arrears go from €2,015 to €2,648 in 2 weeks!

[Kelly]

I am living in a house in a mixed development, I have not paid the fees for the last few yrs as I lost my job, I am 58 and have found it very hard to get work, I am currently working on a Zero hour contract and am only getting occasional work. I have been taken to court by the management company (even though I had offered to pay them €25pm as advised by MABS, which they declined), the amount outstanding for fees was €1,640 but that was brought up to €2,015 to include debt collection/interest/solicitor fees.

I went to court in early November (I had already started paying €25pm from Oct) but the judge did not get time to hear the case and postponed it till January, I went again in January and agreed to a judgement of €25pm which I have been paying.

I thought this was an end to it until I started to receive letters and statements from both the solicitors and the management company, the 1st letter dated 28th January from the solicitor confirmed the judgement of €25pm on amount of €2,015.09, the 2nd letter from solicitor dated 2nd Feb stated I now owed €2,230.09 (to include court fees of €215), I then received a statement on 4th Feb from Management company stating I owe €2,574 and then on the 10th Feb another statement stating I owe €2,648.63. It has got to the stage that I am living in constant fear of what will arrive in the post!!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[44brendan]

At this stage you need to stand back and assess exactly what is owed. Firstly if this debt has gone the full distance to judgment that is all that you owe, plus simple interest at 8% pa. It would also appear that an installment order has been granted by the Court for €25 pw. That is all that you must pay. Solicitors should not be writing to you if you are meeting these installments. If your financial circumstances deteriorate you can also go to Court and look for a variation on the IO!

 

[Kelly]

At this stage you need to stand back and assess exactly what is owed. Firstly if this debt has gone the full distance to judgment that is all that you owe, plus simple interest at 8% pa. It would also appear that an installment order has been granted by the Court for €25 pw. That is all that you must pay. Solicitors should not be writing to you if you are meeting these installments. If your financial circumstances deteriorate you can also go to Court and look for a variation on the IO!

Thank you for responding, the debt of €2,015 has gone the full distance to court and the installment order of €25pm was granted. I thought that would be the end of the matter as long as I continued to pay €25pm (which I have). I am just confused and quite frankly frightened by the letters and statements that I have received since then

 

[jdwex]

Thank you for responding, the debt of €2,015 has gone the full distance to court and the installment order of €25pm was granted. I thought that would be the end of the matter as long as I continued to pay €25pm (which I have). I am just confused and quite frankly frightened by the letters and statements that I have received since then

I thought this was an end to it until I started to receive letters and statements from both the solicitors and the management company

Write back to the management company asking for clarification of what you owe as of a particular date.

You are still liable for management fees, notwithstanding the installment order for the arrears, so what you owe will continue to grow if your management fees are more than 300 euro a year.