Very old First National Consumer Finance /GE Consumer Finance debt with charge against house.

[howardb]

Hi, Hi thx for your help. This is actually a very old case, in summary:

 

1. Took out a 10 year £7750.00 home improvement loan in 1994 with First National.

It was sold to us as a fixed payments, with the option to pay of more (sooner) if we so chose.

Checking the CCA it actually only uses the term 'minimum monthly payment', and refers to 'overleaf' for interest rate variation.

 

2. I have a copy of the CCA and to the inexperienced eye it looks well formed (Pehaps you could check this for me?)

 

3. In 2004 we made our last of the minimum payments expecting the loan to be paid off, we were subsequently informed that we still owed about £2,500 by first national.

This seems to have been caused by the interest rate varying combined the initial 'minimum payment amount'

which we followed slavishly for 10 years was never going to be enough to pay it off.

 

4. We have one record of First National ever informing us of interest rate changes.

The whole thing seems to have been contrived to ensure there was a large (Unexpected) residual balance, which I guess improves their loan book value.

 

5. We refused to pay, they got an uncontested CCJ (Business was going under at time, so had bigger fish to fry).

 

6. They subsequently got a charging order over the house (again uncontested).

 

7. 2007 They sold the debt to Link Financial. Assignment letter received from Asset Link NOT First National.

 

8. The CCJ has now expired unsatisfied (As well as CRA), and link seem to be making almost no effort to recover the money, which would be all well and good except that:

a) About once a year they send us a statement with a current balance which appears to be going up (Now about £3500).

b) Examination of the old CCJ the judge provided provision for them to continue adding interest!!!! I thought that was supposed to be not allowed for CCA regulated debts under £5000.

 

So my big worry here is whether Link are being sneaky and playing a long game knowing they can add interest onto a secured debt at god knows what interest rate?

(The original First National agreement was 22%!!!) for the next 30 years.

 

Is there anything I can do about all of this? My initial thoughts:

 

a) We can currently find no record of notice of debt assignment (From First National), so thinking of a SAR on First National. If it wasn't assigned properly, does that help?

b) CCA, not 100% if it's well formed or if First National could provide any originals, not sure this would do me any good anyway,as i'm not defending anything, I just need to find a way of establishing either Link Financial cannot charge interest or setting aside the charge on the house.

c) Any other grounds for set aside such as misselling?

 

 

Any input would be much appreciated.

[SamVimes]

Hi,

 

I was able to get the judgement set aside and eventually had the debt written off.

 

My loan was also with GE money and was purchased by Link.

Link are a very aggressive company to deal with and can be very intimmidating but, do not let that get to you, because they are also pretty stupid too. They rarley follow the correct legal proceedures and even more rarely have the full and correct legal documentation that identifies tham as the legal owner of the debt thay have purchased or that would allow them to bring legal action.

 

What stage are you at with Link, have they threatened llegal action? or just trying to get you pay a debt that they now say the own? Whatever you do, do not acknowledge that you recognise or owe any money to Link.

 

You say that you have a CCA, was that obtained from Link? As far as requesting a CCA, the company you request it from must be able to provide you with a TRUE COPY that is legible, has the terms and conditions plus the interest rates all on the same sheet,

 

It has been my experience with Link that they can rarely do this, no true copy, agreement is usually unenforcable.

 

Just a few other points that may ber of help. you said that your cca is dated 1994, thats nearly 19 years ago, how long ago did the loan go into default? If it was over 6 years ago and you have not been persude for it in that time , the debt my be statute barred and again possibley unenforcable.

 

The area I finally got Link on was the sale of the debt itself. The original creditor(GE) should have sent you a copy of the notice of assignment, this should have been sent to you by recorded delivery. Just a word of caution on this point, the notice of assignment is only legally binding if it comes from the original creditor, Link will try to say that they have written to you to notify you that they own the debt, that letter is not worth the paper it is printed on.

 

I would recommend that you send a SAR to GE to find out everything that the have on you before Link try to produce some cobbled together documentation that might work against you.

 

I am by no means an expert on here and I'm sure If any of the advice In have suggested is incorrect or not applicable, someone will correct it, I would alsol try to get a moderator to give you a bit more advice.

 

Hope some of this helps

[buggaluggs]

What was the outcome of this?

[maroondevo52]

What was the outcome of this?

 

Not got a clue, op's not been back since 16th March 2013.

[howardb]

Hello, I'm one of the people that got caught up in the First National Consumer Finance being allowed to convert it's unsecured CCJ consumer credit debts to charges over peoples houses back in 2002. The debt is relatively small (about £2500) in relation to the house value. First National sold all these debts to Link Financial (who have handed it down to their various reincarnations over the years)  and they continue to pester me for it the money about once a year which I have just ignored.

 

I have not paid a penny against the debt in the 18 or so years or so since it fell due with the CCJ. Though I did make an offer for full and final settlement at about one third of the value about 10 years ago which Link rejected.

 

We don't plan on selling the home (will probably be here for the rest of our lives), so the charge is not an urgent concern, but I would very much like to raise a middle finger to the lowlife at Link Financial.

 

My questions are:

 

1.Does the 12 year rule (1980 limitation act) apply? 

 

2. If the 12 year rule does apply how do I actually go about getting the debt extinguished?

 

3. First National are still the holder of the charge at the Land Registry even though the debt has been assigned several times in the Link 'family', is that legal? Have they messed up? does it give me any wiggle room if I cannot extinguish the debt?

[AndyOrch]

My questions are:

 

1.Does the 12 year rule (1980 limitation act) apply?  Depends if its a mortgage or normal debt or if it was Capital or interest on the property for the CCJ

 

2. If the 12 year rule does apply how do I actually go about getting the debt extinguished? See above...but why should it be extinguished ?You have provided no details of the debt or dates or why you didnt defend the claim etc etc

 

Quote

I'm one of the people that got caught up in the First National Consumer Finance being allowed to convert it's unsecured CCJ consumer credit debts to charges over peoples houses back in 2002.

 

All judgment creditors have always been allowed to place a charge/restriction on the debtors property to secure a CCJ...its simply a means of executing /securing the judgment.

 

Andy

[howardb]

Hi Andy, thanks for the prompt response, to answer your points:

 

The debt was a residual interest charge on a 10 year finance deal for a conservatory we built at our previous house. We made all payments on time by direct debit, but First National failed to alter the variable payments correctly with the variable interest rates, so there was a surprise bill at the end of the 10 years, which we refused to pay. They got a CCJ which we didn't defend because my business was going bust at the time so I had much bigger fish to fry.

 

The finance term was from 1991 - 2001 from memory, and the CCJ very shortly after that.

[dx100uk]

Joint debt on joint ly owned property?

[howardb]

Yes