You don’t have to. Giving away information such as details of your income and expenditure may also damage your legal rights. We've included an example of the income & expenditure form currently sent out by Abbey lawyer Eversheds. Read it carefully. You admit to the debt as soon as you start answering lenders, lawyers and debt collectors' questions.

Instead, say you are treating their claim with the utmost seriousness and ask them to supply you with all documentation showing that they:

• made "satisfactory attempts to market the property" prior to sale, and
• made reasonable attempts to sell it at true market value

and that you will "progress their claim" with the utmost speed as soon as they provide you with this information. They’re very likely to refuse, which should make you wonder what they’ve got to hide. It also puts you in a very good position because if they try to sue you after refusing this request you can make them produce those documents in court. But it’s already looking unlikely that they will sue you - they clearly don’t want to produce the documents and they know the judge will be annoyed with them for not producing the documents when you first asked. Judges don’t like anyone wasting the court’s time. In our opinion it's also a breach of the Mortgage Code put out by the Council of Mortgage Lenders. That won't help you much because the Code is policed by the lenders themselves through the banks' and building societies' ombudsmen (who we're told are funded by the lenders). But producing it in court may help prove to a judge that your lender is being unhelpful.

So, just keep politely pressing the lender to supply you with the documents so that you can deal with their claim. Provided you show that you are willing to help the lender and that they seem not to want to cooperate, the courts are likely to throw the case out telling the lender to get its act together. Lenders know this but they won’t act as though they believe it. Instead you will find that their letters get more and more threatening. That’s just them trying to bully you into submission. Just keep on politely pressing them.

If they do give you the documents, make sure they have given you all of them and that there is nothing untoward about what they did. Like sell your leasehold flat for peanuts to your landlord, or fail to auction it. You may need to contact a surveyor to check the prices they sold the security for.

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