bad debt

[billy balti]

my wife left me in october 1999 and soon after had the house repossed,i also had a personnal loan and 2 credit cards which havent been paid since.I have had no correspondence from any of the companies since then as they do not have my address.could you let me know where i stand as i dont know what action would have been taken in my absence or if i have ccjs etc. i want to open a bank account but all this bad debt is stopping me applying for fear of rejection. as far as i can recall my ex father in law paid a small payment to themortgage people on the shortfall of the balance when the house was sold

[chuckie_egg]

I would order a copy of your credit report to find out what if anything has been put against your credit. You can do this online.

I was once told that if they hadn't made any attempt to retreive the money for six month, then legally then cannot make you pay it, but i'm not too sure how true that is.

[themas]

If you get a report from any of the Credit Ref. Agencies it will probably lead to the creditors finding you, so don't do it unless you want to contact them anyway to sort the mess out.

Apart from the mortgage shortfall the debts (if they were not secured on the house) become statute barred after 6 years of no payment and no acknowledgement that you owe the debt. The debt still exists but cannot be enforced through Court action. The exception to this is if a CCJ was obtained before the 6 years was up. You can check this at the registry of CCJs (look for website).

The mortgage may still be enforceable for 12 years - depends on who the mortgage lender was and the precise action that they took, and whether they contacted your wife (if the mortgage was joint).