Duty of care

Fatdog1867

When a new credit card application is made what is the companies duty of care? I am going through my Mother's estate and have found she had several credit cards, her latest current one was issued even though she had 16K of debt with collection agencies, including a court order securing debt against her house on her death. It is almost as if they are happy as long as you can make the minimum payments and have a property they can claim against after your death.

DullGreyGuy

Easiest to just read the Financial Ombudsman's guidance:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/consumer-credit/unaffordable-lending 

Brie

The level of debt may have been immaterial if the CC company determined that she had sufficient income.  That said it might be an good idea to get a subject access request so you can see what was asked when she applied for the cards.

born_again

Fatdog1867 said:

When a new credit card application is made what is the companies duty of care? I am going through my Mother's estate and have found she had several credit cards, her latest current one was issued even though she had 16K of debt with collection agencies, including a court order securing debt against her house on her death. It is almost as if they are happy as long as you can make the minimum payments and have a property they can claim against after your death.

She must have at least known & possibly agreed to that.

eskbanker

Brie said:

...it might be an good idea to get a subject access request...

The Data Protection Act only covers living individuals....

DullGreyGuy

Brie said:
That said it might be a good idea to get a subject access request so you can see what was asked when she applied for the cards.

Do seances offer that service? Not sure how the Data Subject can submit a Data Subject Access Request when they are deceased? The whole point of a DSAR is its the person that the data is about is requesting to have access to the data.

Secondly, as pointed out above, data protection laws only apply to living people and so even if the medium is willing to try it doesn't apply.

twopenny

I do remember this happening prior to the cc companies being told to pull their tactics so some time ago.

An elderly gent took every one he was offered and the debt went beyond the sale of the property - but they couldn't persue it further than his personal assetts.

Horrible time to add to your burden but it's worth some investigation. Should they have a claim on the property then they must have to prove consent so the first step might be to contact them, say you are the executor and need that proof for probate.

Depending on their answer you know where to go from there.

Meantime make some enquiries into the legality. It may not change things but it equally may.

eskbanker

twopenny said:

Should they have a claim on the property then they must have to prove consent so the first step might be to contact them, say you are the executor and need that proof for probate.

Depending on their answer you know where to go from there.

Meantime make some enquiries into the legality. It may not change things but it equally may.

But surely the court order securing some debt against the property when she was alive must be assumed to have followed due process, and any other debts outstanding at the time of her death will be claims against the estate rather than the property itself as such? 

born_again

If there is a court order securing a debt on the house than they will be settled by solicitor on sale of house.