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Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to forum, desperately need help with a DCA! WON!!!!

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  • Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to forum, desperately need help with a DCA! WON!!!!

    Me and my girlfriend lived in a rented house from April 2010 until July 2011 through a letting agency called 'Inspire Living'. My girlfriends grandmother agreed to be our guarantor, as we knew that we would be able to pay the rent with no problems.

    Since we moved in, repairs that desperately needed doing were put off and delayed by the letting agent using stalling tactics such as re-requesting a list of repairs, claiming our emails were going into their junk mail folder (yet still managing to reply to them), staff being ill etc.

    After six months of emailing and calling to attempt to get the repairs done, and suffering indoor temperatures of below 10 degrees C, I managed to speak to them and we both agreed that the rent would be lowered from £725 to £600 until the repairs had been made and our living conditions improved.

    They never disputed this rent decrease and returned our deposit when we moved out at the end of July. We had since had no contact from them either by phone, post or email (all methods of contact which they had for us).

    Recently, our 80 year old guarantor has received two final demand letters from NG Collections spaced two days apart, demanding £1877.9 for rent arrears from January to December of 2011. Since we only lived there in 2011 from January to July, this seems odd to me. As far as I am concerned, we have paid everything that we agreed to and owe them nothing.

    I tried to phone the letting agency 'Inspire Living' several times over a period of a few days. I also tried to phone the mobile number on the DCA letter several times. Both were either not answering or going to answer phone on every occasion. I searched the internet for NG collections and found nothing, so assumed it was a scam.

    They have since sent our guarantor a 'Formal Notice of Petition for Bankruptcy' which we now have 7 days left on to try to get it set aside (she has since sent this on to us). In the 'Particulars of Debt' section, it gives very vague information and also outright lies. Some of which include them saying that we agreed to pay the debt on numerous occasions, despite having absolutely no contact with us since we moved out.

    It might also be worth mentioning that Inspire living also never gave us any proof of our deposit going into one of the approved protection schemes.

    Please can anybody advise how to proceed, what exactly I should tell the county court in my application to have it set aside? Is there somebody I can contact who will investigate the company as they seem extremely dodgy?

    Thank you all so much, I'm at the end of my rope here...
    Tags: None

  • #2
    Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

    Could you scan and post up the demand, please, removing any personal details before doing so?
    Life is a journey on which we all travel, sometimes together, but never alone.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

      Originally posted by debtdispute View Post
      They have since sent our guarantor a 'Formal Notice of Petition for Bankruptcy' which we now have 7 days left on to try to get it set aside (she has since sent this on to us). In the 'Particulars of Debt' section, it gives very vague information and also outright lies. Some of which include them saying that we agreed to pay the debt on numerous occasions, despite having absolutely no contact with us since we moved out.
      That is plainly wrong, as a statutory demand would first have needed to be served. The SD must contain details of how it can be set aside.

      Is there somebody I can contact who will investigate the company as they seem extremely dodgy?
      Yes - Trading Standards.

      I've taken a look at the Inspire Living website (link) and can only say that it would inspire people to avoid them.On their "contact" page (link) they give their email address as "mail@inspireliving.co.uk", yet Nominet (the UK domain registry) lists the registrant as K. Nolan who is apparently a non-trading individual - link - which may be a bit naughty.

      I can find no trace of a Consumer Credit Act licence for either the letting agent or their "debt" collecting oafs, nor does Companies House know of them. This does seem odd.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

        Thank you for the quick reply Bluebottle. I have scanned all the images and taken out our info. I assumed it was a scam as they used my girlfriends name, then our guarantors address, then called her sirs.

        This is the first letter we received from them...

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

          Hi CleverClogs,

          Thank you for your reply too. I appreciate the support. I've also had a dig around on the internet and companies house and found that there is a lot of dissolving and registering companies by Mr. Nolan. All of his assets add up to over £8,000,000, his company owes over £1,000,000 and has £50 in its accounts. That also seems pretty fishy.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

            Here is the most recent six page 'Formal Notice of Petition for Bankruptcy'. CleverClogs mentioned the statutory demand, I'm not sure which is which if any of them are.






            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

              It has come to my attention (just got a text message from my friend who moved into the property after us) That my friend is taking them to the small claims court for not repaying their deposit when they moved out.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                Whoever received the Statutory Demand should apply to the court quickly to have it set aside. Other members who are more familiar with this will be able to help formulate the necessary paperwork. I would also be inclined to report the matter to Trading Standards first thing tomorrow morning. If the claimant is barred from issuing any form of proceedings, e.g. undischarged bankrupt, on Vexatious Litigant List, the matter will need to be dealt with by TS who may need to involve other agencies. If NG Collections is not OFT-registered, all the more reason for reporting this to TS. It is illegal to act as a debt collection agency without holding a current OFT Category F Debt Collection Licence.

                Clever Clog's advice to report Inspired Living to TS should also be pursued.
                Life is a journey on which we all travel, sometimes together, but never alone.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                  Hi

                  This SD should be set aside easily on the grounds of 'substantial dispute' about the debt.

                  Whereabouts in the country are you?

                  Cel
                  "Although scalar fields are Lorentz scalars, they may transform nontrivially under other symmetries, such as flavour or isospin. For example, the pion is invariant under the restricted Lorentz group, but is an isospin triplet (meaning it transforms like a three component vector under the SU(2) isospin symmetry). Furthermore, it picks up a negative phase under parity inversion, so it transforms nontrivially under the full Lorentz group; such particles are called pseudoscalar rather than scalar. Most mesons are pseudoscalar particles." (finally explained to a captivated Celestine by Professor Brian Cox on Wednesday 27th June 2012 )

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                  • #10
                    Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                    Well, the so-called debt collector (who seems to be quite unknown to the OFT) has not even named his alleged client correctly - the business registered at that address is Beckhall Properties Limited, as you can see on the attached PDF files.
                    Attached Files

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                      Wouldn't it be a turn-up for the books if this claim against the OP turns out to be fraudulent? Words like "s**t", "hitting" and "fan" come to mind.
                      Life is a journey on which we all travel, sometimes together, but never alone.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                        It would appear that NG Collections are trying this with other people, too - on MSE <spit> link

                        I checked their postcode of SK1 1JE and they're not listed...
                        Attached Files

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                          Originally posted by bluebottle View Post
                          Wouldn't it be a turn-up for the books if this claim against the OP turns out to be fraudulent? Words like "s**t", "hitting" and "fan" come to mind.
                          Of course it's fraudulent You guys just have to show th OP how to prove it

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                            The fact that the deposit was returned in full despite not being put into any statutory scheme (which is unlawful in itself - I mean not putting the deposit in a scheme) would indicate that all the other stuff is a red herring - clearly I'm wrong because all you wise owls take it very seriously. I, though, suspect that this is a lot simpler than it seems - am just not clever enough to pinpoint how. But anyone can say you owe them money and lay a paper trail - doesn't mean it's true.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Hi everyone, EMERGENCY! I'm new to this forum and desperately need help with a DC

                              Thank you Bluebottle. I am in the process of writing up and collecting all of the details that I can find in order to report them to TS. I really appreciate your help, I feel reassured that my gut feeling about the extent of their dodgyness seems to have been correct.

                              Comment

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