Six years
If the bank's not been in touch for six years, then the debt should have been written off (if they've been sending letters to your folks in the meantime, you may have more of a problem).

Check with the CAB - it doesn't matter whether you've got the paperwork, they can at least hear the details of your story and make sure that what I'm saying does really apply. But in principle, you shouldn't have to pay up.

Then you'll have to, slowly and painfully, rebuild your credit rating. First, get a Basic Bank Account (here) - these are offered by most major banks, even if your credit is unimaginably bad, and mean that you can get paid your salary into your own account and take out cash from machines. It doesn't give you a debit card or an overdraft. If this goes OK, your bank should be able to upgrade to a debit card account, or at least an Electron/Solo card account, before too long.

In the meantime, if you're confident you won't be tempted to spend the money, then also apply for a 'people with dodgy history' credit card with someone like Vanquis Bank. This will charge you an eye-raping rate of interest, but the reason you're getting it isn't to borrow money: just buy a tenner's worth of petrol on it once a month and make sure you always pay off the fiver minimum balance, which will demonstrate that you can be trusted with having a credit card and making regular payments (pay off the rest of the balance every three months or so, before it gets out of hand).

Make sure you're on the electoral register, try and make sure your name's on the electricity, water, phone bills, and try and get a contract mobile once you've had the bank account and the credit card for a few months (even if that means paying them a deposit). That should all help - but in the end it's a waiting game.

UPDATE: just thought - next time you rent a place, you should get your name on the tenancy agreement. If someone with bad credit is trying to rent, this isn't a problem as long as the landlord has a 'guarantor', which is a person who's liable for the debt in case you fail to pay it. You can get your dad to do this, assuming he trusts you not to run off, as the only chance of him losing out is if you skip town - again, this means you'll have a stronger recorded history of being someone who pays up.
(stalinism, Sat 18 Jul 2009, 16:02, Reply)