Being sued by RBS

Yorkmackem

Could do with a bit of advice please.

I owed RBS just over £15k in respect of personal loans / overdraft on my current account and having got into financial difficulties, ended up on a CCCS debt mangement scheme with debts of £30k overall. I have no assets and little or no equity. Married, 3 kids, you get the picture.

Every other creditor had accepted the repayment proposals and things were ticking along nicely....until RBS then demanded payment of their debt immediately and all in one go, which was obivously impossible. They have categrically stated that they will accept no instalment payments of any kind.

Upshot is that proceedings have now been issued for the full £15k out of Northampton CC. I originally filed a defence claiming abuse of process and also claiming a "trade off" of any penalty charges included within the £15k (of which there is a fair proportion).

This has led to the filing of "Allocation Questionnaires" and the RBS solicitors (Shoosmiths) have indicated an overall costs estimate of £10k !

Clearly any reduction I get in the claim would be offset by Shoosmiths' costs so I've offered to accept the full amount claimed, rather than proceed with the Court action. Shoosmiths have now forwarded a "Consent Order", however this still insists on immediate repayment in full (but makes no order as to costs, which is at least something).

But - I've also been informed that any breach of the judgment (which would be inevitable) will result in an immediate application for a charging order upon my house. I don't think they're entitled to this as the house is jointly owned by me and my wife and the debt is in my name only. It would also prejudice the remainder of my creditors in my view and put RBS at an unfair advantage.

So my options appear to be :

1. Sign the order, let them proceed with the application for the charging order and attempt to persuade the Court to refuse it ;

2. Withdraw the defence, admit the full amount and ask the Court to list for a hearing to determine what I can afford (dunno if this would be possible without TP sols consent)

3. Proceed with the action, go to a final hearing, argue that the proceedings were unreasonable in the first place and hope that the Court makes a costs order against Shoosmiths.

Any advice would be appreciated as I'm really tearing my hair out over this and just want to get it over with.

Cheers
YM

Yorkmackem

Bumped....sorry

Bismarck

have you been back to CCCS since your initial DMP set up?

louietudor

dont know if this helps but this was posted earlier today

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=980551&highlight=Shoosmiths%27