That may well be the case, but they can still be aggressive and unpleasant.....

If you share household expenses, such as rent/mortgage, utilities, other debt, etc then HMRC will ask about household income, rather than personal income. This then allegedly allows them to make a more informed decision about whether it is appropriate to allow a taxpayer to pay any outstanding debt over a period of time. This, I am told is a concession, rather than a right, so it is to your advantage to be as candid about income and expenditure as you can. My colleague in that there tax house tells me that any agreement to pay by instalments must be both realistic and sustainable, so if it were you that needed to request this, then declaring your wife's income would give you a distinct advantage in the bargaining stakes. However, since it is the other way round, it seems slightly unfair, but unless you comply with the request, it seems unlikely that they will agree to an instalment plan. If you agree a repayment plan pending the result of an appeal of penalties, and then subsequently your appeal is upheld, then any payments you have made can be reimbursed to you. If you feel relatively confident that your appeal will be successful, then it is a small pain to agree a long-term repayment plan (given that the debt will only increase due to interest) that will only run for a few months and then be cancelled, but will avoid the possibility of HMRC sending the debt to a DCA whose approach will probably be more aggressive and unpleasant. Anyway, I hope the OP's appeal was successful and that they are no longer plagued by these so-called penalties.

I am happy to report that no further correspondence has been received regarding this matter, so I will assume it was maybe just a fishing trip from 1stcreditltd. Thanks, all, for your help.

The CCJ was granted at a bulk court, and at some point, apparently I was asked to attend court to give a statement of means and discuss a payment option, but as stated above, I have no recollection of these actions. I am fairly certain that both these events were over 6 years ago. Due to the sudden death of my partner at the time and a year spent recovering from spinal surgery, that whole period of my life is a bit blurry, so a great deal of correspondence went ignored. I am certain that no bailliffs or debt collectors made any contact with me since then, so as you may ascertain I am a tad confused as to why this organisation is now making overtures to me.

Thank you very much, any advice much appreciated.

The CCJ was enforced just over 6 years ago, but i made the SAR last year in response to my ex-employers' draconian actions! Hope that clears things up

I am making an assumption that 1stcredit have been 'sold' the debt, does this make any difference to the approach that might be taken? As for the acknowledgement part of Statute Barred, I did make a subject access request to the court that enforced the CCJ last year. Would this be classed as acknowledging it?

I have been reading a few threads about 1st credit just to try to get a flavour of what to expect in my dealings with them, and am unable to get a clear picture (probably due to my browsing skills, or lack thereof) I recently received the standard 'please contact us' letter, and will wait until they write with more details of what exactly they want from me. I had a CCJ for a debt to customs and excise over 6 years ago, which has only just dropped off the bottom of my credit record, and so only recently have been able to open a 'proper' bank account. Due to personal tragedies at the time of the original proceedings, I genuinely managed to forget about it, until last year, when i took up a new job, and was subsequently sacked, as the employer had said that i lied about my credit history. Be that as it may, I looked forward to what I thought was the end of the matter, when my credit rating improved after the removal of said CCJ earlier on this year. I guess my question is - what avenues can these debt collectors take to pursue me for this, and is there anyway to reduce my liability? I am currently working, and could afford to make token payments but think that at the rate i could afford, the debt could take years to clear.I live with my partner of four years, and the house and most of its contents can be proved to belong to her.