Lowells claim form

[carlcsl]

Hi Guys,

I've received a claim form from Lowells regarding an EDF debt from 2014, about 1.5k.

I'm planning to dispute the claim but need some advice as to the best way forward.

So back in 2014, I bought a property, moved in and went about paying my utility bills in a timely manner. After a few months I received a demand from EDF. Contacted them immediately and it transpired they had two account numbers registered against my property, I'd been paying into the account number they had given me, they needed to correct that error and move the payments on to the other account number. At that point it started to get a bit odd, I assumed they could just do the transaction internally, but what they asked me to do was pay the 1k into the other account, and then they promised they would refund me the original payments. I refused and moved all correspondence to email. I've still got the email exchange.

It's about 25 emails, EDF freely admit it's their error, they also acknowledge all my payments to them. But, it never got resolved. They asked again for me to effectively double up the payments before they'd refund, I refused. They then asked for several months of my bank statements, again I refused. Eventually the emails fizzled out and they stopped contacting me. As you can imagine the phone calls and emails ate an incredible amount of time, so I was glad to see the back of it. I moved house and thought nothing more of it, assuming they'd fixed the problem internally.

So.. I'm confident the Lowell claim is in error, and I'm confident if I present a judge with a copy of the email exchange they will come down in my favour. But how do I do that? Do I fill in the defence section of the claim form with copies of email attached? Do I save that information for the court date? Do I present it to Lowells at this stage, I have ignored them so far. What's the best thing to do??

Many thanks

[charitynjw]

Hi & welcome

If you have received an official court claim (form N1) you need to deal with that first.

Acknowledge it asap.... not doing so exposes you to a possible default judgment.

What is the claim issue date?

Did you receive a pre-action protocol pack from Lowell in the month or so prior to the court claim.? (Multiple answer tick-box form, income & expenditure sheet etc)

Have you received a "Hi, we're Lowells, we've bought an alleged debt from EDF, so now you owe us" letter? (Aka a notice of legal assignment.)
Maybe a similar "Goodbye" letter from EDF.?

Lowells appear to have bought a large portfolio of 'delinquent' debts.

They will have very little more than your name& address, EDF as the previous owner, the account no. & how much is (allegedly) owed. They probably won't know anything at all re the backstory.

[carlcsl]

Hi NJW

Yes I have received an N1 claim form, dated March 11th. Keen to respond promptly, that's what I need help with.

I haven't responded to anything Lowells have sent me through the post, but yes several letters from them, I imagine the pre action forms were in there somewhere.

No goodbye letter from EDF, just the email string, but that is pretty thorough. It details my payments to them, it acknowledges they gave me the wrong account number. It details their request for my bank statements, or I could pay the bills again and they would refund me. Basically their position was that they could see my payments, the money was in their account. But, they weren't prepared to reallocate my funds to the correct account without me taking one of the courses of action above. I asked them to refund me the payments and then I'd clear down their preferred account, they refused. My final email to them was a request for them to fix the issue internally, I didn't receive any more correspondence after that..

"They will have very little more than your name& address, EDF as the previous owner, the account no. & how much is (allegedly) owed. They probably won't know anything at all re the backstory."
I think exactly that, which is why I'm a little stuck. Do I fill Lowells in on the backstory at this stage? Do I ignore Lowells, go to court and just explain it to the judge? And how much detail do I provide on the claim form, I assume I fill in the defence form.

I haven't even considered contacting EDF, it was such a ballache last time, and I'm guessing we're past that point now?

[charitynjw]

Firstly, acknowledge the court claim.

https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...ledge-a-claim/

If you have received a pre action protocol (PAP) pack, tick box D for now. (Defend all.)

Tick box I & ask for
A true copy of the agreement
All T&Cs relating to the agreement
Full details of the account
All copies of any correspondence between EDF & [yourself]
A copy of the notice of assignment.

Don't worry about the income/expenditure sheet

Keep a copy & get proof of posting.

If you haven't got (or can't find) the PAP, give us a nudge here on this thread.

[carlcsl]

Ok great. I've followed the link you gave me to the acknowledgement info. I have the acknowledgement of service form and I now understand what I need to do with that, thank you.

Defence and counterclaim form, fill that in or don't bother with it?

I don't have the PAP.. can I download a generic one? I guess that needs to go to Lowells. There's two addresses on the claim form, one is Claimant, Lowell Portfolio LTD, the other is correspondence address, Lowell Solicitors LTD. Shall I send it to the solicitors?

[charitynjw]

Just tick for 'defend all'.

Do not write anything in the actual 'defence' box.

Do you mean they haven't sent a PAP, or that you have misplaced/binned it?

[carlcsl]

PAP form was likely binned. I opened the first couple of letters from Lowells, saw the claim from EDF, groaned to myself and thought this can't possibly go anywhere. Binned everything else from Lowells. Apparently I was mistaken and this can go somewhere...

[charitynjw]

Well, they have up to 6 years from the contravention date to chase/enforce.

& they do..........

Limitation Act 1980 s5

[carlcsl]

NJW, you've been really helpful, thank you.

I'll return the acknowledgement of service form on Monday. I'll find a PAP template and send it to Lowells. And I'll let you know how it all goes.

Many thanks.

[carlcsl]

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...s/debt-pap.pdf

Is this a suitable pap template?

[charitynjw]

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...s/debt-pap.pdf

Is this a suitable pap template?

Yep, fine.

Just the response form

Don't worry about the income/expenditure form.

[carlcsl]

NJW, update for you. Lowells didn't respond to my PAP, I contacted CCBC and they told me to submit my defense anyway, so I did that today. Will let you know what happens next...

[carlcsl]

So Lowells have sent me an offer of a mediation service? My position is unchanged, I'm satisfied I've paid EDF in full. Do I respond or ignore the offer of mediation?

FYI, Lowells did eventually respond to the PAP. They sent me one document, a final bill from EDF. That was interesting as I hadn't seen it before. It covered the full period I owned the property, the amount was £860. This surprised me as I've paid them over £1400 for the same period, based on estimated meter readings. I might be wrong, but I'm guessing the £860 figure came from a proper meter reading when I sold the property.Which makes me think I've actually overpaid in the region of £500. I'm trying to get my head around how I could chase that up.. :-/

[charitynjw]

So Lowells have sent me an offer of a mediation service?
They usually do....often with an offer of a reduced payment &/or a payment plan.
It's all part of their strategy.

My position is unchanged, I'm satisfied I've paid EDF in full. Do I respond or ignore the offer of mediation?
If it were me I'd say 'yes', as courts like to see an attempt at out-of-court negotiation.


FYI, Lowells did eventually respond to the PAP. They sent me one document, a final bill from EDF. That was interesting as I hadn't seen it before. It covered the full period I owned the property, the amount was £860. This surprised me as I've paid them over £1400 for the same period, based on estimated meter readings. I might be wrong, but I'm guessing the £860 figure came from a proper meter reading when I sold the property.Which makes me think I've actually overpaid in the region of £500. I'm trying to get my head around how I could chase that up.. :-/
Resolver ?

####

[carlcsl]

NJW, update for you, I've reached the end of the process.

Lowells offered mediation, but I declined on the basis that I didn't believe there was any outstanding debt. Lowells then offered me a 'Tomlin'? agreement, saying they'd been in contact with EDF and they were prepared to accept a payment plan. I pondered that for a while but then ignored. That then committed us to a court date. Although I was confident in my position I still had a couple of wobbles and nearly bottled it. I received Lowells witness statement a couple of weeks before court, and it was an intimidating read, it made their case sound pretty robust. But I held my nerve, hoping a judge would apply some common sense to the situation.

Well, that's exactly what happened. The judge dismantled Lowells witness statement, pointing out that although strongly worded, they didn't actually have any proof to back up their claims. All they could provide was a copy of the final bill, there was no breakdown of the alleged debt, no breakdown of my payments to EDF and what account they'd been allocated to. The judge dismissed their case and awarded me costs. I was very pleased :-)

I had a chat with Lowells solicitor afterwards, he was allocated the case the night before. He told me Lowells buy these "debts" for about 20% of their value, they generally come with very little paperwork and Lowells basically take a punt that they may get a result in court. He was a nice guy, I don't think he enjoyed these kind of cases.

So, interesting process to go through. I could have quite easily been persuaded to fold at an earlier stage, Lowells word their correspondence in such a way as to make you doubt yourself. But I put my faith in the judge, and with your help NJW it worked out well! Many thanks, it was over £1200 they were pursuing me for, so definitely worth the fight.