Dubai Debt

[drbob62]

Dear unclebulgaria67,

 

I've read several responses from you in this thread regarding debts in Dubai and wonder if you could offer some advice.

 

My wife spent 18 (awful) months in Dubai where she secured a good job working for a company which was a subsidiary of the government. After 2 months she was unceremoniously sacked for no reason by her Emirate female boss. The job was very well paid and during that short time she had been offered and taken advantage of credit cards from her bank. It took a while for her to find another job but was then earning less than half of her original salary. Over a period of about 12 months she relied on the credit cards to cover rent, school fees and other living expenses. Her father was later taken seriously ill and she had to leave Dubai at short notice to look after him. She left debts behind of around £44k. This was about 6 months ago when she returned to the UK. She has recently started her own business and now has an income. As you can imagine the bank has been chasing her via email for a while and she recently responded offering to start repaying the debt.

 

She offered to pay a small monthly amount to start and then increase the payment as her business becomes more successful. The guy she is corresponding via email with has been quite aggressive and all but laughed at her offer.

 

She then offered to increase the amount but despite her offering to pay an initial £4k and then minimum monthly payments of £500, he is threatening to pass the case to interpol to track her down in the UK and take legal proceedings.

 

Please can you offer any advice on what she should do about this as it's causing a lot of stress for her which she could do without following her awful experiences over the past 12 months.

 

Thank you in advance.

[unclebulgaria67]

Interpol is just rubbish as you know. The debt is a civil matter outside of the Countries in the middle east. In Dubai and other Islamic countries the debt could be registered, so she could not travel through immigration in those countries.

 

As long as she pays something or offers something towards the debts, they are unlikely to get anywhere in a UK court. They seem to use a UK Solicitors CWD to chase for debts and there have been UK court judgements, but mostly in default when not defended.

 

If i were in her shoes, i would make a final offer in writing of £x per month based on current affordability and if they wish to accept they should provide payment details, so payments can be made from the UK by transfer. If they reject offer of payment, they should confirm this in writing for future reference, so this can be advised to anyone chasing the debt or a court when required.

 

The ball is then with the Bank chasing this debt. They would be silly to reject, as that would be stitching themselves up.

[drbob62]

Thank you for the very quick reply.

 

I tell her to respond as you've advised and see where it goes.

 

Regards

[unclebulgaria67]

Just make sure that it is the Bank she would be paying and not a third party e.g debt collector. She would not want to start paying anyone she could not validate.