Legality of selling on debts

[Rollcage]

Originally Posted by SapperGB

HOWEVER - just because your friend has chosen to ignore the creditors attempts does not constitute no contact, a court will rarely uphold the debt as statute barred if the creditor can prove that reasonable attempts to contact the debtor have been made, which they can quite easily do. A court will issue an order under these circumstances even if the debt is 30 years old.

Sorry, I don't believe that to be the case. The criteria are either payment or written contact signed by the debtor within six years of default. It certainly isn't contact by either party. The creditor has to prove that the debtor has contacted them and acknowledged the debt, not the other way round. The contact has to be initiated, and acknowledged in writing to count as "contact".

There are, in theory, all sorts of things that can prevent a debt becoming Statute Barred under the Limitations Act, but in practice they rarely, if ever happen.

What "Order" do you mean? A CCJ? If a CCJ was obtained by the creditor with the six year period, then the Statute of Limitations will NOT apply and the debt is still recoverable, even if more than six years old.

Of course, (unless you live in Scotland, where the situation is very different) a statute barred debt is still legally a debt - it's just not able to be collected.

[paicey]

Unless your a country and they wipe out billions. Would love to see the EU baillifs go into Greece lol

[Canonite]

Originally Posted by paicey

Unless your a country and they wipe out billions. Would love to see the EU baillifs go into Greece lol

Yeah, hosting the Olympics did Greece the world of good didn't it. Building stadiums everywhere and a high speed rail network.....oh hang on...

[Westonboy]

I know from the recent experience of acting for a close family member, I negotiated a final settlement of 30% of the original debt, they snatched my hand off. am now chasing the bank for miss selling insurance on the loans

[baconbuttyman]

Also when a debt is "sold" on, the original debtor MUST remove any record of the debt on a persons credit file allowing the purchaser of that debt to record notice of that debt in their name, if 2 records of 1 debt are registered against a person on a credit file then that is unlawful.
The original owner of the debt can then be sue'd for defamation of character.... i know this as i have done it several times for other people

[Zeb]

Best advice for the Op's friend is to go visit the CAB who will give him the all the correct information he needs. In the meantime he should not make contact with the creditors until he is absolutely sure of his position.

Btw. What is legal and what is moral in regards to the repayment and recovery of debts are two wholly different things....

[shadowfax]

Originally Posted by Canonite

Yeah, hosting the Olympics did Greece the world of good didn't it. Building stadiums everywhere and a high speed rail network.....oh hang on...

Hehe - Nice comment

[Camulus]

Thanks for the input, I'll pass the info on. Although, to be honest, I don't think he'll pay too much attention as he also mentioned that he's going to try and get back PPI on a credit card and loan he had - both of which he defaulted on and are part of his original question about selling debts on!

[kissifer1972]

Originally Posted by Canonite

A debt wont go away, it'll just be sold on again.
People are easy to find these days. His best option is to contact the creditor and negotiate a full and final settlement with them in writing. Basically a 5yr old debt of £500 will have been sold to a DCA for a much lower price say £350.
Your friend may well discover they will offer settlement for that cost price, so he'd end up repaying much less than he borrowed anyway.

Ignoring it is foolish and very very damaging.

As someone who used to work in Debt Recovery, I would suggest the figure of £350 as a purchase price for a £500 debt is probably grossly inflated in cases such as these.

It is likely they will have bought the debt at somewhere around 20p in the pound, so offering say 30% of the balance they quote as being owed could well receive a favourable reply. It's always worth a try.

But as others have said I would never just do an Ostrich impression, the pressure the workers at these companies are under to collect the debt is immense, they can't let it go, especially in today's job market. I'm glad I got out of it.

Chris

[MN190]

Lots of info and help here

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...Debt-subforums