So, first of all, it may be possible for them to charge interest after judgement, but there are a lot of hoops the creditors needs to jump through.


First of all, the original terms and conditions of the loan must include details of claiming contractual interest after judgement, and this must also be specified in the particulars of claim. If the CCJ was obtained after October 2008 the creditor must also send you a notification ever 6 months under Section 130A of the Consumer Credit Act relating to that period of interest. If they miss a notification they lose that 6 month period. And, most importantly, they have to sue separately for the interest after the original judgement has been paid. We do have a factsheet about this to help you - https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/countycourtinterestcharges/interestonaccj.aspx


If the creditor has not fulfilled all of the requirements then I would suggest you ask them for a breakdown of the balance (specifically what is interest and whether or not your payments have been allocated to 'interest charged') and then raise a complaint. Ask them to remove any incorrect interest charges and if they refuse escalate the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.


Laura
@natdebtline