HM Treasury has proposed new rules for how lenders should communicate to borrowers who fall seriously behind on repayments.
Default Notices are designed to give people who are falling behind on their debts fair warning before lenders take further action, but much of the formatting and content has not been updated for decades so the Government is proposing new rules to ensure that letters are easier to understand and are less intimidating.
Research from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute and debt charities has shown that large amounts of capitalised text and legal terms can make the information contained in the letter hard to understand, which has the unintended consequence of confusing and distressing people. This has a negative impact on people’s mental health as well as their ability to effectively manage their debt.
To support people with problem debt, the Government will legislate to change the language and presentation of information in debt letters. The new rules will make debt letters less threatening by restricting the amount of information that must be made prominent and requiring lenders to use bold or underlined text rather than capital letters.
Lenders will also now be able to replace legal terms with more widely understood words and letters will clearly signpost people to the best sources of free debt advice.
The new rules will be delivered through secondary legislation and are expected to come into force in December 2020. All lenders will then be required to make the changes within six months.
More information on the GOV.UK website.
