Debt and illness

InstaPlan

Hello all, 
I am looking on advice on how solicitors should deal with someone who told them about pre-existing medical conditions. 

Basically I took a loan out with my bank, have taken out loans before and paid back. The loan I ended up falling on was a £30000 loan, I made repayments for over a year and then life went down hill. I lost a lot of money and couldn’t keep up with my repayments. 

My medical condition is from before and includes a brain bleed, tumour, seizures and surgery. This is thankfully under control. However has no doubt affected how I react when things go wrong and then the calls, emails and letters from creditors and then solicitor start coming through. 

I have read that there’s lots of help for people with mental health issues and creditors have a code of conduct that they should adhere to I’ve not read anything about specific physical brain or neurological conditions.

I have offered the solicitor £50 per month, and suggested that would like to overpay when I can, and then we reassess after 6 months. My plan isn’t to pay off a £22000 balance with £50 monthly instalments for decades. I’m just looking to be given the opportunity to be able get some breathing space and then increase the minimum payments while I can and hoping that my none promised overpayments will also help reduce my amount owed. 

My main complaint is that having mentioned my condition to the solicitor they themselves haven’t asked for any information and don’t seem to be making any adjustment. They just replied that they would still be seeking legal action in form of ccj and potential charging order. When I complained they raised it with the bank. The bank refused the complaint, saying they had no information about my condition. Which is true. My issue is it’s the solicitor dealing with my account and it’s them I’ve informed about my condition. Should they be doing anything eg asking for evidence or asking for a letter from my gp/neurologist ? 

sourcrates

Hi,

Is the loan secured, or unsecured, if secured, I assume you are a homeowner?

Which bank and which solicitor are we talking about here?

Its OK to name them, you are anonymous on here.

The bank still own the debt, the solicitor is simply acting on their instruction, so you need to be speaking to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

Have you filled in and sent them a mental health evidence form detailing your condition, and how it affects you?
I suspect not which is why you are getting the hassle you are getting.

A CCJ is nothing to worry about as long as the payments are maintained, and the same budgeting criteria you gave the bank, would also apply to the court, I suspect as its 30k you owe them, they want to secure that debt by way of a charging order, which again, won`t be an issue as long as you keep up with the payments.

Grumpelstiltskin

OK Slow down,, is this your only debt? How is a solicitor involved? Has there been a CCJ ?

Basically you should stop paying any unsecured debts if you can't afford to pay them.

fatbelly

You say that this is a loan from 'my bank'. I hope that is 'my former bank'. You do not want to be banking where you have debts because of the right of setoff

Do you believe that the loan was unaffordable when you took it out? You say your health issues are'from before'. If so, then there is a complaint process that we can guide you through.

Is it just that you want them to accept a £50 plan without taking court action? That is going to be more tricky but a starting point would be to evidence your situation and show that they would not get a higher instalment from court action. The problem would seem to be that you have a property with equity. Is it solely owned?

InstaPlan

sourcrates said:

Hi,

Is the loan secured, or unsecured, if secured, I assume you are a homeowner?

Which bank and which solicitor are we talking about here?

Its OK to name them, you are anonymous on here.

The bank still own the debt, the solicitor is simply acting on their instruction, so you need to be speaking to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

Have you filled in and sent them a mental health evidence form detailing your condition, and how it affects you?
I suspect not which is why you are getting the hassle you are getting.

A CCJ is nothing to worry about as long as the payments are maintained, and the same budgeting criteria you gave the bank, would also apply to the court, I suspect as its 30k you owe them, they want to secure that debt by way of a charging order, which again, won`t be an issue as long as you keep up with the payments.

Hi, I tried phoning the bank after the account was passed to the solicitor because on the solicitor’s letter before claim it said I should contact the bank to try and come to a resolution. They also asked for payment to them and to make a payment plan to them. So the letter made both options a possibility. 

The bank said they no longer have the account. So couldn’t help me. I complained about this to the solicitor and they raised it with the bank and today I received an email from the bank rejecting my complaint basically saying the account is with the solicitor and they followed all due process. 

I do have a different bank account so no issue with money being taken out of my account.