Advise your friend not to respond.

One of the limitations of prescription of liabilities is if the individual has written to the creditor within 5 years admitting the debt.

As such writing to them and stating that she left a certain address, may constitute an admittance and result in the debt being re-activated.

There are some good sample letters on the internet which respond without any admittance. I would link to an acceptable one but it is not permissable to post links on this site.

(check the Business Debtline site, which has a pdf of a sample response)

Well... prescription might make a debt unenforceable. However if it genuinely is/was owed a failure to pay might be damaging to a credit file. The two things are slightly different. If the debt was never owed of course there should be no damage to the credit file.

Thanks for your replies, the debt was for a phone contract that was cancelled in Feb 2008 via a phone call, there has been nothing since this new letter arrived from debt collectors, so the debt is not owed but my friend is worried about her credit file as she is about to apply for a mortgage.

The thing is juliet is that prescription means that a debt is unenforceable, it doesn't mean that it isn't or wasn't owed.

The subject of credit ratings and prescription are therefore not quite as related at you might initially think.

I appreciate that a dispute over whether the money was ever owed complicates this further.

Has your friend reviewed their credit file to see if this is even an issue?

No she hasn't, she is just panicking as she is about to apply for a new mortgage. Can she demand that they take any entry they have made on her credit file off?

Only if they agree that they have reported it in error, or that the debt was never due, or your friend can prove legally that the debt was never due as far as I know.

Best to look at the file though, may not be an issue at all.