hi devon these letters are sent to frighten you, debt collectors have no legal right to enter your house and take any goods so donot be duped by that, the only time any one can enter your home and seize goods is if the come with a warrant, which is costly and takes time, even if the bailiffs turn up at your door you do not let him in and make sure all windows and doors are locked.here is something i took from another site hope it helps
What can they do to me?
This seems to be a very common question, from those who have gotten themselves into financial difficulty and have been berated by so called 'debt recovery' departments of credit card companies and the like. These departments and agencies deliberately feed their debtors with a liberal diet of half truths and myth, in an effort to scare them into making payments or proposals, for more than they can afford.
Why do they do this? Quite simply, they have very short sighted bad debt policies and their staff are poorly trained to deal with people. A statement which is commonly heard on this board is “we will be sending someone to pay you a visit” this is intimidating but entirely without substance and it is high time that we blew away some of the myths surrounding debt collection practices, so:
What can they do to you? (the following is regarding civil matters and does not apply in criminal matters)
Firstly, without an order of the Court they cannot do anything! Threats that “we will be sending one of our agents round to your house” should be treated with the contempt that it deserves. This is rule number one in the 'bully boys code of practice manual'. Whilst bona fide debt collection agencies do have a license to carry out site visits, the credit control department of a credit card company do not. Even so, if you were to receive a visit at your home address, these people do not have a right of entry and you can simply refuse to discuss the matter with them and tell them to go away. Contrary to popular belief, even County Court Bailiffs or Sheriff's Officers do not have a right to force entry and they can also be summarily despatched in the same way.
OK, now that we have established that nobody has the right to force entry into your property, what remedies do creditors have?
We have already established that a creditor must first obtain a Judgement against you. Once this has been achieved they would then have to execute the Judgement, There are several ways in which they can do this and I will give brief insights to these remedies as follows:
1. Apply For A Warrant Of Execution – This would be an application made to the Court to ask that a Bailiff be sent to your address with a view to obtaining payment or to remove goods or chattels to be sold at auction to pay off your debt. This is not the most effective method of execution, however, if you allow the Bailiff access to your property, he can take what is known as “walking possession” on your goods. Generally speaking, this means that he will make an inventory of things such as hif-fi systems, vehicles, T.V.s etc and will leave them in your possession for a period of time (usually about a week) after which time, he will return and if you don't have the money to pay the debt, he can remove the goods for sale at auction. There are restrictions on things that can be taken, such as your bed, tools of trade and goods belonging to a third party. All in all, not a very effectual method of execution.
2. Apply For A Writ Of Fi Fa (nothing to do with football and pronounced Fi Fay)
This is very similar to the above but applies where the debt exceeds the sum of
£600 in which case, the creditor can ask for the matter to be sent to the High Court for execution and asks that the Sheriff be instructed. The Sheriff has
more incentive than the County Court Bailiff as he is allowed to levy 'poundage' (a commission) on top of the debt. Things can get quite a bit more
costly when they are 'upgraded' to the High Court as unlike County Court
where interest stops on Judgement, interest can continue after Judgement in certain circumstances. Nevertheless, the Sheriff also does not have any right
to force entry into your home.
3. Apply For An Attachment Of Earnings Order – A creditor can apply to the
Court for an attachment of your earnings. This would compel your employer
to make regular deductions from your salary and to send them to a Court department known as C.A.P.S. which would administer the payments and send them to your creditor. A point to note here, is that the Law will not permit deductions to be made from your salary which would reduce your income to a level below that which you could not subsist. i.e. if you don't have it, they can't take it.
4. Application For Oral Examination – Those suffering from 'Ostrich Syndrome' should take particular attention here. This is an application by the creditor to have the debtor investigated under oath by the Court. The idea here, is to establish what if any, assets that the debtor owns. The Law has recently been tightened up in this area and prior to this, it was not uncommon for debtors to ignore the summons to
attend Court.This is now highly unreccommended as it is likely to result in a warrant for arrest for contempt of Court. Nevertheless, if it is a case that you do not
own any assets, then this would not have much of an effect on you, apart from undergoing a days grilling in Court.
5. Application For A Garnishee Order – This results in an order being made to freeze funds or assets owed to you by a third party. For instance, if you had a savings
account, the account could be frozen and the bank compelled to pay funds to the Court to pay off the Judgement. This is a very specific order which means that it
will only freeze whatever amount of money is in the account, at the time that the garnishee arrives.
6. Application For A Bankruptcy Order - The big one! This is the ultimate in debt enforcement and basically, strips you of whatever assets that belong to you, such as property, savings, shares, vehicles and anything else of any particular value.
However, there are a lot of myths surrounding debt in general and bankruptcy in particular and they should be dispelled.
A) Your spouse's assets cannot be seized because of debts that you owe
This is a common misconception. If you have incurred debts under your own name, your spouse is not responsible for payment, even if the creditor obtains a CCJ against you. Similarly, if you receive a visit from a Bailiff, they cannot take goods which belong to your spouse, for debts that you owe.
as you have only missed a few payments i shouldn't think any action would be imminent, i never paid for 6 months and no one turned up at my door, i know its hard but try not to stress too much, good luck with your iva.
kerri
Please view my blog at:
http://scaredkez.blogs.iva.co.uk/
