family portrait done/free session. Can this debt be enforced through Court?

[GR McD]

Last year my husband and I had a family portrait done as we'd won a free session.

 

Originally we were just going to have the portrait done and accept the free standard size photo and leave it at that.

 

In the end we decided to go ahead and get a picture from them as they offered instalment plans.

 

They are not, or weren't then, licensed credit brokers so there was no interest charged.

There was no credit agreement as such, just an note on the picture order form saying how much and how many instalments and my husbands signature.

 

We started off quite well and for about 6 months or so made the payments,

then as we headed into Christmas and money needed to be stretched further we missed a couple of payments and I think one time we paid less.

 

Husband lost his job so all payments ceased and we had a couple of letters and phonecalls asking us to pay and advising if we didn't they'd pass it onto Federal, debt collectors.

Even when my husband got a new job we weren't able to make payments again as we were behind on rent and had other things we needed to clear first.

 

I asked Federal for a copy of the credit agreement and they posted me a photocopy of this order form, making sure they told me that was the agreement and we had made payments against it.

 

When this first happened my husband was still out of work, so told them I was unable to offer a payment as we were waiting to hear re benefits.

 

They then got forgotton about, and now they are threatening court action.

 

My query is, is what we have a legally binding credit agreement so can it be enforced in court?

 

Thanks

[dx100uk]

if you've signed 'a' contract then yes

you owe the money.

 

are there clear T&C's associated with the contract?

i wouldn't be spoofed into paying any charges/interest etc

just the contract sum.

 

did you sign to pay it back by xyz date?

 

dx

[GR McD]

No T's and C's at all, just an order form from one of those duplicate order form books, it just had on it that we would be instalments of x per month withn x number of months. The only date on it being the date it was made.

[dx100uk]

ok well

i'd get the duplicate removed from the cra

 

how far away are you from paying the original total ?

 

dx

[GR McD]

I think it's 156 odd. Last time we tried to sort it, Federal said we had to do income and expenditure before a repayment plan could be agreed, which I wasn't happy to do! I accept that we owe it and don't want to be taken to Court, just wanted to know if they could take us to Court or if we could just make an offer that wouldn't cripple us and they had to accept it.

[cerberusalert]

It should not be recorded on a credit file, it was not a credit agreement. At least they were not licenced at the time to offer credit.

[cerberusalert]

What was the original price, how much have you paid & what do they say you now owe?