NOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

Say you owe your bank £1,000. Your debt to them is an ASSET in their hands. It is what we lawyers call a "chose in action": it is a legal right they have against you.

Say that your bank decides that you are an idle feckless tosser, with no prospect of paying it back because you spend your life shagging, drinking, and posting on this board. So they decide that although their rights against you are in theory worth £1,000 (because that is what you have promised to pay them), in fact they are worth nothing because they are never going to get their money back.

Say someone else comes along and thinks "I could get that tosser to pay back £1,000, or £750 anyway. I know he's got a valuable pair of cufflinks - I could make him sell them. And anyway, I'll take away his computer and make the bastard do some work for a change - he'll be able to pay me off."

So they go to the bank and say "You have a legal right to make CB41 pay you £1,000. Tell you what - I'll take it off your hands for £200."

Done, says the bank. And what changes hands is the legal right to make you pay £1,000.

It doesn't affect YOUR position - the DEBTOR'S position - at all. You still owe the same amount. It's just that you now owe it to a different person. And the new creditor may be less sympathetic than the old one. You never know.

Posted By: Old Git on November 2nd 2007 at 11:17:57

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