The basic idea is to exploit a legal loophole in the consumer credit act that means that unless a credit agreement complies with a list of rigid criteria, then it is not valid and so can’t be implemented legally. The effective outcome is that any money owed on such agreements cannot be pursued by collectors, and so does not have to be repaid. There are many web sites claiming that they are able to rapidly and easily arrange for your debts to be declared unenforcable in this way, but is this a realistic option?

The first thing to consider is that only credit card agreements drawn up before April 2007 have any hope of being declared unenforceable under this tactic. If this condition is met, 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 intelligibly shown, or copies of the original documents not being available on requesting them.

Lawyers specialising in this field will check over your credit agreements on your behalf to decide if they are all enforceable. But here lies the gotcha: you normally have to pay a fee before an agent will even consider your case, whether or not you have any chance at all of having your agreements declared invalid. If you have two or three agreements to check, this can make it a costly and possibly fruitless exercise.

There’s also the fact that some less honest suppliers of this service exaggerate the chances of actually being successful, which many unprejudiced commentators say are not as good as they are being described.

So what’s the upshot? Certainly ask your credit card issuers for original copies of your agreements and inspect them yourself, but before going ahead with anything else have a word with a debt advice charity. 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 paying out upfront in the possibly useless hope of leaving your debt problems behind.

About the author: Nicholas Hunt writes for Debt Advice UK where you can find out more on how to legally clear credit cards.