Initial Writ received - help

[Gram1]

Hi

 

We received a writ for a debt we owe to Blackhorse for a loan.

we do owe the money, the agreement is not in dispute or anything and we wanrt to repay it, but cant afford to pay it off in one go.

 

We want to apply for the Time to pay direction. - does anyone know if this is likely to be accepted by the company? we owe approx £9k and would intend to pay approx £100 per month.

 

We had an informal agreement in place previously to pay them £100 a month but missed a few payments on this for various reasons, hence now receiving the court forms.

 

Do you think BH would accept this? Im worried that they reject it and it then goes to a hearing. I've heard that 2/3 cases that go to hearings are then also rejecting by the court, so am worried about what would happen next.

Is it worth phoning the Solicitors for BH to see if they would still enter into a repayment arrangement without the court action or to ask if they will accept the Time to Pay direction?

 

I'm worried, anyone help?

 

Thanks

[Gram1]

can anyone help with the above?

[bluedogx]

Sheriffs like time to pays which have the debt cleared in a given time length. Used to be two years but the debt arrangement and attachment act means that you could argue that 5 yrs is reasonable.

 

If BH disagree then it's the sheriff who decides. Take a detailed income expenditure with you. There's a link on this site

Do you have other debt? Do you own or rent your house?

 

B

[Gram1]

Thanks.

 

paying back within 2 years just isnt an option, couldnt afford that. 4-5 years would probably be an option at a push.

If BH rejected my proposal and the judge didnt agree to it, what would happen then?

I plan on putting on as much as i can reasonably afford to pay back on my Time to Pay form, but i thought that courts would never make you pay back more than you can afford? If my highest offer isnt agreed then what will happen next? Wage arrestment? even then, how would they set an amount as surely it couldnt be more than the amount i can afford

I have a house but it has -ve equity and have other debt. the BH loan is the highest of the unsecured debt.

[bluedogx]

Have you worked out pro rata offers to all of your creditors? The sheriff will take that into account.

If time to pay is granted it is usually with decree. If you stop payments the creditor can serve a charge for payment then arrest wages etc.

If rejected, the creditor gets decree anyway.

 

Have you contacted CAB or phoned cccs payplan or national debtline?

[Gram1]

yes, paying pro rata to all the unsecured creditors. Black Horse is the highest.

I am thinking of offerring just over what the original monthly repayment amount was to be. Is it worth contacting BH to see if they would accept this?

 

Alos, If they reject it, and the sherrif rejects it, and they get decree, what happens then?

[bluedogx]

It's always worth negotiating. As long as you can afford what you are offering.

If you have available income it's worth seeing a money adviser. There's other options like the debt arrangement scheme or a trust deed. Maybe bankruptcy?

 

If an offer is rejected the creditor will serve you with a charge for payment. They can then arrest wages, bank accounts, attach a car worth £3000 or more etc.

 

Go onto direct gov Scotland web site or national debtline site.

Moneyscotland .gov site will tell you about DAS

[Gram1]

Ok thanks.

 

Hopefully they will still be willing to agree a repayment amount at this stage, whether it be informal or through a time to pay direction. I would like to hope that they would rather do this than go to the trouble of trying to enforce a debt through arrestment or attachment.

[bluedogx]

Yes it's never too late to negotiate

 

Good luck

[beetle1234]

Hi there Gram1....in my experience if you have decided the debt is enforceable then your options are fairly simple.Admit the claim,complete the time to pay direction with as much detail as you can and let the court decide.This will of course result in decree being awarded to pursuer against you and whilst this is not good news for some it is an inevitable outcome of cases like yours.My advice to avoid this is simple...start talking to them and do it quickly before court costs start to mount up.Is there ANY way you can raise some cash to offer a short/partial settlement on this loan ?

[Gram1]

Hi

 

Just to update you, i returned the time to pay paperwork with the most i could afford to pay a month and BH have accepted this payment proposal, so no need for it to go to court for a decision. phew! Just waiting for the paperwork to come through from the court before commencing payments.

[beetle1234]

Just so I understand this....you have completed the part of the summons that says you are admitting the claim and you want time to pay and you have been advised the sum is acceptable (by who ?) So as I understand it the court will still issue decree(unopposed) against you and can enforce it if you miss payments in future ? Could you not have reached agreement direct on the basis that case is thrown out hence avoiding decree ?

[Gram1]

Just so I understand this....you have completed the part of the summons that says you are admitting the claim and you want time to pay and you have been advised the sum is acceptable (by who ?) So as I understand it the court will still issue decree(unopposed) against you and can enforce it if you miss payments in future ? Could you not have reached agreement direct on the basis that case is thrown out hence avoiding decree ?

 

Correct.

 

The sum has been accepted by black horse.

 

Yes, a time order decree will be issued setting out the terms of the repayments.

 

Yes, black horse can pursue further if 2 payments are missed.

 

No, negotiation and dropping of the case was not an option.

 

Gram1

[beetle1234]

Glad you reached agreement and you do not need to go through the court process.Well done.

[sheerdrop5668]

Hi I realise this is a very old post but hope you still recieve notifications, we are going through the same thing, and had a few questions? Worth a try to see if you still look at this thanks.

[Gram1]

sure, fire away

[sheerdrop5668]

Thanks, I really appreciate it

 

I am thinking about offering similar to what you said (the initial loan payment and a bit more) We have managed to return our car as we were over the half way period on the HP so have freed up some cash. Is this the way you went with it? Also I am struggling to think of reason as to why they should accept my application, not looking to copy you but what kind of things did you put in this section? My wife and I are going to go through the form tomorrow, all looks very confusing, more so as I have also been given a Application for a Time order, which looks almost the same as the "time to pay" one.

 

Oh one other question, was your loan a joint one? I am wondering if we need to send back 2 time to pay applications or just the one (this seems like a silly question but we were both sent the forms)

 

Any help would be appreciated Thank you so much

[Gram1]

sorry, i can't remember exactly on all of those points, but i'll try to answer them.

 

Ours wasn't a car loan, just a normal unsecured loan, so that wasn't an issue for us.

I explained why we got into difficulties with the payments and fell behind (bereavements, lowered income )

I do remember we received forms that looked similar ie TIme to Pay and Time Order. I cant remember which one we filled in or what the difference is. perhaps someone else on here can help you with that one.

Yes, ours was joint. Again i can't remember exactly, i think we filled in both forms (one on behalf of me, one on behalf of my wife) and put half the total amount we were offering on each, whilst making reference to the other form so that it was clear how much in total we were offering towards the debt.

 

I decided to be as honest as i could on the form, and offer as much as i could comfortably afford and thankfully it was accepted.

 

Best of luck with it.

[sheerdrop5668]

Thanks, sorry I may have confused things there, our loan with them is an unsecured loan. the car was with someone else who agreed to take it back (we had to pay a small amount for insurance premiums) Appreciate the info you have given me