So it is considering tinkering with the legislation.It should try to get something sorted out so that rights can be transferred on death in time to catch the Halifax/Leeds conversion, which is due sometime next year. However, throwing a spanner in the C&G works – however worthy the cause – would look rather desperate, and might jeopardise the whole deal.THE Government’s use of retrospective legislation to swipe a double helping of tax from building societies when the tax collection system was changed in 1986 has landed it in the European Court of Human Rights.Three societies are claiming their money back – the Leeds £57m, National & Provincial £15m and Yorkshire £9m. And on Friday, the Court said the Government had a case to answer and would have to do so unless it came to a friendly settlement.The Government whacked legislation on to the books after the Woolwich went to the House of Lords and won £91m in overpaid tax.That should be a warning of the dangers of playing about with retrospective legislation. The lesson should be to get it right first time, or put it right when the heat is off.NETTIES used to be a term to describe nerds who liked playing about with computers and surfing the international information super-highways in search of who knows what. The journey seemed to be the point of the exercise.But it seems we are on the verge on a new era, with financial companies spying yet another way of selling their wares.Barclaycard has put information on the Net, and Access is considering following suit. And First Mortgage Securities is puting information about mortgages on it.Cruisers can ask Barclaycard and FMS for more information, but the next stage will be transacting financial business over the screens..

FRAUDSTERS who try to dodge their credit agreements by doing moonlight flits now face being tracked down by finance companies, which are determined to stem losses estimated at £500m a year. The credit firms announced last week they had banded together to set up a database of debtors who move home without leaving a forwarding address.
More than 120,000 records are already on file, many of them multiple moonlight flitters. By January 1996, up to 675,000 records will be held on so-called “gone-aways”.The new database to tackle this form of debt evasion is part of an increasing drive by building societies, credit firms and insurance companies to unite in cracking down on non-payment.Gone-away defaulters may now find themselves unable to get a mortgage. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has set up a separate register of people whose homes have been repossessed.The repossession register, which now has 100,000 people on file, is run by credit reference agencies. They have also been charged with the job of putting together the new system.Adrian Coles, director-general at the CML, said: “Our register is not a blacklist.

But mortgage lenders would want to know any information about a person’s ability to meet their mortgage obligations, including all other relevant financial details. Now t h at house prices are no longer rising and it is not possible to bail out without causing financial harm to lenders, they need to have that much more information about a borrower than they once used to.”Sue Wishart, a consultant at the newly-formed Gone Away Information Network (Gain), said: “There will be some people with multiple records of non-payment on the register. They are the big fraudsters, who obtain credit from several stores using different addresses. There are many more people who try to avoid paying by cancelling a hire-purchase agreement and moving home.Ms Wishart said: “In the past, credit companies have found it difficult to track debtors down because of the expense involved and, after a time, they simply had to write off the debt.”Whatever one thinks of the financial difficulties many gone-aways may be facing, the fact remains that they are increasing the cost of credit to others by their activities.”Until recently, gone-aways could escape their obligations because there was no central register of bad debtors. By giving a new address that went back over three previous years, applicants could get credit from a new company even when using their old name.