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In recent years debt collection agencies have increasingly used Statutory Demands as a tool of debt collection. When issuing a Statutory Demands most of them have no intention of actually issuing a petition for bankruptcy - it is just used to frighten people into paying debts.
Issuing Statutory Demands must have been effective in bringing in money, as more and more companies have jumped on the bandwagon. There are accounts of people being so frightened when receiving these that they have paid them before priority calls on their money like rent, council tax and utilities.
Well, due to the abuse of the system, the government have CHANGED THE RULES as from 6 April 2011
The full link can be found here, but the important bit companies now have to abide by is:
If a statutory demand has not been served personally, you will have to obtain permission from the court to issue the petition. To do so you need to complete a witness statement confirming compliance with Insolvency Practice Direction 11. This statement must be factually accurate and describe fully how the statutory demand was served and any enquiries that were carried out before, or at the time of service.
If creditors now send any debtor a Statutory Demand merely by post, then service is defective (unless the debtor is being evasive) and they cannot go on to actually issue a petition for bankruptcy.
Top marks for this move by the powers that be. It will save hundreds of people a great deal of stress (provided they know about the change).
Issuing Statutory Demands must have been effective in bringing in money, as more and more companies have jumped on the bandwagon. There are accounts of people being so frightened when receiving these that they have paid them before priority calls on their money like rent, council tax and utilities.
Well, due to the abuse of the system, the government have CHANGED THE RULES as from 6 April 2011
The full link can be found here, but the important bit companies now have to abide by is:
If a statutory demand has not been served personally, you will have to obtain permission from the court to issue the petition. To do so you need to complete a witness statement confirming compliance with Insolvency Practice Direction 11. This statement must be factually accurate and describe fully how the statutory demand was served and any enquiries that were carried out before, or at the time of service.
If creditors now send any debtor a Statutory Demand merely by post, then service is defective (unless the debtor is being evasive) and they cannot go on to actually issue a petition for bankruptcy.
Top marks for this move by the powers that be. It will save hundreds of people a great deal of stress (provided they know about the change).
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