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Considering that money owed on credit cards is causing such financial worries for British borrowers, it's not surprising that thousands of people are looking for all sorts of ways to clear these debts.

The most often encountered ways are the old favourites of debt consolidation and management programs, with possibly bankruptcy as a last resort. More recently, however, a new method is being touted when it comes to clearing credit card accounts: the legal write off.

This supposedly works by taking advantage of a loophole in the law that means that unless a credit agreement abides by a group of strict regulations, then it is invalid and thus can't be implemented legally. The effective result is that any money owed on such agreements cannot be pursued by collectors, and so doesn't have to be repaid. There are many web sites claiming that they can quickly and easily arrange for your debts to be declared unenforcable in this way, but is this realistic?

The first thing to consider is that only agreements issued prior to April 2007 have the possibility of being declared unenforceable under this tactic. If this is the case, there are quite a few reasons why the agreement may be invalid, including not being signed by both parties, the Annual Percentage Rate not being understandably expressed, or copies of the original papers not being available on requesting them.

Specialist lawyers will examine your documents on your instruction to determine if they are all binding. But here comes the gotcha: you usually are required to pay a charge before an agent will even consider your case, whether or not you have any prospect at all of having your debts declared unenforceable. If you have two or three agreements to check, this can work out to be an expensive and perhaps futile exercise.

Also bear in mind that some less professional promoters of this service exaggerate the likelihood of success, which many dispassionate commentators say are not as good as they are being described.

So what's the deal here? Feel free to ask your credit card issuers for copies of your documents and inspect them yourself, but before taking any further action get some advice off a debt advisor. If you think you might have a case, then search out an attorney willing to work on a no win no fee basis, rather than spending money at the outset in the maybe groundless hope of leaving your debt problems behind.

Source: Legally Clear Credit Cards