My husband was contacted 3 years after a respossession in 1994. He contacted a solicitor who advised him to start making payments immediately to avoid being taken to court. He made substantial payments for 3 years but then brought his payments back down after we had a child and I gave up work. We tried to make a settlement at the time but the B&B made unreasonable demands for bank statements and payslips etc. with no guarantee that they would accept a lesser amount. They are now demanding income and expenditure forms and bank statements with a view to us increasing our payments. We have no intention of providing these. They are again threatening to take us to court if we don't comply. Can they do that if my husband has been making regular payments for the past five years? And though I know he should have, he has never questioned the debt, apart from getting his liability halved due to a joint mortgage with his ex-wife. The debt is only 8,000 now, over 3,000 having been paid off. We aren't afraid of going to court if it comes to that, but are worried how it would affect my husbands credit record and the fact that he now has another mortgage? Also, we have some equity in our current property, can they get their mucky little hands on that? Please don't state the obvious that he should never have paid a penny, we know that now, but at that time we took the advice of some prick of a solicitor!

-- (kate.gates@tesco.net), December 01, 2002

Answers

It's not too late to question the debt B&B say you owe them. Read through the details on this website about the kind of letters you can write and the information which you need to be looking for.

Before the B&B can lay hands on the equity in your current property, they have to have a money judgement again you and for this they would have to go to court. Although they are threatening you with court action, it is not always likely that they will go ahead with the threat, its usually just that.

Write to them and start asking questions, and don't hand over any personal papers no matter what they threaten. Even if they did issue proceedings, the civil procedure rules say that they have to justify their claim - they'll have to prove what you owe with documents.

-- pendle (pendle_666@yahoo.co.uk), December 04, 2002.

Kate,

I agree with what Mr Pendle says above, get them to justify their claim and prove they sold your property for a fair price (they have an obligation to do so). See the Home Repo's 'Do's and Don'ts', if necessary issue them with a SARN. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that they owe you money, as so many properties were undersold. I would also get your local MP involved too.

Good Luck.

-- M Amos (idgroms@hotmail.com), December 06, 2002.