British Gas passed on debt - now shows as new debt on credit file

jmvw

Old debt with British Gas would have been defaulted for 6 years by December 2018 (it is my understanding that debts drop off your credit file after 6 years of default with no contact). However, in June, they passed the debt on to Lowell, which now appears as a separate account on my credit file. It states that the account start date was 01/11/2012 (start date of the British Gas account), but my defaults only begin in June 2018.

Does this mean that the 6 year period has started over?

By the time I was in a position to start paying it back it had already been > 5 years, so I figured I’d be best off waiting for it to drop off.

[Deleted User]

The default can only be applied once, but will show each month for 6 years.

[Deleted User]

What is the date of default on the Lowell account?

Be aware though that contacting them to correct the date may count as acknowledgement of the debt

Debt_suvivor

Forget the start date, that’s just when the account originated. it’s the default date you need to focus on.

Farmer_Johnson

jmvw wrote: »

Old debt with British Gas would have been defaulted for 6 years by December 2018 (it is my understanding that debts drop off your credit file after 6 years of default with no contact). However, in June, they passed the debt on to Lowell, which now appears as a separate account on my credit file. It states that the account start date was 01/11/2012 (start date of the British Gas account), but my defaults only begin in June 2018.

Does this mean that the 6 year period has started over?

By the time I was in a position to start paying it back it had already been > 5 years, so I figured I’d be best off waiting for it to drop off.

Best how? Surely paying it off would look better. What are you going to do if they’ve lodged a court claim before the clock ran out?

fermi

Old debt with British Gas would have been defaulted for 6 years by December 2018 (it is my understanding that debts drop off your credit file after 6 years of default with no contact). However, in June, they passed the debt on to Lowell, which now appears as a separate account on my credit file. It states that the account start date was 01/11/2012 (start date of the British Gas account), but my defaults only begin in June 2018.

'Contact' has no impact on when defaulted accounts drop from your report.

Monthly D/8 status updates do not alter when a defaulted account drops off your report.

There should separately be recorded a "default date", and it is 6 years from this that all trace of the account drops off, regardless of any other factor.

Debt collectors who buy an account often only record status updates (the D/8 on a defaulted account) from when they buy the debts onwards, but they must not alter the separate "default date" which should relate to when the account was defaulted with the original creditor (within reasonable timescales), and not when the account was bought.

So in this case to be accurate as required under DPA/GDPR the recorded default date should be within several months of the original date the account was 1st due AND unpaid.

If they are recording an inaccurate recent default date, then you could complain and require that they correct it back to somewhere around the 6 years ago.

forgotmyname

Account opened 1/11/2012 ? Did you open the account and never pay a penny towards it?

When was the first bill due to be paid?