Starman UE Diary

[starman]

Hi all,

My wife and I have been in debt to numerous credit cards for some years. We have a DMP set up with PayPlan and have continued to make monthly payments without fail since Jan 2020.

Unfortunately the size of the debt means if we continue at the current rate the estimated completion date is 2046!

At the time, the credit facilities offered by these credit cards were far too high for our affordability, which along with a failed business and not the best money management helped create a snowball effect which left us with this huge debt.

We have a joint mortgage with 23 years odd to go and a LTV of under 50%.

Owing to the defaults on our credit report, mortgaging or moving at this time isn't an option as we would be declined. The defaults start to fall off in two years (Apr 2023) so we want to start planning now for the future.

I will list my debts in this thread and make a separate one for my wife.

[starman]

Type of account Credit Card - Barclaycard
Date commenced Mar-15
Approx balance £13,400
Date last paid May-21
Are you on arrangement or not Stopped paying DMP May 21
Status Default - April 2017
Account owner PRA Group - Aug 2019

22/04/21 - CCA request sent via 2nd Class Sign For, including £1 postal order
27/04/21 - Letter received dated 23/04/21 acknowledging CCA request and informing they are requesting the "required information". They state they don't charge for this and have returned the postal order.

[starman]

Type of account Credit Card - Santander
Date commenced Jul-14
Approx balance £4,800
Date last paid May-21
Are you on arrangement or not Stopped paying DMP May 21
Status Default - Jan 2018
Account owner Santander collected by Wescot - Aug 2019

22/04/21 - CCA request sent via 2nd Class Sign For, including £1 postal order
30/04/21 - Letter received dated 29/04/21 acknowledging CCA request and "will be in touch in due course" Returned the £1 PO as "our client no longer requires payment for CCA requests".
07/05/21 - Letter received dated 01/05/21 stating they are investigating and payments still need to be made on the balance etc. They say it may take several weeks.
25/05/21 - Letter received dated 21/05/21 - Statement from Santander with cover letter from Wescot stating that Santander have been unable to provide an original or reconstituted copy of the agreement - UNENFORCEABLE

[starman]

Is it suggested that the first action is to send the creditors the CCA Request (s.77, s.78, s.79) making sure to include the £1 postal order?

Thanks

[The Tech Clerk]

do not send CCA request yet, less time they have the better sure PlanB will advise soon, by the way duplicate posting???

[starman]

Hi,

I've made two threads as one is my credit card debts and the other is my wifes. Happy to combine them, but thought I read on another members diary it's best to keep them separate?

[PlanB]

At the time, the credit facilities offered by these credit cards were far too high for our affordability, which along with a failed business and not the best money management helped create a snowball effect which left us with this huge debt.

We have a joint mortgage with 23 years odd to go and a LTV of under 50%.

. . . The defaults start to fall off in two years (Apr 2023 .

Hello, and pleased to meet you

The good news is your mortgage is less than 50% LTV so you have equity - you need to hang on to that! Your mortgage should remain your priority (who is the lender?).

From what you say all of these debts have been defaulted meaning your credit file will be rid of the negative impact in a couple of years.

I think you are still paying your DMP with PayPlan which at least gives you some peace and quiet while you reassess the situation. What you want to know is whether any of these debts have the potential to be unenforceable.

Can you say when (what year) the debts were assigned/sold to the debt purchasers as the more distanced they are from the original lender the less likely the new owner may be able to retrieve documentation since they don't automatically have the right to access it depending on what was agreed in the Deed of Sale?

Di

[starman]

Hi Di,

Thanks for replying.

Mortgage is with Nationwide and we recently fixed the rate for 5 years, so selling the property we would incur ERCs.

Barclaycard was sold Aug 2019 to PRA Group.

The Santander debt is being collected by Wescot, no mention of them on my credit file so I think that the debt is still owned by Santander. It was around Aug 2019 that Wescot starting collecting.

I'll reply on my wife's thread in relation to her debts.

Thanks

[The Tech Clerk]

Hi,

I've made two threads as one is my credit card debts and the other is my wifes. Happy to combine them, but thought I read on another members diary it's best to keep them separate?

OK! one thread your wife one thread your own so that is OK no mix ups

[PlanB]

Hi Di,

Thanks for replying.

Mortgage is with Nationwide and we recently fixed the rate for 5 years, so selling the property we would incur ERCs.

That sounds like an 'internal remortgage' where you redeem the original loan and replace it with a substitute one with the same lender - is that what happened?

At the time you had defaults on your CRA file but it appears Nationwide weren't perturbed by this, perhaps because they wanted to lock you into a 5 year fixed rate on a property with over 50% equity so low risk to them.

It's good that they didn't ask you to extend the mortgage or take a further advance to specifically pay off your other outstanding debts because that's often a condition. It's particularly good because that would mean if any of them eventually turn out to be unenforceable there would be 'no going back' once you’d paid them off.

Di

[starman]

We've had the mortgage for 7 years and always been with Nationwide, initially it was a tracker for 2 years, but now as the rates are low we thought it's a good idea to fix for 5 years. To be honest, I can't remember even filling out an affordability form, we assumed that as we were staying with the same lender they don't even look at the credit report.

We did try and free some of the equity, but they declined us.

[PlanB]

We did try and free some of the equity, but they declined us.

Which may turn out to be a good thing if any of your debts turn out to be unenforceable as per my last post.

If they declined your request for a further advance or a remortgage to release equity, then I would expect them to have searched your credit file at the time.

If they did it'll show on your file under 'Searches' but this forum discourages members from searching their CRA files as this can trigger contact from creditors/debt purchasers who share access to the software.

Di

[starman]

Received first letter back from PRA Group.

They are holding the collections until they can find the information.

Sent back the £1 PO as they don't charge for the service

Included a generic fact sheet with the heading "Requested Information about your original credit agreement?" which states the following:

Please note that PRA will, in many cases, have to refer to the original creditor to request copies of original documentation which can take longer than 12 days to fulfil.

[The Tech Clerk]

well after 12 days they know not enforceable, long may they keep looking!

[Warwick65]

Received first letter back from PRA Group.

They are holding the collections until they can find the information.

Sent back the £1 PO as they don't charge for the service

Included a generic fact sheet with the heading "Requested Information about your original credit agreement?" which states the following:

That is good news and hopefully it will be the last you hear of it. I don't won't to put a downer on your hope but if they produce, even in a year, that would make it enforceable. It might be that after owning the debt for over a year, Barclaycard will have no incentive to go looking for the agreement.