Prodigal Son Returns, Bad Debts to resolve, advice required!

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Hi,

I left Ireland 3 years ago due to Credit Card / Bank Loan Debt i got myself into. I genuinely couldn't cope with the pressure from CC Companies and Debt Collection Agencies so i up sticks and left for London.

Things have gone well in the past 3 years and now i am home and have formed a limited Company...

When I Left i had €4k on one CC, 2K on another, 4k unpaid loan - all with one institution and a 2k unpaid overdraft with another bank.

In Total i owe 14k which i am now in a position to pay back in full immediately.

I am awaiting a report form ICB but i am wondering can i bargin with the banks to take me off the bad debtors list if i pay in full. I have heard my previous address was awash with red letters for a year or more so i presume a court judgement has been ordered against me.

I will earn over €150k per annum but really need advice as i'm due to buy a house soon with my girlfriend who as you guessed knows nothing of my past money problems!

I have been declined a personal account since i came home so i have 0% chance of getting a morgage at present..


Any Ideas??
 
Re: Prodical Son Returns, Bad Debts to resolve, advice required!

From reading previous posts where people got bad credit records from just missing a couple of repayments here and there and being declined subsequently and the fact that they won't even give you a bank account, I'd say your chances are bleak. Your only hope would be to go and meet a bank manager and explain the whole situation and hope you come across an extremely sympathetic one. Not sure if you could get a mortgage in the UK? Either way, I'd come clean with the girlfriend, chances are she's gonna find out sooner or later, so better come up with the truth voluntarily!
 
Re: Prodical Son Returns, Bad Debts to resolve, advice required!

But in any event GE MONEY do mortgages for people with bad debts, not sure on the bank account though, why not go back to the branch where u last held an account and see if they will open a new account for you
 
Re: Prodical Son Returns, Bad Debts to resolve, advice required!

Reports at the ICB are held for five years which, with your track record, would suggest that a subprime lender such as [broken link removed] might be your only chance.
 
New Recruit said:
I am awaiting a report form ICB but i am wondering can i bargin with the banks to take me off the bad debtors list if i pay in full. I have heard my previous address was awash with red letters for a year or more so i presume a court judgement has been ordered against me.
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No - absolutely not! The history of the loan cannot be changed unless it is inaccurate. The best they can do for you is change the status to "C" which would indicate that the loan was cleared in full (once you pay it off, that is).
The ICB will indicate if litigation is pending or has already taken place.
You'll also be liable for any costs by the way, and will probably pay 100% if you never turned up (if it happens of course).

New Recruit said:
I will earn over €150k per annum but really need advice as i'm due to buy a house soon with my girlfriend who as you guessed knows nothing of my past money problems!
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Forget any hope of a mortgage. No lender will touch you if you left loans outstanding for 3 years. Not until 5 years after the last loan was cleared. If your girlfriend believes she's buying a house with you "soon" you'd better tell her the truth - that soon is going to be at least 5 years away if you have to borrow. Bear in mind also that whatever institutions you had the loans with won't treat you favorably until they see responsible behaviour. 75% of my debts were with BOI but they were trying to give me a Gold credit card only 2 months ago because I'd cleared everything in full over 2 year ago.

I was in a similar position 4 years ago, though my finances deteriorated due to being out of work for 3 months while away and relationship issues (i.e. partner of the time simply wouldn't pay their way), I didn't leave because of them. Only difference was that the arrears only went back 3-6 months so only one debt of 4 went to a debt collector at that time. The banks gave me nothing but unworkable suggestions (i.e. borrow more - which of course was immediately turned down) so I simply paid what I could afford until all debts were cleared. I did manage to hang onto my VISA card, but BOI shut down my bank account. Luckily for me I had an AIB cashsave account which at the time was still fee free and debt free.
As it happened only one of the loans (the others were an overdraft and 2 credit cards) were on the ICB so it actually didn't hit me as badly as I expected it to. You might find that some of the debts don't appear on the ICB record so clear those on it first.

I hate to sound pessimistic but there isn't much forgiveness for getting into debt these days, and lenders will generally treat you harshly for years afterwards. Its something you simply are going to have to accept and learn to live with. The only other thing I can say is to make sure that the ICB are correctly updated as BOI didn't put in that I'd cleared the loan in full, which resulted in me finding it much harder to get any kind of credit. I corrected this via the ICB but it probably made things worse for me.
 
Cheers for all your advice, umm time to face the music me thinks!
 
New Recruit said:
I have heard my previous address was awash with red letters for a year or more so i presume a court judgement has been ordered against me.
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If the bank got a judgment against you and registered this judgment in the Registration Books of the High Court, the only way this can be removed is if the Solicitors for the Plaintiff (i.e. the Bank) lodge memoranda in the Court to the effect that the debt has been satisfied. Until this is done you will be refused any type of credit, mortgages, loans etc... as all the banks and lending facilities check the Registration Books on a daily basis and will check as far back as 20 years to see if a judgment has been registered against a potential client
 
Don't forget that interest will have been racking up on your account during your absence, so the amounts owed now will be substantially greater than when you left.
 
The interest charged will not be at CC rates loan rates etc, they are only allowed to charge interest at the court approved rate which is 8% at present.
 
The level of interest depends on how long it took the lender to "close" the account. In my case I was actually charged about 28-29% on an unauthorised overdraft for about 15 months or so. If effectively added about 400 to the original figure I owed. The court amount would only apply after the court judgement was taken so whatever interest was applied previous to it going to court would depend on what the lenders policy was regarding arrears - for example some credit card companies charge unpaid item fees plus if there was a bounced direct debit you'd be charged for both the unpaid item and possibly a referral fee also.

Realistically what this costs would depend on the terms of the lender, as I've pointed out above, BOI fleeced me on my overdraft, but didn't charge any more on the credit card (which actually was the only account I was able to normalise).
 
There is a district court judge that so dislikes the banks taking debtors to court that the judge publicly criticises the banks lending and interest policies (ie waiting too long to obtain judgment so the interest piles up) and often will not award the banks their costs.
 
bond-007 said:
The interest charged will not be at CC rates loan rates etc, they are only allowed to charge interest at the court approved rate which is 8% at present.
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They can charge whatever rate they like up until judgment. Then, from the date of judgment it is at the rate of 8% per annum simple interest. It all adds up though
 
bond-007 said:
There is a district court judge that so dislikes the banks taking debtors to court that the judge publicly criticises the banks lending and interest policies (ie waiting too long to obtain judgment so the interest piles up) and often will not award the banks their costs.
Click to expand...

I have never seen a judge not award costs for this reason
 
I have a suggestion - you are now in a very different position financially than you were some time ago - so I suggest you meet with the bank manager of your old bank and negotiate with him. He has your history so you're hiding nothing, and I can't see that you have anything to lose by doing this - you might even get your bank acc back, or a different one opened there.
 
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