I have been fending off the Halifax with a shortfall demand of £24,000 now for 7 years. I made the mistake of paying monthly amounts right from the start but there is nothing I can do about that now. In June last year after discovering this site I started questioning the debt and followed the usual procedures (Sarns etc).

Unfortunatly they did seems to have an answer for everything although they did seem to undersell the property and overcharge for various things but nothing stuck out as obviously bad for me to attack.

Last week I decided to try and settle again (I have previously done so twice) with an offer of £3500 to their solicitors, they again declined but said £5000 would do the trick.

I've just been going through my sarn results again and found an interesting fax from their solicitors (Reed Smith) to the Halifax and wondered if it has any relevance.

The fax says "we have been contacted by the debtor who advised us that he has served a SARN upon you", it closes with the following statement IN BOLD "Please provide the debtor with the information required as soon as possible as the six year anniversary is due to expire on 16th August 2002".

I received the results from the Halifax on the 21st August, is this of any use and can I use it in any way?

Any help would be much appreciated.

-- Drew Webb (murmur280466@aol.com), April 06, 2003

Answers

Hi Drew,

Hmmm that sounds very interesting to me. I would be extremely tempted to write back to the solicitors and ask them if they could kindly point out the relevance of that line.

It could be that as Halifax are members of the Council of Mortgage Lenders that it is relative to that but it is hard to say as you already point out you have paid (which is unfortunate I know!)

You have nothing to lose, I would write and ask them without admitting to the debt again in any way.

Do let us know if they reply.

-- Chris (chris@anon.co.uk), April 07, 2003.