Dear Lee

Our house was repossessed 8 years ago.

We had heard nothing until earlier on this year when a parasitic company who had apparently bought the debt from the original lenders (AMRO BANK) started sending us aggressive and intimidating letters asking for money.

After losing a business and our house and very stupidly trying to do the honourable thing and paying off our creditors over 6 years we were finally getting straight....or so we thought. During this time I found it hard to get a decent job, so I went to college for 4 years full-time, working in the evenings (difficult when you have kids) and am now living in a council house, earning a moderate income although with hardly any disposeable income..........it takes time and is expensive to rebuild any standard of living after years of virtually no income!

Just when things were finally starting to improve........

I now realise after looking through your web-site that they have probably been encouraged by successful applications for credit cards and finance that we have taken out over the last 2 years and that have shown up on our Equifax file.

We took advice from The National Debtline.....which was difficult as it takes hours to get through to them on the phone......they told us to site the Tupper case at the court of appeal and to write back stating that we no longer acknowledge the debt and that we believe it to be "statute barred". This we did and the company served bankrupcy papers on us.

After many sleepless nights and lots of stress we went to county court last month (actually my wife did), representing ourselves and the judge set aside the bankrupcy. This caused excitement amongst the National Debtline people, as I understand that this may not have been done before.

However, this may have been a complete waste of time and worry as they have now appealed this week and it will be going to the High Court soon.

We are now out of our depth.....we can't afford a barrister and are not sure if we even have a case. We have been urged to progress, but it's easy to talk tough when it's not your neck on the block. We may have to settle......which we can't afford (but may be able to borrow from relatives)...........simply through a lack of good advice.

We understand that this case will set a precident if we proceed......so it will be important to all the other poor saps who have had property repossessed over the last 12 years.......We were informed by the other sides solicitor that 200 debts were bought by the company persuing us alone.......all of which represent people who are being threatened, worried and intimidated, probably at this very moment. These people must all be breaking under the pressure, as we are the only ones to get this far (?) allowing these parasites to get rich.

Please, if you have any suggestions E-Mail me ASAP. If you know of a barrister who is willing to advise/represent us on a pro-bono basis, that would be excellent or if you can pass this message on to someone else who can help....that would be good too.

Write soon as we have to make a decision very quickly.

Thanks

Gavin & Pauline Attewell

-- Gavin Attewell (gavin.attewell@virgin.net), December 08, 1998