bluefishman

pay your depts, you spent it, you pay it or maybe the world owes you a living, £430 over 7 years god your kidding right, have a nice day.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

Without commenting directly on your case, it strikes me that you are conflating enforcement of a foreign debt with enforcement of a foreign judgment. They are two different beasties.

For example, lets say one purchases an automobile in Seattle, Washington and obtains an auto loan in Seattle. The debtor then moves to San Diego, California.

If the creditor had obtained a Washington judgment in Washington, then there would have to be an ancillary proceeding in California to register the foreign judgment so that it could be enforced in California.

However, rather than obtaining first a Washington judgment on the debt, the creditor can file its initial suit in California -- hence there will be no foreign judgment to enforce in California. California would enforce its own judgment.

A creditor can sue you in your US state of residence on a foreign debt.

[The only difference in regards to foreign debts or judgments is that when both the domestic and the foreign debt/judgment is entirely within the United States, the "full faith and credit clause of the US constitution kicks in. Enforcement of a UK debt would not implicate the US constitution, but would rather be a matter of comity.]

chartreuse

Although I understand the terminology, I still get a kick out of states referring to other states as "foreign"

Anyway, not to disagree, but my curiosity was aroused, so I did a bit of digging around on some UK consumer finance boards.

The general consensus seemed to be:

1. That any UK debt that was part of an agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act (so unsecured debt - credit cards, signature loans etc) can only be pursued in the local (English, Scottish) courts.

2. If the debtor has previously notified the creditor that he is living abroad, any judgement could be set aside on grounds of improper service.

3. That, notwithstanding the above, creditors will try it on anyway, including suing in a foreign court and selling the debt to a foreign debt collector. Both of which could damage the debtor's credit rating in the new country.

NB: I make no comment about the OP's circumstances or the morality or otherwise of any hypothetical action.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

First of all, I said "foreign," not "international."

I can't say that that I've looked at the UK system and quick search of the 1974 and 2006 Acts were of no help to me. It pays to remember that the US has a "Federal" system which the UK does not. Credit card debt in the US is regulated by law of the state of the card issuer [South Dakota hit a financial mine when it enacted pro creditor laws] and Federal law under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

A long time ago I had a class in Conflict of Laws [aka "Conflicts"] which at the time was a required class [it is an elective these days because no US Bar Exam tests it]. It was roughly divided in "jurisidction" and "choice of law." For example, a New York resident on a cross country drive collides with a California resident on a cross country drive -- in Kansas. Where do you sue? What state's substantive law is applied? What state's procedural law is applied? Which leads to the question of what is substantive and what is procedural? For example, lets say the California driver was at fault, but had an Arizona resident as a passenger in the car and Kansas had an automobile guest statute. [Google "Erie Railroad Tomkins" to get the flavor of this, albeit in a slightly different context]

There is also a little beastie called "long arm" jurisdiction, which is frowned upon under Common Law and Aristotle. [Google "International Shoe Washington"].

What you write above is fairly consistent with general conflict principles.

BTW, on the issue of enforcement of foreign judgments, there is a big controversy of US enforcement of UK libel judgments in the US. UK and US libel laws are grossly inconsistent. In the US, truth is a complete defense, in the UK it is not. Also, in the US there is a high standard under the US Constitution to establish libel for untrue statements involving public figures [Google "New York Times Sullivan"].

chartreuse

Oddly enough, I'm sad enough that, even though IANAL, I will Google those, just out of interest.

The last, though, is an area I'm familiar with. UK defamation law is terrible, but what's even more scary is, there are worse. For example, under French law, truth is no defence at all if the plaintiff is a head of state (and how do you summarise the stated case without re-publishing the libel?)

See if you can find any of the early responses to Rome II (Harmonization of non-contractual undertakings). It was intended to protect e.g. an old lady in France who was hurt by a faulty toaster bought in Germany. Upon examination, it turned out that, as originally drafted, it would allow, e.g. a Zimbabwean head of state to sue for libel in the English courts under Saudi Arabian law!

PS - don't count on England having Common Law for too much longer. It'll be Code Napoleon any year now.

FLOJO4

FLOJO here - the notion of comity sounds fine except that there has been no judgement in the UK to honor or extend any courtesies to.......?

CitySimon

We had a store card over in the UK which we paid off and deactivated prior to moving over. However, they had a "once every three years" card insurance thing which got charged to the card and the card was reactivated.

As I was not in the UK to know about it, the non-payment charges racked it up to about 500GBP.

The "debt" was eventually sold/transferred over to a US company and they started demanding payment from our US address (no idea how they got it). The main issue for me at the time was that it might be impacting my US credit score.

Thankfully, we eventually got the misunderstanding sorted out and have heard nothing from them since.

Jmaster911

I'd be really interested in how they got your address, did you leave a forwarding address??

CitySimon

I have no idea. If they contacted the number of our old house, that guy knew we had moved to America, but had no other forwarding address. The post office had a forwarding address but that expired before this whole issue came along.

Whatever the case, on the plus side, the OPs debt is now in $ so there should be no issue with exchange rates. Silver lining and all that.

tboyo

The same company has contacted my wife about a M&S card debt of around 1200 GBP.

They say they are NOT a debt agency but the laywers for M&S and have been sucessful in getting monies for thier clients.

If a CCJ has not been issued how can take me to a US court where no offence has been commited ?

Anyone have any answers ??

Ray

Right little fraudster ain't yere ...
Hopefully you are going to get spanked very hard

fatbrit

Yep -- don't speak to them. Or write to them. Or give them any information whatsoever.

andre uk

irony of this post is unreal blame the credit crunch on her business not doing well then asks ways around not paying a UK debt.

FYI it's these sort of antics that got us in this mess in the first place

radion

Hear Hear...

Michelmas

Ignore it and hope it goes away. That's your answer for everything.