About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

On Feb 10, 8:00 am, "
wrote:
About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

The debt buyer in all probability knows more about you than it has let
on. The purpose of the letter is to help verify that there is no
problem with mistaken identity. By now, they probably have you fairly
well in their web.

To the extent that Citizens Advice Bureaux are publicly funded and are
staffed by people voluntarily, the community would be rather
disappointed if the Bureau advises people on how to evade their lawful
obligations.

Just to clear up any misunderstanding, the creditor is not required to
prove things 'beyond reasonable doubt'. 'Balance of probabilities'
suffices in such cases.

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 19:00:11 +0000, "
wrote:

About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

The problem with doing that is that if they don't trace any of the
others you end up with the whole bill. And if you helpfully put your
hand up, they may not even bother to *try* tracing the others. My
inclination would be not to reply to any such correspondence. Don't
even admit that you exist. The harder you make it, the more likely
they are to give up.

--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"

wrote:

About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

10 years later is well out of time. They can't collect provided you don't
admit to it at any point.

On Feb 10, 11:35 am, Jonathan Bryce wrote:


10 years later is well out of time. They can't collect provided you don't
admit to it at any point.

And this applies to Council tax too?

On Feb 10, 9:35*am, Jonathan Bryce wrote:

10 years later is well out of time. *They can't collect provided you don't admit to it at any point.

Now quite right!

If during the 1st 7 years they haven't found you...you might have a
chance to get away with it, but and here's the rub, if you have simply
changed your account to another branch and avoided re payment, you can
be done even after 10 years, up to 15 years in fact.....so running
away and not responding for 7 years wont always win, you need not have
had any contact with any part of the group for 15 years to really get
away with it.

All the person who you owed money has to do is show that the debt owed
was within the 15 years limit was to another unit of the same group
and your done....he will point out that you simply did a runner and
refused to acknowledge until you were tracked down, so admitting or
not admitting wont come into it to help you and will cause further
problems to you when you're finally brought to court

Jonathan Bryce wrote:
wrote:

About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

10 years later is well out of time. They can't collect provided you
don't admit to it at any point.

They can if they obtained a Liability Order within the six years which they
may well have done. See below.

http://www.payplan.com/debt-library/...n-act-1980.php

Peter Crosland

"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
...
Jonathan Bryce wrote:
wrote:

About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

10 years later is well out of time. They can't collect provided you
don't admit to it at any point.

They can if they obtained a Liability Order within the six years which
they
may well have done. See below.

http://www.payplan.com/debt-library/...n-act-1980.php

And, anyway, time may have extinguished the remedy of litigation but not the
right.


--
FERGUS O'ROURKE
www.irish-lawyer.com
(Not just law stuff)

"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
...
Jonathan Bryce wrote:
wrote:

About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

10 years later is well out of time. They can't collect provided you
don't admit to it at any point.

They can if they obtained a Liability Order within the six years which
they
may well have done. See below.

http://www.payplan.com/debt-library/...n-act-1980.php

In thought the rules for Council Tax (and Poll tax) were different and the
debt doesn't expire.

ISTR reading that there are some LAs still chasing Poll Tax debts.

tim



tim

On 9 Feb, 19:00, "
wrote:
About 10 years ago I was in my early 20s' and flat sharing with
friends and others.
We generally neglected to pay council tax and other assorted bills
(very guesstimated at £7000).
Inevitably 10 yrs later I have ended up receiving letters from a debt
buyer asking for information about my residence at one of my old
address'.
Would anyone offer any advice (apart from "Told you so!") as to my
best course of action? I'm intending to contact the agency, but I
wouldn't want to volunteer any more info than is necessary.
I'm hoping to get an interview with Citizens Advice ASAP.
Cheers

Hi All,
Thanks for the help, I'm uncertain as to my best course of action. A
few more details:
I left the address in question February 2001.
I'm currently living in rented accomodation and have no plans to own a
home.
I'm uncertain of the debt amount as other individuals were involved.
I'm employed on a casual to temporary basis by the local council (as a
librarian).
My income is about £800pcm.
My expenditure is about £300pcm.
Once again thanks for the advice, any more info will be greatly
welcomed.
Cheers