Charlie Weston

They're one of the largest now in the country because they've taken on a lot of AIP, EBS debts, and the old start mortgages took over all of that.

But they have written to people a while ago, and I've seen the letter, offering a one-for-all €250 voucher

if people fill out what's called a standard financial statement.

Now, that's a formal document recognized by the central bank stating what you owe and what your means are, how much you can pay, et cetera.

And I scratched my head going, why are they doing this?

Now, they say, look, it's just trying to get people who don't engage with them to come on board and engage.

But legal and financial experts are saying to me, Matt, there's a different reason for this here.

Some of these debts are very, very old.

So they could come up

against what's called the statute of limitations.

So if the debt is more than 12 years old, it's a mortgage debt more than 12 years old, they won't be able to pursue it unless they have initiated legal proceedings already.

So if Mars haven't already initiated legal proceedings,

They can't go after it.

So they're trying to encourage people, this is what I'm being told, to fill out these forms because that would formally recognize your debts and it would cure that statute of limitations issue.

A bit complicated, but that seems to be what they're at.

Now, they're insisting, Mars are saying, no, this has nothing to do with the age or the status of the debt.

It's just trying to get people to engage who are not engaging with us.

But my advice to anybody who gets one of these letters is don't take the voucher.

Go and get some proper advice.

MAMS will fund you some of your initial advice.