Can't pay they'll take it away - but not in Scotland.

[Jack]

I watch this programme quite a lot. The method of recovery of debt is questionable but 2 sides to all of these things.

What really gets me is how people and businesses get into debt and how much.

Who thought it would be a good idea not to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord? And how many tenants think it's an even better idea to buy luxury goods, like Gucci shoes and handbags, instead of paying their rent?

Tenants subletting houses at huge rents because they're packing loads of unsuspecting punters in cramped conditions. High Court Enforcement Agents turn up to evict the original tenant who hasn't paid the rent and end up evicting the unsuspecting who have paid their rent, sometimes £1,000s a month!

I had a wee laugh when the agents thought that this is what they had happened upon but pretty soon discovered it was a brothel they were in!!

Of course there's the heart wrenching stories.

Still, the whole thing is fucked up!

 

[Chris G Whyte]

To be honest, debt’s a funny old thing.

It’s necessary because, generally, people from the working and lower-middle classes find it the only way to meaningfully invest; but it’s an upwards transfer of wealth, because no lender will let you borrow for free. I think the larger problem is that most people don’t really understand how debt works, why it’s necessary for basic things like mortgages and lower rates, and how to manage it safely.

The snag is that Britain is now a country of lowering real-time wages and skyrocketing rents, in amongst an appalling austerity crunch that’s effectively tried to turn public debt into personal debt. It’s largely succeeded, in a paradigm where property ownership is making returns like never before because those doing the work are funnelling everything into the hands of those that aren’t. In Britain, though luckily not Scotland, the issue is exacerbated by a working generation that’s saddled with student debts it didn’t necessarily learn how to manage responsibly, and the bizarre ubiquity of buying on tick that creates a mirage of affordability.

Before you know where you are, your payment plan approaches your monthly wage and any financial hit you didn’t expect tips you over the edge.

Welcome to the world of payday loans, pawn shops and hoping the bookies can reverse your fortunes. It’s no coincidence that poor areas are infested with these premises.

Arguably, Britain’s biggest problem is its housing market. Until that gets sorted out, along with the end of austerity (which Scotland is stuck with while in the union), things are only on a downward spiral and the bailiffs will remain busy.

 

[Dub]

I watch this programme quite a lot. The method of recovery of debt is questionable but 2 sides to all of these things.

What really gets me is how people and businesses get into debt and how much.

Who thought it would be a good idea not to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord? And how many tenants think it's an even better idea to buy luxury goods, like Gucci shoes and handbags, instead of paying their rent?

Tenants subletting houses at huge rents because they're packing loads of unsuspecting punters in cramped conditions. High Court Enforcement Agents turn up to evict the original tenant who hasn't paid the rent and end up evicting the unsuspecting who have paid their rent, sometimes £1,000s a month!

I had a wee laugh when the agents thought that this is what they had happened upon but pretty soon discovered it was a brothel they were in!!

Of course there's the heart wrenching stories.

Still, the whole thing is fucked up!

In the olden days I worked for Lloyds Bowmaker and was sent to work in London where debt was running rampant. I was repossessing cars left right and centre. The "in joke" around the company was that I turned Knighsbridge branch in to the biggest second hand car dealer in Britain. They had £6.5M debt approx when I went down there and within 2 years that was down to about £2M. I mostly didn't feel bad about taking folks cars from them but occasionally there were genuine cases where people were really up against it and despite their best efforts couldnt pay the payments. I think I was a good judge of whether people were taking the mick or were genuinely in distress but needed the car and if I thought the latter was the case I would makje a judgement on whether to come to an acceptable arrangement to clear the debt or whether just to take the car.

Prior to that I worked for the same company and went round their 99 branches teaching the staff how to do the job they were employed to do. I've repo'd cars from some fairly prominent people in sport including a well known black football player who was on the front page of the Sun with a headline of "I'm black and I can afford a BMW" turned out he couldn't. I nearly repossessed a car from a Jockey who told me he had a win coming up at the weekend and begged me to leave the repossession until the Monday and advised me to lump some money on a horse called Tipping Tim [his ride] for the race on Saturday. He won, I won which proved to me that Horse racing isnt squeaky clean because his horse was 20/1.

The high court enforcement officers you see on TV don't have that option, they *have* to enforce the warrant but I know what you mean; sometimes the people being evicted [e.g] are completely innocent.