My client has recently seperated from her husband she is in severe debt through her husbands drug habit mortage arrears ctax and second mortgage arrears we checked her eperian credi report have discovered several unsecured loans taken out in her name which she has no knowledge of also a CCJ registered against her fom HMRC I rand them and found out this was the result of a CTC WT overpayment from 2003 2004 is their any hope of having this debt of £3700 written off on financial hardship grounds or is it too late ?

Tue 12-Aug-08 09:56 AM by pipkin

She may want to look at the whole debt situation rather than just this one debt..

Can she afford the contractual payments to the mortgage and the secured loan, as well as making additional payments to clearing the arrears..? Can she also afford to pay the exisiting and arrears of council tax.. What stage are these at..? The CTU could be considering legal action (attachment of earnings, charging orders or even bankruptcy)..

If not, then she may need to look at other housing options and maybe even bankruptcy herself to clear the debts in one fell sweep..

Regarding the debts in her name to which she has no knowledge.. If she considering taking legal action due to fraud..??? Has she contacted the Police about this or the creditors themselves..??

We have applied for I/S for her so she should have no ongoing CT and have made arrangements to pay arrears.We are looking at a move to sheltered accomodation where her rent will be paid until her house is sold (if there are any proceeds left) we have contacted the police with regard to theft of her jewellry and fraudulent loan activities

Any further offers of advice ?

If there are a lot of other debts bankruptcy might well be advisable - & it would clear the tax credit debt.

However, if that is not what the client wishes to do I see no harm in trying as hard as possible to push the hardship case for a write off. I assume the client knew nothing about the CCJ - had never had any of the papers about it because the husband had kept them from her? A detailed description of what the marital situation was & a current income & expenditure statement would be needed.