Previous owner debts

[Bateo]

Hi, can someone give me a little advice please?

 

In 2008, my wife an I bought a house from another couple who were moving to America.

 

Within weeks of moving in we started receiving calls, letters and visits from debt collection agencies for the previous owners.

 

It appears that before moving, they ran up all their credit cards, ordered from catalogues and got contract mobile phones, obviously with no intention of ever paying them off.

 

Over the last 3 and a half years, I've made many calls and sent back so many letters. All that seems to happen is it gets passed to another agency.

Today however, we received a county court claim form for a debt with MBNA.

 

My questions are this;

 

1. Should I just ignore the letter?

2. If it goes through the courts, will bailiffs be able to enter our property despite the debt not being ours?

3. Is there any way of notifying the world that these A-holes don't live here?

 

Thank you in advance

Edited February 4, 2012 by citizenB

[debbbbsy]

Today however, we received a county court claim form for a debt with MBNA.

 

The claim may be addressed to your home, but not in your name. Have you at any time informed MBNA in writing that the debtors had moved. Write to MBNA, but make it an Official letter of Complaint, and send it direct to the complaints manager, there details will be on there website. Send it recorded, they must respond and if they fail to act, you can pass the complaint to the FOS.

 

It may be an idea to do this with all of them, use 1 standard letter outling all the facts and your suspicions, and the numerous debtors, and demanding that all action against you personally to cease or you . Send only to the complaints manager, you don't need to send recoreded, just post from the PO, and ask for proof of postage. Keep a copy of each and attach the reciept. If they fail to respond, report them to the FOS, if its a DCA report them to trading standards, if they come to your door you will phone the police...... You could include in your letter a breakdown of your costs if they ignore you, Writing a letter £25, answering the phone and explaining again £5 per minute. Inform the Original creditor that they will be held liable if they sell the debt on. No more Mr nice guy.

 

Send the claim form back to the courts, and include a copy of your complaint.

[citizenB]

If you have been "returning the letters" to sender, then they should have attempted prior to issuing a claim to ensure that they do have the right person.

 

You need to return the claim form to the court manager with a letter confirming that the people named on it have moved - if you still have the solicitor's name who acted for them on the sale of the property, pop that in for good measure.

 

Is your name on the electoral roll at this address ?

 

IMHO, I would make a complaint immediately to the Financial Ombudsman.

 

I think you now also need to obtain copies of your Credit files to make sure that there is no adverse entries on your files.

[Bateo]

Hi, thanks for the advice.

We started off by sending envelopes back marked "no longer at this address". This seemed to have no affect. After a while, we started opening the letters. Not interely ethical or legal, but we kinda assumed that the previous owners gave up their rights when they left us to deal with their debts.

I called some of the dca's, which only had the affect of getting the debts passed to a new agency.

To be honset, we've just been throwing letters away for the past 6 months as nothing we did seemed to having an affect, although the court claim letter did grab our attention.

 

We've been on the electoral register since we moved here and can't see anything on our credit reports, but isn't your credit file done by name? I thought black listing an address was a myth?

 

I think I will write to all the companies on the claim form and copy the court in.

 

I do think these dca's need to try a bit harder to locate people though. I managed to find out this morning, that the debtors are back in the country and I managed to find out where one of them worked just by using Facebook and twitter!

[unclebulgaria67]

I have had this type of problem and it is a pain in the *ass. Until one of the creditors or debt collectors notes the debtors credit record with 'gone away' or with their new address, you will continue to be hassled every now and again. It took me about 6 years to stop all the letters and it was only by making a stinking complaint to one DCA that is stopped. There are so many DCA's out there and they appear reluctant to mark the credit file as 'gone away', as presumably that would mean they can't sell the debt on.

[Bateo]

I think that is the problem. As soon as they find out that they have gone away, they just pass it on to the next dca.

[Bazooka Boo]

TBH, I would simply stick the letters back in the post box, or in the bin.

I still have DCA letters coming here for the previous tenant, and like you, I open ALL mail that comes through my door, as I have a right to know who or what I might be opening the door too.

And yes there is no amount of ringing them, doing their job for them that has any effect, it just gets passed further down the barrel for more undesirable inept DCA's to play with.

 

You can make a complaint direct to the OFT.

[stu007]

Hi

 

This Official Compaint letter may be of help just ammend to suit each DCA: