I've been paying Moorcroft and Westcroft a nominal amount of money for two debts I defaulted on sixt-ish years ago. I posted previously here about something else and got the impression I was being an idiot to have paid them anything. I was pregnant at the time and couldn't deal with the stress of stopping and then coming after me so I left it. However, -a year or two down the line and I'm wondering if I should continue to pay them. If not, what should I do? Make a settlement offer? I'm completely clueless. I will be buying a house next year so am slightly scared of upsetting the apple cart when they've pretty much left me alone. I know they can't default me as you can only be defaulted for a debt once but I also don't trust them and worry about what they will do. Thank you for any advice.

Thanks for such a quick response. I will look into CCAs. I currently pay a small amount to two debt collection agencies via direct debit. They occasionally send me settlement offers which I have ignored having never been in the position to satisfy them before. They haven't got in touch with me a couple of years now and I've just kept paying the agreed amount (£12 and £20). Can they take any action to try to recover more from me once the six years are up? I am keen to eventually settle the debt with them and would likely be in a position once being on the poperty ladder as due to the area we live in, any mortgage is likely to be £400-£600 cheaper than our rent is per month. I'm definitely looking forward to the improved report!

Hi all and thanks in advance for your help. I defaulted on some debt after losing my job. The defaults were for a credit card and a loan and were in June 2011 and July 2011. Am I right to think that these will fall off my credit file automatically shortly after June and July 2017? Or will they stay on but just show the last six years of credit history associated with them? In the meantime I have managed to maintain and pay credit that has appeared on my credit reports as well. These include a Barclays credit card, a Lloyds credit card and an O2 phone agreement. The minimum payment for each of these has been made each month (other than three occasions in 2014 where there were late payments) and often much more than the minimum payment has been made (e.g £400 instead of £30). The Lloyds credit card has now been paid off in full and I have no intention of using it again but I have kept it open. My remaining credit card has a limit which is being raised to £4500 some time this month (by the bank not at my request) with a balance of about £200 which I am planning to clear on payday at the end of May. My question is, if the defaults disappear from my file next year, what is likely to happen to my credit score? At the moment on my Noddle report it sits at something like 560. Once the defaults have gone is my score likely to shoot up if mY credit rating is considered satisfactory or will it take time to build back up? I appreciate Noddle is just a free report and will buy my Experian report closer to the time. I ask as my husband and I hope to be in a position to buy a property within the next two years and am wondering if we would be best leaving it for a while after the defaults have come off before looking seriously or if we can just get cracking once the defaults have gone.

Thanks for your advice Rainbowtears. Yes, deposit is fully protected luckily so I guess we'll just have to dispute if they get funny about anything. We also have the emails we sent as we thought this would ve back to bite us. I seem to remember that a lot of changes we made were to do with cleanliness (there was no way there had been a professional clean before we moved in) and the state of the garden which had not been maintained for a while, plus marks on walls which had apparently been decorated. Re: our new property, we will check carefully for workman damage but from what we've seen on our trips to it it all looks pretty perfect. This may be the first time we've moved into an undamaged property! Mariner -I'm not sure what you are talking about. We did keep it and had made amends. I think you missed the point of my post. The inventory man never agreed the amended version despite repeated chasing. There wasn't much more we could do about that other than contact the letting agent, which we did and that also got us no where.

Thank you. We did take photos of this one but I have a feeling it may only be where we felt things differed on the inventory. My husband needs to dig them out. We will definitely take photos of our new place, although this one is so pristine (the landlord had renovated it for a family member who no longer wanted it) that I think any damage will be our fault! We will check properly first though, just in case there are a few bits of damage that have been done by workmen.

Hi all, I hope you can help. We are moving out of our rented property. At the time of moving in, an inventory check in company was employed by the letting agent to conduct the check in. He basically went round the property very quickly and told us to mark any changes on it in our own time but within seven days and email him. We did this and heard nothing back. I chased for approximately two months on numerous occasions. The only response I received was one quite early on to say he was sorry and would respond properly the next day. He never did. The final email I sent was to the letting agent explaining that he had not come back to us. The letting agent apologised and said she would check. I heard nothing else and we did not get a signed final copy of the inventory. We are now moving out and the letting agent has asked us to make arrangements to conduct the inventory check with the same man and to arrange to pay him the money for the inventory. I fail to see how we can do this given we did not agree a final copy of the inventory and I am reluctant to pay him money when he will have nothing to mark it against. Any suggestions as to what we should do?

Sorry, one more question. I have found our original contract which states: '4.1.17 pay the Sam of £70 plus VAT in respect of the costs in preparation of any renewal agreement'. To me this would mean renewing a contract rather than going on to a rolling/periodic tenancy. Am I correct? Is there any legislation/case law I could quote at them about this? Many thanks

Thank you for the reply. I thought that was the case. I have never come across this before and there seems to be pretty much no information online about it. One more question. Our original contract stated that our rent would increase once per year by be rate of the RPI. Now we are on a periodic contract, can they increase it by more than the RPI? This is another trick they seem to be trying (or their maths may be poor).

Thank you. I will take a look at ehow. So I should accept the calls by the sound of it rather than just ignore them? Lloyds are driving me mad - at least Mint have agreed my repayment with relative ease where as Lloyds are just being unbelievable.

Thank you. I was sure I read that once upon a time but I wasn't sure if that was 1 or 2 times where they actually got through and I've been ignoring their calls this week. It's probably not the right thing to do to ignore the calls but I see no point in speaking to them when they don't know what is going on and haven't responded to my letter. I actually was asked a month or so ago by the call centre who were calling me to bring into a branch a letter that they had sent to me to prove that they had sent it because they didn't have a record of it their system. It's bad enough having to prove I sent letters to them without having to prove they've sent letters to me as well! Thanks for your help by the way and sorry for the rant.

I'm having problems with Lloyds. I lost my job and have been unable to maintain payments on my loan and credit card. I have written to them with my income and expenditure twice and they haven't responded. Meanwhile I keep getting calls from their call centre in India. I usually take them. As one part of Lloyds don't talk to the other part and haven't a clue what's going on, they get confused and eventually put the calls on hold for 7 days usually. I can't take it anymore though! This week I have had the following calls: 4 on Friday 5 on Saturday 1 so far today I haven't answered these ones as I can't bare to try and explain again to a very confused person on the phone who hasn't got a record of half of what's gone on on her computer system and is only interested in taking payment All well and good but when I don't have the money, I can't pay. I also got a letter from Excel Counselling Services last week which I posted on here about. I have written to them telling them I do not wish them to visit me and taking away their implied rights of access. Has anyone got any advice please? I am at the end of my tether. Also apologies if this in the wrong place.

I sent a statement of my outgoings and incomings to Lloyds last month and have not yet had a response. Yesterday I received a letter from their debt collection company (Excel) requesting that I arrange a home visit with them. I got some very kind help and a letter to send to Excel from someone on this forum already. That is ready to be taken to the post office. I was just wondering what to do about Lloyds? Any advise appreciated greatly!

Thank you. I really appreciate your advise.

Thank you. Do you think it's best just to leave Lloyds for now? It'd be nice if they bothered getting back to me re: my suggested payment!

Thank you. Do I also send this to Lloyds?