I notice from the boards and other parts of the site that it seems fairly common practice for lenders to pester people, often for years, harrassing them for money without ever carrying out their own obligations (ie providing mortgage documents, MIGs and so on).

What I wonder is if it possible to get them to stop by issuing a "cease and desist" order. I'm not sure of my legal terminology here, but I do know that the courts look most unfavourably on harrassment - particularly by organisations. I imagine that a judge seeing you'd bent over backwards to be reasonable and were subjected to continual threats and harrassment would be pretty tough on the offending organisation...

Just an idea...food for thought...

-- Chris (chrishoare@btinternet.com), January 30, 2001

Answers

I could think of alternate terminology to "cease & desist" which I've often been tempted to include in my responses ! Seriously, I think you're right that if a judge sees that a lender is blatently harassing a former 'customer' & breaching CPR rules, they would be very tough. Vince

-- vincent smile (vincent.smile@postoffice.co.uk), February 01, 2001.

When the association acts for a member we ask the debt collector to produce a list of eleven documents in order for us to obtain legal advice.the list contains all the items which would have to be produced at discovery if the lender pursued the matter to court. The aim of this exercise is to rid the borrower of spurious and unsubstantiated claims and to work in line with the Woolf Report. We are not asking for anything extraordinary. if these lenders had money judgments they would not be threatening court action they could simply rely on the judgment. If the items are not produced in 14 days then we write assuming that the claim has ceased and any further correspondence or phonecalls directly to our member will be treated as harassment and reported accordingly as a criminal offence. these debt collectors are well trained to intimidate you and make your life a misery. unless you have nerves of steel get the help of someone who is able to act on your behalf.You don't need a solicitor or debt consolidator. Rember just because someone has sent you a bill it does not mean that you owe it. These people contravene Civil Procedure Rules. get the debt substantiated before agreeing to pay a reduced amount and paying a consolidator a percentage of something which you may not have owed in the first place.

-- Carol Riley (NAMV@ukf.net), February 05, 2001.