Can't pay. We will take it away .

alfmurph

My son who has been living abroad for 8 years keep getting letters which are obviously from a debt agency . We have been forwarding these on for years but he obviously has no intention of paying . It worries us more than him so today we opened the letter .
It is a debt from next but it must have been passed on .
They want £280 but if it is settled in 14 days they will accept £56 . 20% . Does this mean interest is getting added all the time .
For our own piece of mind we are tempted to just pay it .
For 2 reasons .
1 - We are thinking about putting the house in his name to try and avoid having to sell the house to pay care home fee's and give him power of attorney . In 40 years hopefully .
2 - To stop him maybe being refused credit in the future .
If the house is in his name can the debt agency remove goods .
He is not a bad lad . He has just sent me a garden centre voucher for father's day .

[Deleted User]

Tell him to grow up and sort it himself.  It may be that The debt is statute barred from the sounds of it, but he needs to sort it out.

Garden vouchers are great, but they're probably not worth £280.

The debt will have no impact on your efforts to deprive yourself of assets to avoid paying for your care. But be careful you don't get caught.

Fighter1986

You sound like very patient, understanding, and forgiving parents.

I'm glad he's thinking of you on father's Day.

There's one thing you might want to ask yourself though - if he can't be trusted with a £280 catalogue account balance, how on earth can he be trusted with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property and land?

What other debts does he have that you don't know about? It's every adults individual responsibility to manage our affairs in such a way that we remain credit worthy going forwards. I'm sure you're constructive enough parents to guide your son through to understanding this.

I don't want to judge, but it's my personal opinion that a discussion aught to be had and some accountability on his side demonstrated as a first port of call. Work up from there, with baby steps towards the huge financial responsibility of owning the biggest family asset. 

sleepyjones

It's not really your problem, just return the letters as "Not at this address?

sourcrates

These are unsecured credit debts, the worst that can happen is a county court judgement, which, if he lives abroad, will not effect him at all, every six years your credit file is expunged of negative information, nothing is forever.

Its not your problem to deal with, you should just return the letters as "not known at this address".

Its up to the debt collection agency to trace him, you should not involve yourself at all, and i`ll tell you for why, this time the debt was just a few hundred, next time it might be thousands, and although you are not legally responcible for this money, if you get a reputation amongst collectors for paying your sons debts, they will never leave you alone, best to just pop it back in the post box as advised.

Brock_and_Roll

PS OP - most half decent local authorities can and will check the historic property register and spot a transfer to a family member!

jazzyja

He needs to realise how fortunate he is to have parents like you. Things like this really grind my gears as hes taking the Micheal. I would be telling him to transfer me money for his debt

Barny1979

Tell him as a birthday or christmas present to you he should pay the debt off.

DCFC79

Don't help him, he has to sort it out himself.
Don't put the house into his name either.
If the house is in his name they could remove goods but only if they were let in.

You say he isn't a bad lad but he's let this debt build up and he's not bothered about it, have you told him your concerned about these letters, drop a few hints some bailiffs (tattoos, big guys)have come round asking for him.

alfmurph

Our conscience got the better of us and phoned the company ready to pay the £56 .
They told me they could not take the money as the account holder was not there to verify the payment . So taking you guy’s advice I will forget about it .
They had their chance .

Neil49

So where are you going to live when you get thrown out of a house that you have no entitlement to live in? What if he gets married, has a family and then says that you have to get out because they need the space. 

He may have given you a garden centre voucher for Father's Day but he will get the garden from you as well! 

Get expert legal advice before even mentioning it to him.