Sister standing guarantor for multiple loans

macman

A_Lert said:

As far as practical things for you to do:

Do not be surprised if one morning you're woken up by bailiffs banging on the door. If your sister has been ignoring the debts and hiding them from you she could easily have a court judgement against her, either already or in the future, without your knowledge.

For that scenario, make sure you have documents to prove you own anything you own. Especially cars, jewellery, consumer electronics, and anything else of high value. Bailiffs assume anything in the house belongs to the debtor unless someone else can prove otherwise. It's unfair but that's the law.

(Do not participate in any kind of schemes to hide assets that your sister does own.)

Since bailiffs have no right of forced entry into residential property, all that is required is to refuse them access, should they appear. All they can then seize would be a car, if not on finance.

Pollycat

macman said:

Since bailiffs have no right of forced entry into residential property, all that is required is to refuse them access, should they appear. All they can then seize would be a car, if not on finance.

Easy to say but from what the OP has said about his sister's mental health and her willingness to be helpful, she may not refuse entry to bailiffs - if it should come to that.

Even if the OP advises her not to.

The OP had a discussion about existing guarantor loans and 3 months after that, she had stood as guarantor again.

Hectors_House

RAS said:

Hi
Someone has already suggested on your other thread that you try to get your sister to register with CIFAS. That would mean that extra checks were made before she was able to take a loan or guarantee one. Suggest you go back over there and read the link.

Thanks RAS. I saw that and will look further into it. 👍

Hectors_House

Pollycat said:

Hectors_House said:

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far and thank you Pollycat for linking to my other post.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

Thank you Elsien for pointing out things I’d not thought about too.

Ive spoken to her today and it’s hard to bring it up cus she gets very anxious. She’s apologised and promised not to do it again but told me the majority of the loans came about because the daughter kept topping up her loan when they gave her the chance. I pointed out to her that she should have said no the first time this happened.

I’m now waiting to hear back from Guarantormyloan to confirm she has been taken off because the letter is a little unclear. We have yet to hear back from Amigo Loans.

As to her lying about not already being a guarantor that conversation can wait until I see her again. The fact that she was already was put in the Letter of Complaint that was sent to them. I suspect they realised that her situation could be a minefield for them if they forced her to take her complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

Again, thanks to everyone for their advise.

Is this actually allowed (legally)?

I'd have thought (possibly naively) that if I'd agreed to be a guarantor for someone for a purchase of say £1,000 then that would have been the limit of my liability because I'd have assumed (maybe wrongly) that I would have signed up for a specific amount. Not a forever increasing amount without being asked if I consented to taking on further liability.

e.g. I might have agreed to be a guarantor for my (non-existent son) to buy a pushbike but he might have just kept increasing the amount of the loan to buy a Porsche.)

Or was your sister asked to increase her liability as the lender wanted to increase the amount of her loan and your sister agreed to it and signed to that effect.

Does this loan company have your sister's signed agreement to the full amount of all the loans she's allegedly guarantor for?

Poor lady. Not a nice situation to be in when you're already suffering from mental (and physical) illness.

Hi Pollycat. Yes, when the borrower pays down so much of the loan the lender contacts them offering to top it up.

The borrower has to ask their guarantor to back it or it can’t be done.

My sis thought these people were her friends so went ahead and agreed several times for small loans until this women borrowed £4,500 - knowing she couldn’t afford it and started to default almost straight away.

It tells you something about the situation when, despite both me and her Father telling her she had put the house at risk she still went ahead when this women promised her she would never miss a payment and told her her house wouldn’t be at risk. That’s probably what got her off with that one.

Hectors_House

Pollycat said:

macman said:

Since bailiffs have no right of forced entry into residential property, all that is required is to refuse them access, should they appear. All they can then seize would be a car, if not on finance.

Easy to say but from what the OP has said about his sister's mental health and her willingness to be helpful, she may not refuse entry to bailiffs - if it should come to that.

Even if the OP advises her not to.

The OP had a discussion about existing guarantor loans and 3 months after that, she had stood as guarantor again.

Yes, this is my fear. 

As you point out above I don’t live at the house but it is full of my possessions - things I bought many decades ago that I no longer have receipts for.

I spent the November lockdown back there to help get on top of the ongoing hoarding situation and get the house clean (she doesn’t clean and won’t let me sort out a cleaner).

I spent the entire month sorting things out and trying to find proof of ownership of things.

I only found out about the latest loan because I found a letter from a solicitor she had ignored and it was a demand for nearly £10,000 within thirty days. This was the loan she took out AFTER  we tried to get her to understand the enormity of what she had done. I had told her that bailiffs would have to clear the house out to cover the other woman’s loan if she defaulted (it’s a Mother and Daughter she has stood guarantor for).

Latest news is she is definitely off the daughter’s loan at Guarantormyloan. Amigo Loans are fighting to stay afloat from what I can tell and contacted us a couple of days ago to say they are still assessing the Letter of Complaint.

Pollycat

Hectors_House said:

Hi Pollycat. Yes, when the borrower pays down so much of the loan the lender contacts them offering to top it up.

The borrower has to ask their guarantor to back it or it can’t be done.

My sis thought these people were her friends so went ahead and agreed several times for small loans until this women borrowed £4,500 - knowing she couldn’t afford it and started to default almost straight away.

It tells you something about the situation when, despite both me and her Father telling her she had put the house at risk she still went ahead when this women promised her she would never miss a payment and told her her house wouldn’t be at risk. That’s probably what got her off with that one.

Hi HH

Thanks for clarifying that your sister did actually agree to the top-ups to the existing loans.

Re the payment demand for £10k within 30 days - has that demand been put on hold as a result of your complaint to Amigo?

Hectors_House

Pollycat said:

Hectors_House said:

Hi Pollycat. Yes, when the borrower pays down so much of the loan the lender contacts them offering to top it up.

The borrower has to ask their guarantor to back it or it can’t be done.

My sis thought these people were her friends so went ahead and agreed several times for small loans until this women borrowed £4,500 - knowing she couldn’t afford it and started to default almost straight away.

It tells you something about the situation when, despite both me and her Father telling her she had put the house at risk she still went ahead when this women promised her she would never miss a payment and told her her house wouldn’t be at risk. That’s probably what got her off with that one.

Hi HH

Thanks for clarifying that your sister did actually agree to the top-ups to the existing loans.

Re the payment demand for £10k within 30 days - has that demand been put on hold as a result of your complaint to Amigo?

Hi Pollycat,

yes, thankfully it has.

Again the letter was ignored so I didn’t respond to it until twenty days after it arrived.

It was this letter that showed she had stood guarantor repeatedly for the sane woman. I think the lender started to get suspicious cus, during the last application (the £4,500) they asked her is she was currently standing guarantor for anything else and she said she wasn’t (even though she was guarantor on this ladies Mother’s loan elsewhere for £10,000).

When I next can get up there to see her I will be telling her that she potentially committed fraud. Hopefully by then we will have her off that loan as well.