I have just discovered this site and wish I had found it when I first started my dealings with the Halifax for my repossession! Anyway I will try to summerise the situation. Myself and my (now Ex) Husband brought a property using a Halifax mortgage in the late 1990's. In 1996 we separated, to be divorced in 1997. As part of the divorce agreement my ex Husband handed the house to me. At this stage it was obvious I could not afford the mortgage on my own and put the house on the market. Because of arrears on the mortgage and the fact that the property was on the market I was advised by our local branch not to remove my ex husbands name from the mortgage but use the £75.00 it would cost me to put towards the arrears - not that it would have made a lot of difference. To cut a long story short the sale fell through and the property was repossessed. After much negotiation between my solicitor and them I accepted a debt of £6,000 (the original debt was over £15,000) which I agreed to pay back at £100.00 per month. At no stage has my ex husband accepted that any of this debt is his - in fact we have a document signed in front of a solicitor that states if the Halifax attempt to get any of this debt from him, he can come back to me for the money. The Halifax are aware this document exists and are aware (via me since he refuses to have any dealings with them) that he accepts no liability for the debt. Everything was fine and I was paying off the debt until November 2001 when I was made redundent - losing an income of £45,000! Rather then get another job I have set up my own business and am now self employed but with a much lower income. At the stage of my redundency we were forced to move to a rented house (since we could no longer afford the mortgage on our existing house and decided to sell rather then be repossessed). I forgot (and it was a genuine forget not an attempt to evade paying the debt) to tell the Halifax my new address. They tracked me down within 12 months and for the last 18 months I have been trying to negotiate a new payment plan with them. They have refused every offer of payment I have made, contacted my Ex without informing me first (despite previous assurances they would not)and increased the debt to the original value it was (minus payments I have already made). I apologise for the length of this but this is a brief summary of the situation - without all the gory details! Anyway to the questions I hope someone can help me with - 1) even at this stage is there benefit in serving the Halfax with a SARN? and do I send this to the person I am dealing with or to their data compliance officer? Presumably I need to inform the person I am dealing with since he has given me 21 days to agree a payment plan with them. 2) Because I thought this matter was resolved and we had a payment plan in place (and I have moved 5 times since then!) I cannot find any of the original corresondence. However this was mainly done via the solicitor I had at the time. I have contacted them and asked them to send me copies of this - when I requested this via phone they said they couldn't find any, so I requested by letter with more details but have had no response to the letter. Is it worth serving a SARN on them as well? 3) The Halifax say myself and my ex are jointly and severally liable for this debt. I have accepted full responsiblity for the debt but my ex accepts no liability for this debt. In fact he has had no contact with the Halifax with regard to it - he does not repond to the letters they send him just shouts at me! If I have accepted full responsibility for this debt and am still in negotiation with them about payment and the amount owed do they have any right to attempt to pursue my ex (via a debt collection agency) for exactly the same amount? If (by some miracle) he accepted to the debt collection agency that he owed the money surely the Halifax stand to get double the debt back?(posted 7462 days ago)I apologise for the length of this message and having read this site I now know that I have done some things in the past in my dealings with them that I shouldn't. However I do not dispute the debt with them but do not see why I should have to pay the extra £11,000 they now want. I would just like some advice on how I can get them to accept a payment plan for the £3,200 I believe I owe them and stop them approaching my ex - so he stops giving me grief about it! Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can give me.
Jane