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Hi everyone. I was directed here from the Money Saving Expert forums, as they felt I might have more luck posting my issue here. I'm going to copy and paste what I had posted over there as I believe it includes all the required information. 
New guy here, needing some advice and I hope I've posted in the correct area!
This is a long and complicated situation, so please bear with me and if I've left off any important information, do ask! I need to get the best advice possible in this situation.
My fiancee had a loan with Lloyds TSB many, many years ago (I think she said it was 2004) with her husband at the time. Now, and this is the important part, my fiancee has mental and physical health problems which mean she is incapable of managing her finances. Her ex-husband was her carer at the time, which meant he dealt with all finances, so when they took the loan out and the bank said she needed to sign it, she did... because he told her it needed to be done.
Fast forward to 2007 and they broke up. They took the loan out to pay off a previous loan (and get a better interest rate) and pay off a couple of credit cards. The bank started chasing them to say the ORIGINAL loan had not been paid off, even though they had all the receipts saying it had. They both went to the CAB and were advised to ignore it if the bank simply aren't helping, since it would be "written off" (apparently those are the actual words used) in 6 years.
So they did.
2008, my fiancee's ex-husband moved out. Her mother contacted the bank they had the loan with to inform them he'd moved out and since he was in charge of finances, they needed to contact him. A forwarding address was provided. The bank wrote back to insist my fiancee needed to pay the debt, and her mother wrote back AGAIN to tell them she had mental health problems, the debt was her ex-husbands and they needed to talk to him, AGAIN giving them his forwarding address.
Their response? To go after my fiancee directly. She's been ignoring the letter since.
2012 was the last time she heard anything about either debt, the old loan that is supposed to be paid off AND the new one. Her ex-husband was opening his own business, so took all the information we had (I moved in with her in 2009 and have been keeping everything to this point) and said he'd deal with it. Since we didn't have any more letters arriving, we figured he'd make good on his word.
This morning (20th December, 2014), we received a letter from BW Legal in my fiancee's old name (she changed her surname after the divorce was granted) stating they have entered a CCJ against her, and the court has ordered her to pay £180 per month starting in January.
Now, from the small amount of research I've done, it would seem this process has been done ENTIRELY incorrectly. Firstly, they need to apply and send us a letter stating they've applied so we can challenge it. We have received no such letter. Secondly, I believe my fiancee would have to turn up in court for a CCJ to be applied? She's had no court dates turn up, and thus hasn't been. Thirdly, I believe they cannot enforce a CCJ against her as she counts as a vulnerable person (Mental and Physical health disabilities, which is the reason I'm her carer and she cannot be trusted with financial metters) and is on both Income Support and DLA due to her inability to work. Finally, it has been 6 years EASILY since she contacted the bank or it's representatives about the debt, which I believe matters in this instance?
Obviously this letter has impacted her mental health seriously and it's taken me all day to calm her down so I can actually leave her alone for the few minutes necessary to write this post.
So... how do we proceed from here? As mentioned, I did a little research regarding the CCJ process before posting here, and it seems like everything has been done wrong. Obviously, I don't want to risk directly contacting the company as that would acknowledge the debt and thus reset the 6 year counter, but we clearly need to do something.
Cheers for any advice!
New guy here, needing some advice and I hope I've posted in the correct area!
This is a long and complicated situation, so please bear with me and if I've left off any important information, do ask! I need to get the best advice possible in this situation.
My fiancee had a loan with Lloyds TSB many, many years ago (I think she said it was 2004) with her husband at the time. Now, and this is the important part, my fiancee has mental and physical health problems which mean she is incapable of managing her finances. Her ex-husband was her carer at the time, which meant he dealt with all finances, so when they took the loan out and the bank said she needed to sign it, she did... because he told her it needed to be done.
Fast forward to 2007 and they broke up. They took the loan out to pay off a previous loan (and get a better interest rate) and pay off a couple of credit cards. The bank started chasing them to say the ORIGINAL loan had not been paid off, even though they had all the receipts saying it had. They both went to the CAB and were advised to ignore it if the bank simply aren't helping, since it would be "written off" (apparently those are the actual words used) in 6 years.
So they did.
2008, my fiancee's ex-husband moved out. Her mother contacted the bank they had the loan with to inform them he'd moved out and since he was in charge of finances, they needed to contact him. A forwarding address was provided. The bank wrote back to insist my fiancee needed to pay the debt, and her mother wrote back AGAIN to tell them she had mental health problems, the debt was her ex-husbands and they needed to talk to him, AGAIN giving them his forwarding address.
Their response? To go after my fiancee directly. She's been ignoring the letter since.
2012 was the last time she heard anything about either debt, the old loan that is supposed to be paid off AND the new one. Her ex-husband was opening his own business, so took all the information we had (I moved in with her in 2009 and have been keeping everything to this point) and said he'd deal with it. Since we didn't have any more letters arriving, we figured he'd make good on his word.
This morning (20th December, 2014), we received a letter from BW Legal in my fiancee's old name (she changed her surname after the divorce was granted) stating they have entered a CCJ against her, and the court has ordered her to pay £180 per month starting in January.
Now, from the small amount of research I've done, it would seem this process has been done ENTIRELY incorrectly. Firstly, they need to apply and send us a letter stating they've applied so we can challenge it. We have received no such letter. Secondly, I believe my fiancee would have to turn up in court for a CCJ to be applied? She's had no court dates turn up, and thus hasn't been. Thirdly, I believe they cannot enforce a CCJ against her as she counts as a vulnerable person (Mental and Physical health disabilities, which is the reason I'm her carer and she cannot be trusted with financial metters) and is on both Income Support and DLA due to her inability to work. Finally, it has been 6 years EASILY since she contacted the bank or it's representatives about the debt, which I believe matters in this instance?
Obviously this letter has impacted her mental health seriously and it's taken me all day to calm her down so I can actually leave her alone for the few minutes necessary to write this post.
So... how do we proceed from here? As mentioned, I did a little research regarding the CCJ process before posting here, and it seems like everything has been done wrong. Obviously, I don't want to risk directly contacting the company as that would acknowledge the debt and thus reset the 6 year counter, but we clearly need to do something.
Cheers for any advice!
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