Unfair default

Tylewcha

Hopefully this is in the right section of the forum!

My credit is fine, but as we’re looking to buy our first home, turns out my partner has a historical default against his name and I wanted to ask what we should do about it. He was 18/19 at the time and it was his mum who actually dealt with it, but she’s not well enough for us to start asking what she did about it at the time.

Almost 6 years ago my partner bought a car for about £9k from a garage, using a Barclays Hire Purchase plan. He paid it fine but within 3/4 months, the engine died. He spent £1k to fix it, but then another issue occurred, costing £2k as it was specialist. He asked the garage to take it back but they refused, and he asked Barclays to help as it was clearly a non-user failing, but they refused. Eventually he got Barclays to take the car instead because of the circumstances of it not being fit for purpose, and they told him that would be the end of the matter with no further money owed.

Instead, they then demanded he give them £5k and then put a default against his name in July 2015. This debt has been bought by Hoist (a few years ago) and they’ve contacted him again asking for a payment plan. It was apparently ‘updated’ in January 2020.

We’ve emailed Hoist this same contention of the debt, acknowledging they only bought the account, and requesting they remove the default (although I’m sure it came from Barclays) before we’ll talk payment of any alleged debt. We’ve sent the same email to Barclays too, although I’m sure they’ll refute responsibility despite it being them who said no money was owed and them likely adding the default. In both emails we’ve said we’ll seek Financial Ombudsman involvement if they don’t rectify it asap.

Is there anything else we could do? Any services or help we could ask for? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

ThisnotThat

There is nothing wrong with the default here.  Your partner didn't pay back what they borrowed, and as a result defaulted on their agreement.

Cars do break down.  Unless there is evidence that it was a lemon from day one then Barclays can't be held responsible for it and neither can the seller.

If the default was registered in July 2015 I'm not sure why you're expending any energy on this.  It'll vanish from his file in just over a month at most.

Tylewcha

ThisnotThat said:

There is nothing wrong with the default here.  Your partner didn't pay back what they borrowed, and as a result defaulted on their agreement.

Cars do break down.  Unless there is evidence that it was a lemon from day one then Barclays can't be held responsible for it and neither can the seller.

If the default was registered in July 2015 I'm not sure why you're expending any energy on this.  It'll vanish from his file in just over a month at most.

I get what you’re saying but the issue is that they took the car and said that was the end of the matter, then later added the default, and did that without first saying there was remaining debt, so he had no chance to rectify it anyway. I’m trying to find out the timescales of that but if you’re told there’s no further debt surely you’d be unhappy if a default is put on your file after that? I agree that Barclays shouldn’t have been held responsible but the garage for a faulty product if anything, but I didn’t know him then to chase this and redirect their energy.

Is it 6 years to the day? The issue is because we’re trying to buy a house now and I’m worried about leaving it too late as we need to be there for mid-September.

ThisnotThat

Tylewcha said:

ThisnotThat said:

There is nothing wrong with the default here.  Your partner didn't pay back what they borrowed, and as a result defaulted on their agreement.

Cars do break down.  Unless there is evidence that it was a lemon from day one then Barclays can't be held responsible for it and neither can the seller.

If the default was registered in July 2015 I'm not sure why you're expending any energy on this.  It'll vanish from his file in just over a month at most.

I get what you’re saying but the issue is that they took the car and said that was the end of the matter, then later added the default, and did that without first saying there was remaining debt, so he had no chance to rectify it anyway. I’m trying to find out the timescales of that but if you’re told there’s no further debt surely you’d be unhappy if a default is put on your file after that? I agree that Barclays shouldn’t have been held responsible but the garage for a faulty product if anything, but I didn’t know him then to chase this and redirect their energy.

Is it 6 years to the day? The issue is because we’re trying to buy a house now and I’m worried about leaving it too late as we need to be there for mid-September.

It would be 6 years to the day, yes.

Ultimately the problem you have is that you have no evidence of what was agreed, and you have a third party who "dealt with it" in the mix who is currently non-compus mentis/uncontactable/whatever.  You just don't know what was said or agreed.

I wouldn't bother faffing around with the FOS.  It'll take months to a year, easily, for them to deal with this.  And at that point it'll have dropped off anyway.

Thrugelmir

Tylewcha said:

Eventually he got Barclays to take the car instead because of the circumstances of it not being fit for purpose, and they told him that would be the end of the matter with no further money owed.

If that was the case where's the documentary evidence? Or was this what your partners mother said? 

adamp87

What you need to do is find what evidence you have and lodge a formal complaint with Barclays if you believe or of this to be the case. You could always request a SAR (subject-access-request) with Barclays to see what information they have too.

ThisnotThat is right in it will drop of the file in a year but the debt will still be owed so it doesn't really solve the problem. So if you don't get anywhere with Barclays you can take it further even if it will take time.

The issue you will have is in proving this however, and without the proof your complaint will struggle to succeed to be honest, because on the face of it a default will be correct unfortunately. 

ThisnotThat

adamp87 said:

What you need to do is find what evidence you have and lodge a formal complaint with Barclays if you believe or of this to be the case. You could always request a SAR (subject-access-request) with Barclays to see what information they have too.

ThisnotThat is right in it will drop of the file in a year but the debt will still be owed so it doesn't really solve the problem. So if you don't get anywhere with Barclays you can take it further even if it will take time.

The issue you will have is in proving this however, and without the proof your complaint will struggle to succeed to be honest, because on the face of it a default will be correct unfortunately. 

Not a year, a month.

The OP wants a mortgage, there is little point fighting a default when there is no chance at all it will be removed before it drops off.

And there is no point dragging up a historic default that isn't being pursued.  It'll probably be statute barred on or before the same date,

sourcrates

Basically this should have been dealt with more robustly at the time, waiting almost six years, then complaining, is not an ideal situation.

A formal, written complaint should have been made when the car first developed problems, I'm suspecting it was a Barclays call handler that told you the matter was settled, am I right ?

Did you/he ever receive a letter confirming what the call handler told you ?

I suspect not, as these kind of decisions are taken at a much higher level than a call handlers pay grade, they will either have stated what their screen told them, or most probably made it up.

You have legal rights for up to 6 years (5 years if you bought the car in Scotland), but only if you can show that you didn’t cause the fault. The longer you’ve had the car, the harder it will be to prove that the problem was there when the trader sold it to you.

You could argue liability on the basis of what Barclays told you, but there is another twist to this tale, if no payment or written acknowledgement has been made to this debt in the last 6 years, it will be statute barred now.

So once the default drops off his file, that will be the end of the matter.

MEM62

Tylewcha said:

He was 18/19 at the time and it was his mum who actually dealt with it, but she’s not well enough for us to start asking what she did about it at the time.

Just a thought.   

He was already an adult at the time but left his mum to deal with it.  Now he is in his mid-twenties and apparently leaving you to look for a solution.  At some point he really needs to start looking after his own affairs.