First Response CCJ Claim Form Advice please

[Roxy123]

Its a long story so apologies in advance, so I have car finance in joint names with my husband and made all payments on time with no issues for 2 years roughly, then my husband through no fault of his own lost his job we contacted first response and agreed reduced payments which we maintained for a short time until we had to try and prioritise bills and with just my part time salary we could no longer pay First Response.

We were on the brink of being faced with a possession order for our house at the time. They knew my husband wasn't working and basically we didn't hear from them for well over a year no letters, no phone calls nothing. I know we should of contacted them and not just buried our heads in the sand to be honest.


Then we believed that we were going to receive some money enough to be able to make a full and final settlement with creditors first response being the biggest debt so was first to be contacted, they basically wanted half as full and final settlement so £1500 ( we owed them £3000 ). Unfortunately the money fell through ( it was going to be from my parents equity release scheme until they realised this was going to cost them too much money and pulled out). My parents had been really pushy trying to get us to get figures from our creditors so we mistakenly or not obtained settlement figures As soon as we knew weren't getting the money we contacted first response and explained they told us to complete an income/expenditure which we did and sent with offer of payment.

Then today we have received a court claim form for the full amount. We contacted first response straightaway and they were quite difficult said they didn't get the income/ expenditure form we sent and that they want an attachment of earnings for the full amount end of.

What we would like to know is can we dispute half the claim through the court claim form as they were prepared to settle at half only recently as Im sure they have added significant amounts of interest and charges. We have offered them the car back towards the debt also but they are not interested. They have made no attempt to repo the car that we are aware although it is currently in a garage sorn because we couldn't afford to run it. We paid £5000 for the car and paid £220 a month for 2 years plus a number of reduced payments. It was a 36 month contract. The car is worth now about £1000 so prob why they aren't interested in it.

My husband is now working and we are trying to pay back our debts and fully accept we will end up with a CCJ as result of this. We would really like some of advice of what to do, am I right in thinking that if we complete the admission form and offer of payment that the judge agrees we can afford and we pay that they cant obtain an attachment of earnings as I would likely lose my job if this were to happen which we also explained to First Response.

No mention of the car at all on the claim form just says that we have failed to make the payment required under the credit agreement.

thanks

[Amethyst]

Is this First Response? https://www.firstresponsefinance.co....e/car-finance/

Would you have a copy of the original agreement with them at all? was it a HP agreement ?

When was the agreement first taken out?

Had you paid over 50% of the total amount due under the agreement ?

[Roxy123]

yes that's them, yes I think we do have the original agreement and the email with the reduced settlement offer, the agreement was taken out march 2015
and yes paid more than half

[Amethyst]

Did you consider voluntary termination ? If you'd paid £220 for 2 years that'd be over £5k so unless the interest was insane that should have been over half and you could have returned the car at that point with no more to pay. Was there PPI/GAP etc in the agreement too? I'm not sure if it can be backtracked now so tagging R0b in on that side of things.

Would you be able to do a pic of the agreement, and a pic of the claim form you've received today pls ( cover any personal info ). You've already acknowledged the claim ? If not, get that done on moneyclaim online - just tick intend to defend in full so you have the full 28 days to sort out what to do with it.

[Roxy123]

yes will upload them shortly, no not acknowledged yet only got it yesterday wasn't sure if we could defend it

[Amethyst]

Thank you

Even if you end up deciding to offer to settle, you should acknowledge the claim now with intent to defend in full so you have more time to sort out what you want to do and can request documents from the claimants if needed before filing a defence. It isn't binding so you can change your mind later.

Is the claimant First Response or a third party firm ? Acknowledge Claim info

[Roxy123]

No ppi or gap, is it too late to VT now with the ccj claim? or could this be part of our defence ?? so having just checked, the original agreement was £6800 over 30 months and they say we today owe £3100 so I know we have paid more than 50% . I don't know why we didn't VT so wish we had as could of prevented all of this

[R0b]

Hello

From reading things, I am not sure you have much of a leg to stand on in terms of owing the debt and it is tool late to VT the agreement as that right is lost when First Response terminated themselves.

Struggling to actually think of any defence you might have to be honest, except that you mentioned the offer of settlement at £1,500. It would be helpful if you could copy and paste that email verbatim so we know the contents of it. If their offer in full and final was not time limited then in theory you could still accept their offer.

Can you explain where the income / expenditure form came about, did you in any way accept their offer of full and final hence the IE sheet or was that separate?

If anything, you could argue that First Response are estopped from denying that they offered the full and final settlement at £1,500 which you accept (assuming the offer hasn't expired).

Another line of thought is that following the IE sheet, you said you received the claim form and I wonder if they ever sent a letter before action to you, or was this something you threw in the bin and/or ignored? If you honestly don't believe that any letter before action was sent, then one option might be to make an application to the Court to stay proceedings on the basis of their non-compliance with the pre-action protocols, and to enable both sides to attempt a settlement without the need for court. It would be helpful to know who is actually named as the defendant(s) on the claim form because if it is just your husband, then he might be able to make an application and get a fee remission if he has no job and get the claim stayed that way, but also to avoid a CCJ being applied in his name. If both of you are named, he could still look to make an application on the same basis under his name if he is entitled to a fee remission and not actually have to pay any fees - I'd suggest a stay of 3 months to allow sufficient time for both parties to negotiate.

You would then have some breathing space and perhaps if First Response have been unfair in the way they have handled the matter, you could try to sneakily put in a formal complaint and then raise it to the Financial Ombudsman to look at which could further delay matters all the while you try to build up a pot of money to try and pay off the debt.

I'd also be inclined to send a subject access request to First Response (both of you separately) and see what information they hold about you, but do seek disclosure of all correspondence in particular.

Just a few things I've thought off the top of my head and probably doesn't really make sense but requires further thought. We certainly need more information including the claim form before deciding what possible options are available.

[Amethyst]

Presumably the lender has no obligation to inform customer of their VT rights ? ( it seems over 50% had been paid when lender was contacted re financial issues - I don't know if it got discussed at that point at all or if it was just turned down in favour of keeping car and reducing payments temporarily - but be interested to know if the lender actually has any obligation there that might be usable )

[R0b]

I'm not aware that there is an obligation on the lender to inform debtors of their right to VT but if there was, I would probably think that it would form part of the contents of a default notice - would need to double check what is required under to be informed on a DN.

[Roxy123]

Thanks for the replies in answer to some of the questions so the settlement offer has expired and when it did first response sent a letter to us saying they wanted an income/expenditure and offer of payment by 24th September - this was returned to them on 19th September but wasn’t sent recorded delivery so we have proof, the letter also said that if we didn’t return the form them it would result in court action. So I’m guessing this is the action letter you mention ? They said they never received that I/E form and we got the ccj claim form dated just 2 days after the 24th deadline. To me that suggests they had already gone for the ccj claim already
The claim form is in both our names and my husband is now working
A VT was never mentioned at all we just knew they couldn’t repo the car as we had paid half. If only we knew about the Vt at that time.
‘So basically we will have to accept the ccj for the full amount and offer replayment via the court I/E
Financially we couldn’t settle £ 1500 in 3 months as only just about managing now.
am I correct in thinking they cannot apply for an attachment of earnings as long as we offer payment via the ccj and it’s agreed by the judge which we pay ? Or do I need to mention on claim form that I risk losing my job should they insist on an attachment of earnings ?

[Roxy123]

[MIKE770]

PDF??? it not clear to read

[Amethyst]

It looks like a court claim for a BT plc debt of about £250 - claimant Lowell ?

[R0b]

I agree, that Claim Form has Lowell Financial as the claimant, and refers to an agreement entered into with BT PLC.

That doesn't appear to have anything to do with your debt with First Response.