Thank you for all the replies. Im not sure I understand the last one about the SAR gizmo. We dont bank with Nationwide and dont have any late payment charges on the account so do I need to do this. I dont understand what we would be defending, we doe owe the money. The other thing is that the debt is in my partners name and the house is in joint names so does this have any bearing on it?

I keep reading on the forums about writing to companies to which you owe money asking for the original agreement as if they cannot supply it there is no debt. Am I misreading this or not. Many of the posting have a lot of abbreviated parts so Im not sure I fully understand. Is there a simplified explanation on the site somewhere please. Thank you.

Just had a conversation with the Natiowide. They are not prepared to help at all. I have told them that there is a secured loan on the house which would eat all the equity should the court force a sale. I have told them I am prepared to file for bankrupcy if there is no other option. I have explained that I am quite prepared to keep paying the monthly payment I can afford which is £30 and also that I will increase this should I be able to. They only offer of help was to say that if I can find £400 in the next 7 days they will hold off for a month (thats impossible and will only delay the action anyway) or , if I can find £2000 they will take it in full and final settlement. If I could find £2000 I would not be in this position in the first place. Its a joke, if they take us to court the debt will increase and there is even less chance of them getting the money but they dont seem to want to know. Any advice please?

Thanks for the reply Duffers Mum. If they take you to court for a charging order do you have to appear and does it cost you money?

My broter has sent a cheque to someone and put the wrong amount on it. He has not deducted a refund and so the cheque is for more than it should be. He has rung the company to tell them not to bank the cheque and they have agreed not to until he sends them another with the correct amount. He is dubious about leaving the first cheque 'live' and said he would go to the bank to cancel it. Im sure I read that there was a charge for cancelling a cheque and that you are better saying that it has got lost in the post. Is this correct or is it simply a case of asking the bank to stop it? Thanks.

I wonder if anyone can help please. We have debts and have been to the CCCS where they gave us advice and a payment plan which we sent to every creditor with an offer of monthly payments. all were accepted exept the Nationwide credit card who only agreed reduced payments for 3 months.The 3 months are now up and we had a call from them saying we had to revert to the orig minimum payment terms which we just cant manage. They were quite unhelpful and threatened to make us sell the house. Yoday we have had a letter from a debt collection agancy saying they need an acceptable offer or start legal action which may lead to 'the forced sale of your home' We cant make them any better offer than we made the Nationwide. The joke is that even if they forced the sale of the house they would not revover the money as we have considered selling ourselves but as we have a mortgage and secured loan on it there would be very little capitol from it so it is not really worth doing. The aamount we owe is less than 5000 and we have another credit card with much higher balance on which the small payments are still being accepted. It just seems the Nationwide are not prepared to help. By getting this letter from the debt agency does this mean they have passed the loan on, should we still be trying to liase with the Nationwide as well as contacting the debt agency? Any advice would be great, Im feeling sick today after opening the letter. Thanks all.

As if havent got enuff to do. I have now got to start chasing Royal Mail now to find out where my letter is and who has got it plus my bank details. 'IF' your letter was lost the Royal Mail would not be able to trace it anyway, the best thing to do is ring the Halifax to see how your claim is progressing. (Dont let them know that you are checking if your letter has arrived or they may tell you they didnt recieve it as a stalling tactic)

Lulu, dont woory so much about the recorded delivery not showing as being signed for. It dosnt mean your letter is lost, in fact it was probably delivered without problem. I used to work for the Royal Mail and the procedure when a delivery of recordeds and specials are made to a company is different to when it is to a private address. They will probably get hundreds of signed for items every day so each one wont be signed for individually, the stickers are all entered onto long sheets and then only one signature is taken forthe full total. These 'should' all then be scanned individually but this dosnt always happen but it does not mean your letter didnt arrive.

Make sure you send a copy of the letter to the B+Q head office in Chandlers Ford. I used to work in the call centre of a company that manufactured the kitchens for B+Q. they now are supplied by another company but I had years of taking complaints from dissatisfied customers. Part of the problem with BQ is that they never accept responsibility for things going wrong. They supply fitters but most of them are not B+Q employees, they have your units delivered but take no responsibility for the instructions etc as they just quote that they are not the manufacturer. There was always a debate about fitters being on site on the day of delivery, the delivery company have it in the small print not to remove your old kitchen until the other has been delivered in full so BQ have a get out on that one. I do know form all the dealing we had with them (and also from my partner working for them for some years) that they have to pay out mega money each year in compensation issues for kitchens.

Please send your letters recorded delivery. The free proof of postage is just that, proof of posting, not proof of delivery. You have no 'proof' should you nned it.

Thank you for your help people. He isnt able to renegotiate his mortgage as he is no longer working. He is quite ill at the moment and is not expected to be able to work again for at least 12 months so they wont help him.

My brother is in a state where his house may be reposessed shortly. He is considering letting the UK Housing Alliance buy his home and then rent it back from them. I looked on the website but cant get much from that. It says in the ad that 'The purchase price is based on 100% of the value of your home' He is taking that to read that they will give him the full going rate for his house but to my mind it dosnt say that and Im very wary of these schemes. Has anyone any views on this please?.

Thats the thing Ali, they wont accept a letter from us as they say we cant do it on mums behalf. They are the ones forcing us to go down the C of P route and sell the house.

Well, they really must be losing the plot. Today, even though I am at the LBA stage I have recieved my 4th set of statements in the post. They did include a letter saying that 'due to a technical error you may not have recieved the requested information and please accept our apologies if you have' So some people are waiting in excess of 40 days whilst they are sending out repeat copies!

I was sent a list of charges instead of statements. I rang and spoke to someone who said they were doing that to make it faster and also to help people having to work it out themselves. Yeh, right!. However when my complete set of statements arrived ( the day after I rang to complain!!!) I checked them and found they were correct so their version was OK.

Thank you. sea-sidelady

Thanks Gizmo, just seen your reply after i psted the thanks. We have the deferred payment in place and its not the people we owe the fees to that are saying we should sell. This has come from the pension service. As a family we are all making it a priority to see mum is cared for and Ok but it just bugs me that complete strangers can tell us what to do with our family property.

Thank you all for the replies. She does get Pension Credits, about £6 a week. I did ask them to stop paying them but they said they could not do this. Does this mean we are forced to sell the house straight away then?

Can anyone help with my last post please as I want to send off my LBA asap and dont wnat to mess things up at this point by making a mistake. Thank you

I know this is slightly of topic as its not really debt related but Im hoping there may be someone who can advise me. The situation is- my mum is in a residential/nursing home. She has her own home which we have been looking after since she went into care. It is empty but we are keeping up the insurance and bills etc as well as keeping it heated over the winter months. Because she has her own home the family are responsible for the fees for her care and we have agreed a deferred payment scheme with the council whereby on her death and the sale of the house we pay back the fees for her care. Now the problem- mum has dementia and so cannot deal with her affairs and we did not get power of attourney before she had her stroke. We didnt think it was a problem as we had arranged the deffered payment for her fees and we could manage the upkeep of her house. However a few weeks ago we hjad a meeting with the Pension Service (at thier request) who wanted all the details of her bank accounts/ savings etc. We gave them all this information along with all the paperwork. The thing is that they said we HAD to apply for Court of Protection. this costs a few hundred pounds which we didnt have spare but we have done it. My brother is waiting for it to be finalised at the moment. The Pension Service said we HAVE to sell her home asap otherwise the court of protection can force the sale. What I dont understand is why they can force us to seel the house. We are not claiming anything and we have agreed to repay the fees for her care to the council. My way of looking at it is that we are going to be paying over £20,000 a year for her care (dont get me wrong, its worth every penny for her to be comfortable) We know because of other illnesses that she has that she isnt expected to live for more than the next few months so this is upsetting enough without being told we have to empty her house and put it up for sale. It feels so wrong, I will pass it every day on my way to work and see a for sale sign outside what to my mind is still mums real home. There is also the financial side of it. If we sell the house straight away and go for what the pension service lady said would be great 'a quick sale' then straight away we lose out. I know this sounds like greed and Im trying so hard to explain that it isnt. Its the point that my parents worked so hard to pay for that house so they would have it to leave to the family (dad died 3 years ago) they would be distraught if they knew what was happening. We fully agree that we must pay for the care but my argument is that in 12 months time the house may be worth 15 to 20 thousand more than today. I feel we should keep it as long as possible. I also feel that when mum does pass away she should be brought 'home' for her funeral to leave from the house. It dosnt feel right to be selling the home before she dies. I would appreciate anyones help/comments on this even if it only means I need someone to tell me im not looking at it logically. My brother feels we should sell asap just so we dont have to mow the lawn etc but to me its still my mums real home. Sorry for the long post, I have talked to the rest of the family but would like an unbiased veiw and also to know if we really can be forced to sell. Thanks

Just a quick question please. Im a bit confused about the LBA. It says 'I calculate that you have taken £XXXXX plus £XXX which you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. Total £XXXXX.' Does this mean that I should add interest when I send this letter? I thought I only added it if I go to court. Also, when I sent off my Prelim letter I did noy enclose a spreadsheet, I sent the list of charges the Halifax themselves had sent me. (I did check them against statements to make sure they were correct) However , do I now need to do the spreadsheet and claim interest with the LBA?

Hi All. Im now at the stage where Im ready to send my LBA. The 14 days since I requested my charges back have past. Just out of interest, how do the the Halifax usually contact you to make an offer? Is it usually by phone or by letter?

At the end of the day i thought the worst I will get is a CCJ (hopefully) for 6 years, is it really that bad. I wont be wanting to buy a new house and i certainly dont want credit cards again. So i cant see those 6 years affecting me. Im confused by this. What exactly is a County Court Judgement and how does it affect you?

We are in a similar situation to you licklelady. Its so draining when you cant even justify going to the cinema for a night out or buying something to wear however much you need to. At the weekend I spent £10 on bedding plants for my garden which I know was not really a priority but you get so fed up of having to watch every penny dont you. We went down the cccs route but they advised us to sell the house. We dont really want to do this as we wont raise enough to settle everything and wont be any better off as we will have to find rent. The only thing that worries me about not selling is that we were told that if the Halifax, who we owe the most to, wont accept lower payments from us (we have 2 credit cards and my partner has a loan with them) they may be able to put an order on the house forcing the sale. Our mortgage isnt with them, its with the Abbey and we have kept the payments up to date. Im just sick of waking up each day worrying.

Thank you suzieblooz. The strange thing is that I got my list of charges and a full set of statements, sent of my prelim letter and then yesterday I was sent another duplicate set of charges. Just like buses, you wait ages for one and then 3 come along at once:D