BW Legal/Lowell/Vanquis - Court Hearing next week, help needed !

[spellouk]

Hello everyone,

Only just joined the community, but have been carefully following few threads to help with my personnal situation.

So far it has been a priceless source of information and I hope to seek further help!

I have my court hearing this coming Tuesday at 10am - here is a timeline of events:

- Vanquis Agreement dated 05/08/2010
- Last payment made to Vanquis on 30/12/2011
- Notice of debt received by email from BW Legal/Lowell on 13/09/2016
- Letter with CCA request sent on 28/09/2016 - which was ignored
- Claim issued by Lowell on 03/10/2016
- CPR18 request sent on 25/10/2016 - again, ignored
- Defense sent on 05/11/2016 (copy of my defense attached in the thread)
- Letter of Claim received 24/10/2017
- Acknowledged Letter of Claim and sent another CPR18 request on 24/11/2017 - yet again ignored
- Direction Questionnaire filed on 30/11/2017

Which brings us to present days, and the witness statement receive from the claimant only 2 weeks before the hearing (attached to the thread) - while I have been requesting information since November 2016 !

With the hearing happening in 4 days, I'm getting exponentially nervous about what's going to happen - and how I should prepare to defend myself.

Can someone kindly advise on the best course of action for me to get in the hearing with a bit more confidence? I'd like to avoid a CCJ at all cost, willing to settle what I owe (without the extortionate added fees which I am still waiting to see a breakdown of as Lowell didn't provide anything on that front).

A few questions I have after reading the witness statement several times:

- I never received the Notice of Assignement. Statement says "defendant put to strict proof to the contrary" - clearly, shouldn't these kind of cuments be sent registered and/or signed for? My gut instinct is to say they should be the one proving they served me with the notive of assignement (their responsibility, isn't it?)
- With my CPR requests, I have sent deadline for them to collect the requested documents - none were respected. I literally had to wait almost a year and half and the witness statement (just a few weeks before the hearing) to get any sort of documents from them. Is that a point for me to use in my defence? As I've been chasing documents for a while in order to prepare my defence, ignoring my requests and sending these at the last minute should play in my favour?

Many many thanks in advance for any help that the community could provide me with I will make sure to keep everyone updated.

[Diana M]

Have you filed your Witness Statement?

Di

[spelluk]

Hi Di,

what do you mean exactly by “filed” my Witness Statement?

I haven’t written any so far - mainly as not aware I had to/should have done so?

[Diana M]

Hi Di,

what do you mean exactly by “filed” my Witness Statement?

I haven’t written any so far - mainly as not aware I had to/should have done so?

The Notice of Allocation (Hearing) would have given you the date of the Trial and (possibly) the estimated length.

It would have included Directions stating when the Claimant must pay the Hearing Fee and when both parties must file and serve any evidence which they intend to rely on. The deadline is typically 14 days before the Hearing or sometimes it can be date specific.

If you've not filed a Witness Statement at court and not served it on the Claimant then your evidence may not be allowed on the day, especially if the Claimant opposes admission of late evidence (WS).

Di

[spellouk]

Thanks Di - the NoA indeed had the date/time of trial as well as estimated length.

However I don't recall seeing anything about my Witness Statement and deadline. I will double-check this as soon as I get home.

On another note, the claimant's WS was sent by email and it is by "luck" that I found it in my spam folder. i.e. I haven't received any paper copy. Does this matter? This and the fact that I received it just a few days before the actual hearing despite asking for proofs/documents/etc more than a year ago?

As all seems to unfold at the last minute, I'm trying to look at whatever I can rely on to support my defense.

Also, I think my WS would have been pretty similar to my defense as literally nothing was received from Lowell since the claim was filed up until the WS this week.

Is it bad for me to go to the hearing without having filled a WS? As in are the chances of me defending myself non-existent in this scenario?

Thanks for your help Di

[warwick65]

Well if you can find the letter saying when WS should be served you could ask the judge not to admit their WS because it was not served on you or the court in time. I would NOT try to say you haven't received it in case they show proof you knew about it.

Did you get your initial advice via Goodf?

From what I have picked up from your posts, you best chance is to argue no default notice was served and without the default notice they can not enforce. This is a credit card and unless they are arguing contractual termination (I think) they must serve a valid DN

I am however a little confused when you say a letter of claim was issued 24/10/2017, almost a year after the claim was issued. A letter of claim is issued before a claim.

[spellouk]

Well if you can find the letter saying when WS should be served you could ask the judge not to admit their WS because it was not served on you or the court in time. I would NOT try to say you haven't received it in case they show proof you knew about it.

Did you get your initial advice via Goodf?

From what I have picked up from your posts, you best chance is to argue no default notice was served and without the default notice they can not enforce. This is a credit card and unless they are arguing contractual termination (I think) they must serve a valid DN

I am however a little confused when you say a letter of claim was issued 24/10/2017, almost a year after the claim was issued. A letter of claim is issued before a claim.

My bad on the date, it was actually 13/09/2016 so indeed before the claim was issued.

Notice of Allocation says it should be served 14 days before the hearing. They sent their email on the 13th so they are fine I guess... although that's the email date, as I haven't received any actual letter so not sure when they supposedly served that.

It might be meaningless, but I moved house while all of this unfolded and notified them of my change of address with one of my CPR requests - they never changed it as my address on their witness statement is my old one. Is it of importance in my defence?

I think the initial advice was via Goodf (not 100% sure as it's been more than a year ago). Is that good/bad?

As for the WS, I quite misunderstood that I had to send one myself - assuming the defence I previously sent was enough. Is there something I should say at the hearing about me not sending a WS? Will they still hear my case?

Overall - what do you think my approach should be on the day of the hearing?

As far as I understand, in my favour I have:
- fact that I never received the Notice of Assignment nor Deed of Assignment and that they cannot prove it was either sent or received
- despite making 2 CPR18 requests and CCA request, I have never received the proofs/documents allowing me to defend my case or enter into mediation
- in the end, I would like to settle the debt and repay it in a couple of instalments and avoid a CCJ at all costs - but to do so I needed them to provide me of a breakdown of the debt and all the required documents to prove what I owed. And never did until 2 weeks before the hearing.

On that last point, the notice of allocation from the court said I had 7 days after receiving it to request mediation. As they sent me the documents I have been requesting (to acknowledge the debt and mediate more than 2 months after the notice of allocation - is this something I should mention at the hearing, eventually asking for the hearing to be postponed so I can prepare a defence or hopefully enter into mediation?

Many thanks again for the help