Please excuse my ignorance in these matters, but going through the SARN info sent to me, the halifax have been paid out for nearly £20,000 and they are chasing me for THAT, and the balance after repo and sale and MIG ?? nowhere in any of the letter does it say that they are chasing for themselves and /on behalf of sun alliance?

can anyone advise ????

-- amanda barton (amandab1@blueyonder.co.uk), July 25, 2002

Answers

You are one of the many affected by the question of debt status of MIG payouts. If the payout to the Halifax was more than six years ago then you have a reasonable case to argue that this part of their claim is now statute barred.

There are some impending court cases which may or may not clarify this point of law so we may have a clearer idea of where we stand in a few days time.

My advice to you would be to wait for the outcome of the Appeal Court cases to become known. If insurance payouts are deemed to be simple debts ie 6 year time limit for recovery court action and Halifax are now outside this limit then you should refute this part of their claim. If no judgement is made either way then you should still argue this because in all likelihood the Halifax will not wish to test this issue. If the court does specifically rule that MIG payouts are specialty debt then we'll all have to rethink things. An interesting little known fact about the Halifax is that they keep 70% of any money recovered 'on behalf' of the RSA.

-- Gordon Bennet (arsenewhinger@hotmail.com), July 25, 2002.

If a lender has had a payout from the MIG, then the lender can chase you on behalf of the insurer for the money that was paid out. Sometimes the insurer chases you directly. It works in the same way as motor insurance - if you prang someone's car - their insurer will pay them out and then try and get the money off you. Usually it would be your insurer that would pay this. However with mortgages, we don't have insurance to cover us.

As said above, hang on for a bit and see what happens in the Court of Appeal cases. If you want to, why not write to the Halifax asking them why you're being chased for the £20k and get them to explain. If nothing else, they're being made to work for their money!

-- pendle (pendle_666@yahoo.co.uk), July 25, 2002.

Hi Amanda,

could you tell me what documentation you found this info - we are also in dispute with the Halifax and with a wedge of over 500 pieces of paper, a bit of guidance would be much appreciated!

-- lisajh29@hotmail.com (lisajh29@hotmail.com), July 25, 2002.

I notice a couple of postings re the time limit to chase MIG payouts for insurers. Is there any news on this?

Halifax are chasing me for MIG payout - more than they were actually paid I hasten to add. MIG was paid out 7 years ago, can they still chase it?

-- One Angry Mother (madcow678@hotmail.com), November 04, 2002.