Ex husband avoiding paying unsecured loan - I seem stuck

[daisystone]

Ex husband (separated 2 years ago) went off and did not sort any of the bills, loans etc. House had to be sold and I did most of the sorting but although we paid off all of the mortgage there is money on the unsecured loan left to pay. We paid off about £24,000 of the unsecured loan with the proceeds of the sale of the house but there is £8,000 remaining on the loan. NRAM (who it is with) have my new address and were writing to both my ex and me here. I have informed them that he does not and never has lived here. They have amended their details. I have tried to give them his new address. They have taken it but say they WILL NOT write to him at this address. HE has to write into them himself and provide a utility bill showing his new address for proof. I have told them he WILL NOT do this as he is trying to avoid paying the debt.

Although we are both liable for the loan it seems that they are not bothered about who pays it but are happy to get hold of the first person they find and chase them (i.e: me). So, we are both liable but I am more liable than him as I am trying to sort this out and they have my address.

We are going round in circles. They refuse to write to him. I have asked for Head of Customer Care to contact me to discuss. I have said I will not be held accountable for the full amount but will pay half. They won't entertain this. I have said to them "so basically if I were to move house, you would not be able to find me and I would be able to do what my ex husband is doing". They have said yes that would be the case. The people I speak to know it sounds unreasonable and mad but obviously they cannot do anything about it.

This debt will haunt me forever it is doesn't get sorted. My ex has now put a harassment warning on me (no criminal proceedings, just my ex being a nasty bastard so he does not have to deal with DD or debts) and I now cannot even contact him to try to discuss.

Is anyone on here aware of what my options could be. Could I take him to the small claims court? Will I have to declare myself bankrupt and then get the debt written off and start again from scratch trying to build my credit rating. Cannot believe ex has effectively run away from this and left me to deal with it and that no one seems to give a shit.

I shall be speaking to my solicitor but would like any info/shared experiences. I feel that there is no way out of this. He is never going to sort out voluntarily and has done a classic runner.

I work in debt collection but in the US.

Doesn't matter if there were/are 20 people responsible for the debt, the company doesn't care WHO pays it, just that it gets paid. They have no obligation to accept a payment agreement, and they have no obligation to accept your proposal to only pay half. They could sue you for the entire amount, and then you'd have to sort out how to get money from the other 19 people.

You could take him to small claims court for it, but the company won't care about that either. They could still claim the money from you, and you would then have to claim it from him.

Whether you declare bankruptcy is up to you. If you don't earn enough for them to get it from you (here in the US we could take a certain percent from your wages, but only if you earned over a certain amount, and take from your bank account) then declaring bankruptcy would be a bad idea.

So move house it is then.

Eventually they would find you, you would just be delaying the inevitable, and may end up with a very bad credit rating.

So it's in your own best interests to agree a payment plan with them now, rather than end up with a CCJ (assuming they are still called that).

I'd also investigate how to get some money from your ex, talk to a solicitor or CAB. Try the small claims court.

Unfortunately this is what happens on a loan where you are jointly and severally liable. Another way of describing jointly and severally liable actually is "Cannot believe ex has effectively run away from this and left me to deal with it and that no one seems to give a shit." and you've learnt a very hard lesson in not co-signing loan applications with someone untrustworthy (although it may not have been obvious that you couldn't trust him at the time).

Will you be able to take him to small claims if he has a non-molestation order on you? Or is that not what the harassment warning is? I would definitely talk to your solicitor about how you can inflict maximum damage on his credit rating.

I was being flippant about moving as I know it only stops the problem now but still harms my credit rating in the future.

The frustrating thing is that i have an address for him. They just won't use it. Why? If I WERE to move they would still have his address. Would they not use it then. He has turned out to be beyond untrustworthy. I mean he is really leaving DD and myself in it in order to start new life with girlfriend. Doesn't care about how this affects us.

Harassment is because he does not want me to come to his house in case I say anything to new girlfriend (he is shit scared of her finding anything out from me. This is also a convenient way to bar us from his life). Anyone can say they are being harassed. All you have to do is call them and say you no longer want them to contact you and that you are being harassed and job done. It is the most bizarre thing - particularly as we have a child and joint financial issues.

I am chasing my solicitor trying to get hold of him. I will NEVER jointly do anything ever again. I cannot believe that companies do not have a more effective way to deal with this. WHY do they not write to him at his address?

My exh did the same 20 years ago. The bank weren't interested in his contact details but the debt collection agency they passed the debt to were.

Currently in the process of divorcing. We sold the house about a year and a half ago. This loan is what is left over. We took the loan out at the same time as the massive mortgage. If he had not stopped paying the mortgage the moment he moved out, we would probably have nothing or only a few hundred to pay. There has been no financial order but perhaps my solicitor may discuss this? I did not know that he was going to act this way so I thought that we might be able to just sort things between us. How wrong was I!? We have been separated two years and in all that time he has avoided every single debt or bill to do with our last property. He has even avoided an old British Gas bill from three years ago. I let the debt collection agency have his new address on that one.

It is very cruel and nasty, not to mention downright childish to behave in this way.