Company moved default date by 2 years. Update.

[JennaHelp]

Hello.

Yorkshire Water have been in touch with my friend.

They said the following.

A default was registered on your credit file on 7 September 2016, the
balance
on the default was £698.42 at this time. Your ongoing charges after the
date of
the default were unpaid and then on 7 November 2018 the unpaid charges of
£264.49 was added to the original default balance.
When your oldest default becomes 6 years of age, we have to re-age the
default


How can they re age the default surly that is not acceptable?

[Beagle2000]

Hi,

Technically not something they are allowed to do, but is something they are able to do. Their tactic is essentially to trick you into making contact and therefore 'acknowledging' the debt with it approaching the 6 year mark and thus restarting the 6 year limitation period. To avoid acknowledging the debt, do not make any payments or put anything in writing to them. Instead I would call them and query the date of original default, do not discuss the debt, payments or anything related to this. Request them to correct the default date, if they do not budge, I would file a complaint and then escalation to the ombudsman if not upheld. I would also raise an query with credit reference agencies and explain to them so they can make a note on your credit record.

[R0b]

Beagle I think you might be confusing the limitation period with the default date for the purposes of recording arrears on a credit file as the two are not the same thing.

My initial thoughts are that they are probably allowed to do that but they need to be careful about how they go about doing it. They are not allowed to record more than one default for the same debt. What I would expect to happen, is that when your default marker is removed, Yorkshire Water will then report a default marker to credit reference agencies with a default start date on 7 November 2018 and the balance of £264.49.

Having said that, you may be able to argue that the default date should have been as early as 3 months but no later than 6 months. There is guidance by the ICO as agreed with lenders as to how arrears should be reported to reference agencies. You can find the link to that document here and I suggest you have a good read around the section on recording defaults as well as any other relevant guidance.

It would be sensible for your friend to raise a dispute now, rather than wait until it actually happens and has an impact on him/her that could put them in a more precarious position. As always, I would expect YW to reject any question that what they are doing is wrong and unlawful in which case the next steps would be the Energy Ombudsman and failing that, going to court if your friend is feeling up for it.