Huge unsecured debt, no assets, very little income. What options?

[Paul Walton]

A very good friend has managed to rack up about £75,000 in debt, via credit cards and loans.

 

Now, things have took a turn for the worst regarding his work - now he basically does a few jobs cash in hand. He has no assets as such, a car maybe £1000, he lives with his girlfriend ( she owns the property) He does not claim any form of benefits.

 

From what I can gather the various companies have sold the debt to collection agencies, so he is getting bombarded with phone calls and emails.

 

I tried to open the debt must read section but I get error messages.

 

Could somebody point me in the right direction so I can offer so help, he's in a bit of a state - hence me offering to help.

 

Many thanks in advance...

 

Paul

[dx100uk]

any chance he can come here himself paul?

 

dx

 

[dx100uk]

that link you posted too is a bit out of date too

so dont follow that

 

dx

 

 

[Paul Walton]

I will ask the question.

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Paul, what are the consequences employment wise, if he applies for bankruptcy ?

 

In this situation, I would think there needs to be a decisive action, otherwise the debt chasing will go on for years and it may put a greater strain on his relationship with his girlfriend, than applying for bankruptcy.

 

But before he goes down that route, we would want a list of the debts with the following information.

 

Date credit/loan applied for, type of credit/loan, amount of credit/loan balance owed and the approx date last payment was made.

[Paul Walton]

He works for himself as a builder / decorator so bankruptcy wouldn't affect anything. However, I suspect the fee for bankruptcy could be a problem, as his work is hit and miss. I don't suppose any of the credit card / loans would make him bankrupt, because they won't get anything and it will cost them?

[unclebulgaria67]

Yes that is the issue, with no assets, very unlikely creditors will make him bankrupt.

 

Save up the bankruptcy fee amount and do it himself.

 

Applying to become bankrupt - GOV.UK

WWW.GOV.UK

---

How to apply for bankruptcy: how long it lasts, bankruptcy restrictions, what happens to your home and assets when you're bankrupt

 

[Paul Walton]

Thanks very much.

It looks like put up with being hounded or go bankrupt.

What are the stages of debt collection, letters, emails, calls. Then, it just carries on until the debt is purchased by someone else?

Is it likely they will take him to court and insist on looking over all his bank accounts etc? I suspect that is an option he will want to avoid , given the nature of some purchases, lots in the pub, meals and generally having a good time. I think he always had the intention at some point of walking away.

[dx100uk]

can you get a full list of his debts paul?

don't go BK there are otherways.

 

original Creditor

type of credit

what taken out

amount

defaulted date

who owns the debt now.

 

if you look at threads in the debt selfhelp forum

you'll get the idea how to deal.

 

get all the info FIRST before he does anything.

 

d

[unclebulgaria67]

If the debts are fairly recent, he could have letters, court claim threats, actual court claims and many phone calls for a very long time.

 

Provide details of the debts as dx suggests and fully consider the options.

 

Personally, I think £75k worth of debt will be very difficult to negotiate away.   So get advice from organisations that can run through bankruptcy issues to see whether it is the best way or not.

[stu007]

Hi

 

with the list dx100uk has asked in post#9 could you add which companies are chasing each debt.

 

They also need to have a wee check of their Credit File to see what show up on it with these debts it can be done free but you need to register with them to do so and it needs to be who you are helping that does it.

 

credit karma: 

Credit Score & Credit Reports at Credit Karma™ UK

WWW.CREDITKARMA.CO.UK

 

[Paul Walton]

Thank you all very much. I will get the information of all the outstanding loans etc and come back to you all. if one of them take him to court will he have to disclose all his bank statements etc?

[dx100uk]

No ofcourse not

 

THey ve not even sent letters of claim yet 

and if debts are still with original creditor s then they dont do court anyway.

 

 

 

 

[Paul Walton]

I had no idea, all new stuff to me. I will get the info from Mark.

[comebackjimmy]

Hello

 

In my view  a self imposed bankruptcy is not necessary.   Your friend just has to accept the situation he is in and set things up to deal with it.

 

I think that by following a plan off filing everything, saying nothing and letting the Creditors do all the work he will come out of it in the end.

 

He may need to get his girlfriend on board but once he understands what these creditors can (and cannot do) it may well become less of a worry and more of a sport!

 

In post #8 you asked for the stages of collection so based on my experience since 2006 I will give you the various stages and make some other comments:

 

1. You fail to meet a payment date:- the creditor writes a reminder letter

2. You ignore the letter, they send another letter and possibly emails, SMS and phone calls, all of which are ignored.

3. The cycle continues for a period of time with a number of letters arriving from the creditor. Sometimes the case will be handed off to a Debt collector for a time which is nothing more than a company set up to make phone calls and write automatic letters. They have no power and can be ignored.

4. At some point the creditor will issue a Default notice. This is legally important to the Creditor (but not necessarily important to your friend as it is required by the consumer credit act before any other action is taken. It will give a date by which you must do something usually to pay the arrears. If you don’t pay the arrears then you are in Default and they can go to the next stage.

5. After a period of some months account closure usually follows.

6. It is unlikely the Creditor will take legal action. After a period of time where you continue to get periodic letters and communications from various debt collectors the debt is sold typically for 10p to 15p in the £ to a Debt buyer. This might take six months or as much as a couple of years.

7. You receive a “goodbye” letter from the creditor which says it has sold the debt to the buyer.

8. You receive a “hullo” letter from the debt buyer which tells you that I now owns the debt.

Sometimes the above two are in the same envelope.

 

9. The debt buyer will start out very friendly but will then get more aggressive. Even at this stage it is best to ignore them. They will sometimes offer you an amount less than the full value to get a quick profit from their purchase. You might want to take advantage of it but I take the view that if they had a strong case to get everything why would they settle for less? They know they have a weak claim when you get this kind of letter.

10. At some point they will do an assessment on you to decide if it is worth taking court action. The bigger the debt the more likely it is, also if you are seen to have assets such as a property or shares.

11. They will start by instructing a solicitor to send a Letter Before Action. This states what they think you owe them and gives you a set amount of time to pay it or respond with payment proposals. It may be wise to respond at this point but best to refer it to this forum for proper advice on what to do.

12. After you fail to respond to the above they will pay a court fee and issue a County court Claim. You will receive a claim pack from the court with a number of sheets of paper; the claim itself, an acknowledgment of service, a defence form. The claim is usually created on line with the solicitor typing in the details. The Court then automatically prints and sends the claim pack. As a result it will not have any supporting documents such as original agreements, statements or anything else.

13. IMPORTANT: this is the first document you absolutely must respond to. First thing to do is find the paper that says acknowledgment of service and send it back. This gives you 28 days to respond instead of 14. If you don't do this or immediately defend then after 14 days you will automatically loose.

14. After this you are into the world of defending the claim which is usually very defend-able as the Solicitor has in all likelihood not provided you with any documents. This is because neither he nor his client have any and they will have to go back to the original lender to get any and very likely they will not get them. (In my own experience I helped a friend by writing to ten creditors asking for copies of the original agreement and not one came up with anything).

15. It is possible you could loose the case in which case you still owe the money and are not much worse of than before because the creditor still has to collect it and without assets it will take a long time to pay off.

 

Overall, though I don’t think it is a great idea to be in debt, given the extent to which your friend is buried my advice is to consider the old adage “If you owe a tenner it is your problem, if you owe Ten thousand it is their problem”.

 

To that extent I would follow this plan:

 

1. Save all correspondence including the envelopes they arrived in. Do it in chronological order and have separate folders for each debt.

2. As a rule, ignore everything unless it comes from a solicitor or the Court.

3. I cannot stress this enough. Be a black hole into which letters, emails, texts and phone calls disappear, never to be answered, replied to or spoken to in any way. Some people just cannot shut up! Make sure your friend does!

4. The exception is if your friend changes address in which case write to every creditor (or debt buyer that has bought the debt) and advise of change of address WITHOUT signing the letter as such, just type the name at the bottom.   (This is so they don't send court documents to the old address).

5. In most if not all cases that will be it. Just keep filing until six years have passed or five in Scotland. This is because after that time the debt becomes statute barred and the courts will not consider it as it has become too old. (The statue barred date begins 14 days after the date of the Default notice mentioned above and six years after that it is all over for court action).

6. In one or two cases a Court Claim may be made in which case defend it which is a whole other ball game but basically ask them for proof of the debt which they very likely cannot provide, if they can provide challenge it's enforceability,  mostly it's game over for them.

 

Your friend can start to get on with his life if he follows this plan and learns to accept that these debts are not necessarily the millstone he thinks. He can live within his means and have a good and fun life which is what he deserves. The original creditors have accepted some money from the debt buyer so presumably are happy and the debt buyer will make a profit across the whole bunch of debts he bought even if he makes nothing from your friend so he is happy. If nether of them are happy then they should not have got themselves into the situation in the first place.

 

As always I finish my comments by saying I am not a legal professional just a guy that got into to trouble in 2006 and learned a lot of this stuff along the way.

 

I welcome any comments from other CAGers, particularly if they spot any mistakes.

[dx100uk]

Great advice

 

two things..

 

dont ignore a letter of claim ( but you can ignore everything to that point)

 

dont use the court forms if a debt buyer ever raises a court claim.....use the mcol website

 

 

[Paul Walton]

Many thanks for that, knowing Mark, as I do I think he will take this advise.It does sound to me that there is very little they can do to him. I was amazed even got such a huge credit line when he could never afford to pay it back once he hit the £75k. I have asked him for the lenders etc and will post the details once i get them.

 

Again thank you all,

 

cheers,

 

Paul

[unclebulgaria67]

Paul, as long as your friend realises how long this will go on for and how it could impact on mental health, relationship with girlfriend etc

 

Some people can handle being chased for debts better than others. There are a lot of people who suffer in silence with severe mental health and in the worst cases the outcome is very sad.

 

Always look into all available options obtaining as much advice as possible. 

 

Hopefully, if you can get hold of all of the debt information, this will help explore the options fully.

 

 

 

 

[Paul Walton]

All very valid points, I will be speaking with him this week and explain the situation. I think one off the most stressful things for him, and anyone in this position is not knowing what can happen, what they can and can't do. It's been a real eye opener for me!!

 

thank you all once again.

 

cheers,

Paul

[comebackjimmy]

Back in 2006 I came face to face with a debt problem which was that I could clear my debts or help a family member and I of course chose the latter.

 

The resultant onslaught of phone calls and letters was at first unsettling but I realised, particularly with the help afforded by this site that in reality there was nothing they could do.  If your friend has no assets then they can't take them,  If he challenges their assertions to the debts then in the main they can't prove them, if he has nothing then they will not make him bankrupt and even if he has something they will not make him bankrupt because they have to pay the fees and then anything your friend has is split up between all the people he owes so no business will go that route.

 

In short, although they will huff and puff they are pretty much not able to blow his house down even if it is made of straw like mine!

 

He should adapt to the situation and turn it into a hobby like I did/do.   I actually collect debt collection letters and other things they send out.   When something arrives in the post I am likely to say "Oh I have got one of those" or "Ah something new for my collection".

 

Thinking like this causes the intimidation to drop away and become ineffective.

 

Tell him to can his worries and start enjoying life, because I guarantee that the Creditors are not staying awake worrying about him!  He is just a few magnetic dots on their hard drive and is in their threatomatic machine.  Depending upon his reaction he will be moved around the machine and there are parts of the machine which are programmed to deal with debtors who don't respond and that is to park them out of the way and work on other ones.

[Paul Walton]

I would have done the same as you, in your position. Thanks so much for your help, I've sent the advice to Mark and he is very relieved.

 

I wish on a personal level there was a solution for Care Home fees, that situation is causing me some stress, sadlyhadr to sell mums house to pay towards the fees - awful illness.

[unclebulgaria67]

One other consideration is whether your friend could be due any inheritance or financial award at some point during say the next decade.

 

Your friend has no money or assets now, but if they did come into any money,  it would not be great timing to have any Court claims being made at the time.

[Paul Walton]

Marks responce to all my copy and paste updates.

 

 

Very very well put. I like that. In fact i will keep it to send to anyone i come across in same situation.   Thanks 

 

Sent from my iPhone