Hi there,
I really hope someone can offer some advice, i'm going around in circles with the bank and despite making every effort to resolve my situation, the bank are continuing to be aggressive.
My husband and i ran a successful business for 7 years, which held a £10k overdraft which we jointly guaranteed. Due to losing our biggest customer, and the immediate withdrawal of credit limits by our factoring company for a few of our other significant accounts, we sought independent advice from an IP and were advised to place the company in to voluntary liquidation in March 2012.
It was frankly a heartbreaking time of worry and stress for us, as anyone who has been through this situation will know, it is incredibly expensive to close a business and we borrowed money from family to settle our factoring account, to pay for the liquidator and as we had personally guaranteed our cars we had to sell them and pay the shortfall on the sale.
Natwest held all of our personal and business bank accounts:
A business account for the liquidated company
A further business account for a separate unrelated limited company in a different industry sector it is important to add the liquid business bank account has no borrowing and is a profitable company and has been for 3 years
Our childrens bank accounts
Two current accounts for my husband and i
A 7 yr term personal loan account in my name for £20k (paid every month on time for the last 3 and a half years)
As a result of the liquidation and the subsequent financial strain our personal Natwest accounts were up to their agreed over draft limits, with regular small sums of money being credited to them.
The liquidation process progressed and after the final creditors meeting we hadn't heard from Natwest regarding the PG and so we contacted our business manager who informed us that all of our accounts had been moved to head office and he could no longer advise?!
We then contacted the business collections department to arrange to repay our PG, we were told that there are no repayment options, we are no longer welcome as customers of the bank due to our liquidated company, that our overdrafts and personal loan would be recalled via letter and they would expect payment in full within seven days, and further that they could and would take available funds from any of our other accounts, including my children's accounts to reduce the overdraft!
My husband and i were totally shocked, we had both banked with Natwest since we were 16 and 19 respectively, we felt sure this information was incorrect and made three further calls to the collections department to try and gain some clarity. None was offered and we were offered three further conflicting pieces of information.
We waited for 7 days for the demanding letter to arrive, or infact any kind of written communication regarding our accounts. Nothing arrived and as we wanted to resolve the situation ASAP we wrote a letter and sent it by recorded delivery to our ex business manager and to the collections dept, which outlined our willingness to repay in full, but that we didn't have a lump sum of available funds could we make an arrangement as we wanted to protect our credit files and move on from this experience. After two weeks we still hadn't received a response and so we wrote to the above contacts again and also sent a recorded copy to Stephen Hester's Office, stating again our willingness to resolve the situation and how much we wanted to avoid any further action, seeking clarity on the points the collections team had made, and lastly requesting copies of the PG and also my loan agreement as i had been advised that this would be required to make an official complaint.
Lo and behold we received a response from the executives complaints team, saying they would send the above documentation and clarify the issues raised within two weeks. A week later i received a copy of a loan application made by husband in 2009 (which he never accepted) addressed to me with a covering letter saying please find your loan agreement attached.... does this contravene data protection?
Obviously i contacted them to explain, and was assured it would be sent out asap. In the meantime we had a letter from the CEO's office outlining that due to our company liquidation, the bank take a "one" view and assume we are suffering financial hardship as a result and therefore recall ALL personal borrowing, furthermore they won't be able to discuss any recovery action until they have issued a formal demand, which will result in a default on our credit files, at which time we can attempt to make a payment arrangement!
A few days later i received another letter saying they can't find my personal loan agreement.
This was 2 weeks ago, and i still haven't had a formal demand.
To be honest i am worried sick, i really want to avoid a default, but i have no savings due to the failure of my main business, and have no idea how to proceed?
Any advice to my incredibly long and waffly post would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance.
