Opos statute barred debt - can address be left out of my letter to them?

[KRIS17]

Hi

Opos have started contacting me regarding an alleged debt, handed over to them by capquest. The email does not state the year of this alleged debt, only the company and the balance, and I have not admitted any liability to this debt. I have not received any physical letters but if they have sent any out they may have gone to an old address. I am 90% sure that this alleged debt would be statute barred.

I have found the template letter to send to them, my question is do I need to include my address? I’d rather not give them my new address if possible.

Also, if I send this letter and the debt is not yet statute barred, could that cause any issues?

TIA

[atticus]

You can surely cut and paste the relevant text into an email for your reply, without including your address.

[KRIS17]

You can surely cut and paste the relevant text into an email for your reply, without including your address.

Ok thank you, this is what I was hoping to do, I just wasn’t sure if there’d be a requirement to include the address.

[R0b]

They might refuse to supply you more information unless you pass data protection checks which might require an address where the debt was taken out.

[PallasAthena]

Not telling them your current address is a really bad idea. If the debt turns out not to be statute barred and the debt owner starts small claims court proceedings against you they can issue proceedings by post at the last known address they have for you. If you no longer live there you might then have no idea court proceedings have been issued and so you do not put in a defence. The debt owner then wins by default and gets a CCJ against you. This is called by some a "backdoor CCJ".

Whilst them knowing your address does mean a debt collector might call (an issue that can be addressed in other ways) the risks to you of them not knowing are much greater.