A joint account from 20 years ago....please can someone advise me

[Everythingwillbeok]

Myself and husband at the time opened a joint account with the Abbey National as it was then. I was 20 he was 26, he use it for wages to go into, I never had an ATM card or cheque book or used the account at all.
We split 2 years later after a horrible abusive marriage, not seen him since neither has my daughter who is 18 at the end of this year, I'm nearly 40.
Out of the blue I had a letter from Nottingham county court last week saying the account was passed to them and was overdrawn by £1900.
It's a lot of money and I don't have it.
I'm so upset and angry this is not my doing, I've never used the account and didn't even know it had an overdraft facility on it.
Please can someone help me or advise me.
I'm tempted to dispute it which would cost me £105 in court fees is this worth it or do I not stand a chance of them going after just him for his debt? Thanks very much for any replies, I'm desperate as I only work part time and get about £500 a month that's it. I do have a partner but he will be so resentful if he has to pay anything of this as its really nothing to do with him.

BertieBotts you've been very kind and helpful thanks very much

I think you need to find out why the court was able to find you, but the bank made no attempt.

The bank doesn't usually employ tracing agents and my guess is that they have an old address for the OP which is obsolete. If she gets a printout of her customer profile it will probably have a GONE AWAY marker attached to the last known correspondence address. Sometimes you can tell when this marker has been applied, and it would show that the OP has had no information or dealings with the account since that point as mailings would be suppressed.

The overdraft may even have been applied for by ExH since the OP left and not necessarily at the point of opening the account. The bank's investigation should show this and even if the bank does not uphold her complaint as they are entitled to hold her liable for the debt under the T&Cs, the ombudsman may take the view that this is unfair and order the bank to take her name off the account and stop pursuing her.

Morning all,

We're going to move this thread over to our Legal Matters topic now, at the OP's request. Many thanks to everyone who's offered advice so far.

Good advice been given already. But don't respond to the demand letter. I think (but am no expert) it sounds like he hasn't responded whatsoever so they've contacted you. If you respond, they will grab onto that and keep pursuing only you.

Take action today if you can, and as a pp has said, fight tooth and nail. Don't forget that these type of letters are designed to invoke fear and panic. Stay calm, get advice before making any move.

I think your best bet is that he has indeed, forged your signature to obtain an overdraft. Being as you are named on the account you have EVERY right to contact the bank and demand to see any and ALL paperwork that has your signature on it.

Please try not to panic, I know it's hard

I had similar when a bank/debt collection agency tried to insist we had a loan years ago and had defaulted. Never banked with them in my life but still didn't stop the red letters threatening all sorts. I'm made of sterner stuff though and demanded they send evidence. Of course they had none but still threatened court. I told them that would be preferable and would enjoy the judge asking to see evidence when they couldn't provide any. Add to that I told them I would be instructing my invisible solicitor to start proceedings for harassment. They sent me a letter saying all action had been stopped. I've still kept that letter from about 12 years ago!

There's a lot of speculation going on here. Lots of accounts have an automatic overdraft facility up to a certain limit. Clearly the OP can't recall much about the account so its perfectly possible it was all legitimate at the time.

Unfortunately for the OP these things do happen and that is why its important to separate your finances properly when you split. I speak from bitter experience here given that we ended up paying some of DH's ex wife's bills three and a half years after they split up, by which time we were together and had bought a house etc. And we're both lawyers! DH thought he was being helpful since his ExW had a bad credit rating. He's gone off being helpful since then.

And this isn't a "letter designed to invoke fear and panic" its a letter from the Nottingham County Court. It sounds like the litigation has already been commenced and the OP has now been given the chance to defend the claim. If she doesn't defend the claim she will end up with a judgment against her and a debt to pay.

Its not my area of law. But call the CAB OP, they will be able to advise you further.

The letter from the court doesn't make sense. The court sends out claims and orders. Which of those is it?

Yes fair enough prepperpig I had clearly misread and wrongly assumed that the letter had come from a debt collection agency. Still bruised from my own experience I guess.

However, on the point of the overdraft possibly already being in place, I would suggest that £1900 (or even £1500+ charges) is quite a lot of overdraft to be authorised as a matter of course? Especially 20 years ago? Worth investigating anyway.

I don't think a bank can assume that an overdraft agreed 20 years ago on a joint account can or should be maintained and allowed today without the consent of both account holders. Also, what evidence did the bank take for the (presumably) change of address?

There's no evidence that the overdraft was agreed 20 years ago at all. It may be a more recent thing.

What do you mean by what evidence did the bank rely on for the change of address? If they haven't contacted her before now it's clearly because they don't have her address.

The court will have it because they have a tracing department, but the bank won't...

The court doesn't have a "tracing department". Far from it. It's for the parties to the action to track someone down.

I take your point though that it might have been OP to move away.

Where one account holder leaves an address doesn't the bank need the consent of the other to change the address on the account? If both OP and ex moved away either the bank didn't get her consent to change address or correspondence was returned to the bank marked "gone away". Either should have alerted the bank to the fact that OP was unaware that an overdraft was accruing.

If indeed the OD is over 6 years old then the bank cannot issue proceedings. We still haven't heard from OP what it was she received and from whom.

She said she'd received a "letter" from the Nottingham County court and that she's being given the opportunity to defend the claim. The "letter" may well be a covering letter to papers being served.

Its not incumbent on the bank to make sure both parties are still around every time someone goes into overdraft. For all we know the Ex has been using this as his main account for all that time and has fairly recently gone into overdraft. He may then have provided the OP's address since she is jointly liable (having failed to notify the bank at the time to say she wanted to come off the account).

My account certainly allows me (or DH if he ever did any bloody financial stuff) to notify the bank that I want to set up an overdraft, move money into different accounts and do other things without having a second signature from DH (or even a signature from me for that matter I simply ring them and ask). I could clear out the account if I wanted to without anyone raising an eyebrow a,s for that matter, could he. So even if the overdraft was agreed more recently, the OP is still likely to be liable.

But this is all stuff she should be raising in her defence paperwork. Which she should draft having spoken to the CAB and gained clarity about the "letter". Ignoring it will simply mean they issue default judgment against her so why would you ever ignore it.

Certainly she should defend it. Even if she is held liable for the OD the judge may say that enforcement of the debt is not to be commenced against OP without leave of the court. A judge may require the bank to pursue the ex before they go against OP.

All good advice above. Also now please do get a final consent order on your divorce finances if not already done as there might be lots of other issues out there to settle - your ex may have a claim ion your current home for example or your pension if you did not finalise finances at date of divorce.

lotus I know this has come up on previous threads. Matrimonial law isn't my area. Can an ex have a claim on property many years later if there was no formal financial settlement? (Asking from a purely selfish perspective since DH was married previously but they just agreed the finances between them when they divorced).

Yes but presumably if things weren't formalised then there is a bit of a problem. If we tried to track her down now and said hey fancy signing up fifteen years later to a formal agreement that you won't take our money, we're rather flagging the issue.

Sorry OP this isn't the purpose of your thread.

Yes, as in the Dale case. However Scotland and England differ so you we are talking about England here where finances are divided at date of final division NOT date of separation.

Therefore if you are poor as a church mouse when you separate or divorce and ignore finances but in 5 years' time you are worth £1m through work, the lottery, inheritance, new husband who died or whatever and they your other half at long last applies for the court to settle your finances usually it is divided at that later point not least because the needs of the children come first so not fair on them to say mummy with £20m can run off without a penny because she had zilch when she ran out on the 6 children and left them with daddy who is on the dole or whatever.

Mind you if the other half is likely to remarry people might I suppose want to wait because that spouse might have hooked on to wife or husband number 2 as their new cash cow and so their needs are being met by the new spouse.

I think this is probably bury head in the sand time. They did draw something up between them (DH is also a lawyer) but it was not formalised and I have no doubt that it has been lost through the passage of time since they split 15 years ago. They were only married for 2 years, no children and she got the house, he walked away with about £1,000 and a spaghetti jar.

Now however we have property worth over a million, I earn decent six figures and he earns six figures too.

Will read the case!

That was actually key in the Dale case. The poor man was sure he had signed a clean break with the wife so no future claims BUT the courts do not keep copies that long and he had lost it, his lawyers 20 years ago did not still have it and if the ex wife had it she was keeping quiet about it so he could not prove he had a clean break which is why people should store all their documents in hard copy at their own house, at their mother's house, on a disk, in the cloud so there is no way it will be lost.

Dale was not the only case. there was a barrister or judge who divorced 20 or 30 years ago but had continuing maintenance to his ex wife still being paid 20 years later even now - his second wife had been his wife for 20 years. No clean break in the first marriage. First wife comes back and says that maintenance is not enough I want a lot more as you are now much richer and I need more and the court said yes - in fact they gave her a few hundred thousand as a clean break to buy out all her future maintenance demands. Cannot remember the names.

In the prepper case if it was not formalised - sealed by the court as a consent order and also even if that were done but it was not a "clean break" but instead provided for continuing maintenance, even just 1p a year nominal, then you can come back later for more. However as you say may be best to let sleeping dogs lie unless the ex wife is remarried and quite well off so might also want a clean break sealed court consent order now to finalise things at her end too (or unless you could offer her £5k to sign it but then if she is poor she might well rush off to take legal advice and be told to claim a large amount of his house).

The Dale case just said the wife could try to get more money. The case now goes back to the high court to look at to see how much she should get.