Serious trouble

kizzywizzy6

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  Hello i hope you can help me please as i am in quite a desperate situation.
  
  
  My husband and i have about £33,000 worth of unsecured debts and we took out a DMP with stepchange about 6,5 years ago paying about £500 a month.  1.5 years into our plan we sold our house and moved to France to buy a bar/restaurant business and continued to pay our monthly payments to Stepchange.  Unfortunately about 3 years ago the business failed and it went into liquidation and we lost all our investment and home.  We were left with no money and nowhere to live so we were put on french benefits and moved into social housing here in France.  With very little money to live off we started to miss payments on our DMP and eventually Stepchange cancelled our DMP.  Fooliishy we decided to bury our head in the sand and we have not made any payments for about 3 years to our creditors.  In hindsight it would have been better to pay off our debts with the proceeds of our house sale in England and sought advice when we got into trouble with our DMP but it is too late now and we have had the most awful time in France losing everything we own and our commune treating us like second class citizens because we failed in our business and their little bar has had to close.
  
  
  Things are not getting any easier in France.  We can barely afford to survive on what we receive and there are no jobs and we have no money to set up another business.  Our children have had to go without.
  
  
  We feel that the only option is to return to the UK to find work and try and sort our situation out.  We have been offered to stay in our friends house but will have very little money to live on until we find jobs.  We intend on signing up with recruitment agencies as soon as we arrive.  We cannot apply for universal credit until we have been in the UK for 3 months.
  
  
  I haven't looked our credit reports as i am scared to but i know they will be bad.  We owed to 6 or 7 creditors but i can't remember who they are even.
  
  
  I just don't know where to turn now.  We are moving in about 4-5 weeks time and i am worried about bailiffs knocking on our door.  I have multiple sclerosis which is getting worse because of the stress.  I know we should never have got ourselves in this situation in the first place and i am worried we will get into trouble on our return to the UK.  I am so desperate i see no wsy out and at the moment feel suicidal but i have got 2 gorgeous kids who need their mum.  I just don't know what to do

fatbelly

There will be no bailiffs. For starters all bailiff activity is suspended and I believe this has now been extended to August.

Secondly, you can only instruct a bailiff on the back of a defaulted court order, and it is unlikely that there are any court judgements on  your debts.

I am assuming the debts in your failed dmp were the usual consumer credit debts: loans, credit cards, catalogues. What happens to these is that they get sold on, and on, for increasingly small amounts. Eventually they get written off. 

Now this wouldn't normally happen in a 3-year time frame, as they have six years (from when a defaulted debt was last acknowledged by you) to pursue this. But the move abroad will have changed things.

So in conclusion, come back to the UK and start to rebuild your lives and, if you ever get a letter from anyone about your debts, post again here for advice. You don't need to be checking credit reports or to be giving credit reference agencies any information at the moment. 

As a little anecdote, a family member left the UK to live permanently in Spain. She took out a large loan with a High Street bank and continued to service it. After a couple of years things went pear-shaped, she stopped paying the loan and eventually moved back with nothing. She never heard anything from the bank either before or after the debt went statute barred.

Kakiste

If you don't remember who the creditors were then I would leave it and see if they contact you. If They do then great, you'll know who you owe money to and how much. If They don't then within 3 years the debts will be statute barred and no creditor would be able to compel you to pay them.
Provided you keep checking the post then you should be fine, I doubt anyone will launch straight into bailiffs as a first action once they realise you're back in the UK. They're far more likely to start with a letter asking for payment. 
Hopefully this helps you calm down.

Andyjflet

Or stay in France for a few more years, then when you come back you know the 6 years has elapsed, they couldn't find you 

RAS

If you are coming back to the UK, check all the banking groups that now exist. You'll need to set up your UK bank account with one with which you don't have any debt, or they could offset. And you may be wise to start with a basic account first, although some don't offer contactless cards.

Employment isn't going to be easy to find given the current economic climate. Maybe best if one of you comes over and gets work before the others follow?

sourcrates

Fatbelly, as always, hits the nail squarely on the head, about your situation, no one will be looking for you, or actually care, i suspect the debts will be well lost in the rabbit warren that are debt purchasing companies, they only pursue accounts that respond to there threat letters mostly, if your on the system as moved abroad, they will just move on to the next, and so on.

Thats how debt collection works, most old/failed debts never get repaid.

joshiesaunt

In France you have secure housing and benefits.  In the U.K. you won’t have secure housing and may need to wait to claim benefits. Personally, I’d stay in France for a while longer - the jobs situation in the U.K. is dire and getting worse.

Galloglass

Or stay in France for a few more years, then when you come back you know the 6 years has elapsed, they couldn't find you 

What happens after 30/12/2020 when it becomes a 90 in 180 days Schengen area? There is also the issue both sides of the channel as to entitlement to benefits when UK citizens become 3rd country. Same will apply to EU citizens in this country who have no settled status. 

Best check your situation.

enthusiasticsaver

Bailiffs wont be knocking on doors.  They wont even know where you are so I would focus on getting straight first with a home in the UK and jobs. As someone else said do not open an account with a bank you owed money to as many of them blacklist you for more than 6 years.  I am not sure the situation in the UK will be any better than France though as you wont walk straight into a job  probably and you wont be eligible for any benefits.  If you are on benefits and have a home in France I do wonder whether you would be better staying there for now.