Welcome and attachment of earnings

[benjy48]

Hi,

 

I took out a sec loan back in December to cover a previous sec loan from welcome. This loan covered the previous loan so now this loan is 26k, but my payments are £449 a month. I said from the off that this would be difficult to pay but I had to do it because I was in arrears with the mortgage. Anyway I paid good for 5 months but got into difficulty. To cut a long story short, they want to issue an attachment of earnings order for the full amount, which would mean that my wife, children and I would have hardly anything to live on. Can they issue an attachment of earnings straight away? Do they have to go through the courts first? What can I do to prevent it?

[tonycee]

Attachment of Earnings

 

An attachment of earnings is where a creditor will apply to the court for an order to allow them to take funds direct from your wages if you fail to keep up repayments on a debt. Your employer must by law deduct the monies from your wages and make payments to the creditor up until the time the debt is paid off.

If the creditor has issued you a County Court Judgement and you have fallen behind with at least one payment, and you owe more than £50, a creditor is within their rights to apply to the court for an Attachment of Earnings.

An attachment of earnings order cannot be applied for if the debtor is unemployed or self-employed, in the army, navy or air force or a merchant seaman.

If an attachment of earnings has been issued against you, you will receive a letter from the court and an attachment of earnings form to fill in requesting your employment details and income and expenditure. The court will ask you to pay the amount owed in full, if you cannot afford this, you will need to fill in the form and send it back to the court.

If you have received a form, you MUST fill this form in and return it as soon as possible. Failure to return the form will result in the court sending a bailiff to issue the form by hand. If you fail to return the form after that and the court believes you have received the form, a warrant of arrest could be issued against you and a bailiff will be sent to collect you and may take you to the court to fill in the form.

 

THE BEST BIT

 

 

The amount you will be asked to pay will depend on your financial situation. The officer will take into consideration how much you need to live on i.e. food, rent/mortgage, essentials and bills. If you are a low wage earner, it might be that an Attachment of Earnings is rejected.

You can ask the court to suspend the order if you don't want your employer contacted. If the court agrees you will be ordered to pay the creditor direct. If you fail to make these payments, the creditor will request a re-issue of the Attachement of Earnings and the order will be sent direct to your employer.

[sillygirl1]

The court will also possibly want to look at the 'up front' charges Welcome will have placed on your accout. Basically they are on a loosing streak if they do go to court - we can help you challenge this on various grounds. They CANNOT just go to your employer and ask for money from your account.

[benjy48]

Thanks for all of your helpful replies. I could not get the payment for this month so they said they will get someone to come around my house and fill in the form and ask me to declare my income outgoings. As you have stated, if this is done outside the courts, they cannot pursue this. Ok I will see how this pans out and will update you. Thanks again and yes, please help me how to challenge this. I have until tomorrow.

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, do your own income and expenditure sheet and hand it to them - don't let their "representative" go over your finances with you, they will try to bully you into filling in the information they want.

 

I have affixed the budget sheet we use regularly on here, print one out and "practise" on it first before completing a final copy.

 

If they were to go to court we can use your budget sheet in your defence.

 

Kind Regards

 

Ell-enn

Budget Sheet.xls