I will need to rent in the Uk, which is why I thought maybe offering a settlement sum might be a good option, because surely the debtors will find me easily as soon as I get a credit check. I also don't have a uk bank account, I stupidly closed them before moving to Canada, thinking it would be a permanent move. I know I can get a basic bank account but I've heard that even this will alert the debt agencies to my whereabouts. How realistic is it to live off the radar? Also, all credit cards were in my name, so would it be possible to put any future bills/rentals etc in my husbands name so that we can get a place to live and mobile phones etc. Or will his credit be ruined because it's joined to mine? I don't want to do an experian check for fear of alerting the debt agencies where I am.

I moved to Canada over 3 years ago with approx £15k in credit card debt. A few months after arriving in Canada, my house sold in the UK and I paid the credit cards off in full but kept the accounts open. I continued to use the credit cards for purchases, and continued to make regular payments. I had no intention of running from debt and I gave all of the companies my new Canadian address. About 18 months into my new life in Canada I fell into financial difficulty. I had a high risk pregnancy and had to go for appointments several times each week at a hospital that was an hours drive from where I lived, and I couldn't keep my job. My husbands wage didn't even cover our outgoings (I don't want to sound like a sob story, but I want to make clear that we weren't getting in to debt by living the high life. Our outgoings were only necessities, we didn't have cable tv or anything like that). Our car broke down and had to be scrapped, we had to have a new heating system because ours failed during winter (minus temperatures in Canada!). a lot went wrong and I relied on my credit cards (all in my name, not my husbands) to live. I racked up approx £20k over 4 cards and reached a point where I could no longer make minimum payments, so I stopped. I had several letters from Barclaycard and the debt was passed to debt collectors. I also had late payment notices from Halifax. We then moved house and I didn't give my new address to the cc companies. Over a year has now passed and I haven't heard anything, I guess they can't find me, or stopped trying when their letters started getting returned by the post office. My problem now is that things have only got worse and we have realised we cannot financially sustain life in Canada. Wages are low and cost of living is high, we have tried so hard to make it work but have got to admit defeat and return to England. Obviously I'm scared about returning to England and having debt collectors show up at my door. My question is, what is my best move to make now? We will sell our house in Canada and after taking into account the money we will need to move back to England, I will have about £6k left to offer as a settlement to the cc companies, but is this likely to be accepted as the amount I owe is so much higher, not to mention interest accrued, and how would I even go about it if all debts are now in the hands of debt collectors? Alternatively I could return to uk and hide out until the 6 years has passed but only 18 months has passed since my last contact, so that's a long time to hide out for and I'm sure they'd find me in that time. Or would calling a debt charity for help be of any use? What suggestions might they offer? Any advice would be appreciated.