Property belonging to my ex partner & I was repossessed in 1997. We heard nothing at all (weren't even notified of the repossession as not living in property) from Building Society till received I&E forms from solicitors in June 1997. We refused to fill these in & requested further info - brief details of claim were returned. After several letters, we requested all of the info recommended on this website in a letter in October 2000. We heard nothing until 2 weeks ago when the firm of solicitors started sending I&E forms again. We politely refused and referred them to our letter last year, to which we had no response. We have received a letter asking for copies of our letters. They've obviously made a mistake/mislaid the file. Can we use this to our advantage? Any ideas?

-- sj (boniki33@hotmail.com), October 15, 2001

Answers

I don't think there is much to be gained from the solicitors mislaying your file. Just because they are asking for copies of your letters, doesn't mean that they have.

What usually happens when solicitors are chasing you is that they will have been instructed by the lender to chase you for X amount of money. When you start asking awkward questions, the solicitors will probably not have the answer, so will refer back to the lender for an answer.

If the lender decides not to do anything, then the solicitor can't do anything further, without instructions.

Now, almost a year later, the lender will have picked up on your file again and asked the solicitors to chase. Again they will have sent a file of papers. The solicitors probably won't have any idea who you are or until now, that they have chased you before.

By all means send the copies of your letters, at least you can prove that you did write, then politely but firmly ask for the information you want.

-- pendle (pendle_666@yahoo.co.uk), October 15, 2001.