BW Legal, statute barred and not liable anyway?

[Outofmydepth]

Hi all, In May of this year, I received correspondence and court documents from "BW Legal" representing "JC International Acquisition, LLC" who claimed to have been assigned a historic debt owing to Thames Water from a previous address, which I vacated on 31st March 2016. I believed the alleged debt of £1857.21 to be statute barred and the opinion was arrived at based on having read posts on this forum, and others, and also talking to National Debtline ,and Citizens advice.

Without wasting time, it would not have been possible for me to have legally acknowledged any such debt within the limitation period as lacked the account details in order to have been able to acknowledge any debt or to have been able to make any payments. My reasoning, such as it was, was based on information available to me at the time and assumed the claim was accurate.

I submitted the following as my defence:

"I do not admit any liability for the claim.

The Limitation Act 1980 Section 5 states: “An action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.” If this time has expired, the debt becomes statute barred and unenforceable.

On that basis, I argue that the alleged debt in this case is statute barred; no correspondence, payment, or acknowledgement of this alleged debt has been made within the the prescribed time limit of the last six years, nor have the claimants taken any action to recover it within the prescribed period.

Therefore, under Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980, I request that the court demand that the claimants provide evidence to the contrary; of payment or written contact from me within the relevant period, as proof to the court that their claim was legitimately brought in time. In the event of the failure of the claimants to provide any such evidence, I further request that the the court issue summary judgment to strike out the claimants’ case, and declare the alleged debt unenforceable, as it was issued out of time ."

I submitted my defence as pdf by email.

I have finally received a copy of their apparent evidence by post towards the end of last week and this is where things become messy. The debt agencies have advised me to seek urgent legal advice as in their opinions it has stopped being a purely a debt issue.

Their evidence, as enclosed in their letter is a copy of a closing bill for £1,662.21, in my name from Thames Water dated 28th June 2017 for the supply of water and wastewater services to my old address from 01 April 2017 to 07 June 2017.

Bear in mind that I vacated that property on 31st March 2016.

In the accompanying letter, their response to my defence that it is statute barred is as follows:

"S.5 of the Limitation Act 1980, provides a limitation period for claims in contract of six years from the date of
the last cause of action. The originating creditor sent a Final bill on 28 June 2017. Given that Our Client s claim
was issued on 4 April 2023, the claim was brought within the limitation period."

They also suggested I stop wasting court time, incurring further costs, and pointed me towards their already pre-approved payment plan of £50 per month...

I had been evicted by some shady developers/speculators who bought my 30 year sitting tenancy from my previous landlord after I threatened to have him prosecuted for disrepair/gas safety/and harassment. They were not the most reputable of individuals and I suspect that the closing TW Bill from 2017 was generated by the new owners of the property opening a Thames Water account following the sale of the property by the developers.

What concerns me is:

Can I be held liable for a debt incurred in my name originating well over a year after I lived in a property?
[The Thames water billing cycle runs from 1st April, so for a whole year and 3 months the developers enjoyed the facilities in my name and apparently it would seem at my expense]

Also, is the existence of a bill, alone, proof of cause of action?

Does a County Court claim have to be accurate in the amount claimed?

Is my already submitted defence still appropriate in light of the new information?

I'm at a loss for how to proceed and I'm under enormous time pressure and I have so many questions.

Hopefully I've given you all enough to understand the gist of my situation.

In their letter, BW Legal gave me until 1 August 2023 to contact them to resolve things on an amicable basis, however, closer inspection of the latest court documents - Form 419A "Notice of Proposed Allocation to the small claims Track" requires that I must complete Form N180 and file it with the court office by 24th July (Monday).

I am worried about the consequences of not responding in time, but hopefully I can file it electronically by Monday, but as my screen name suggests, I am completely out of my depth and no longer sure how I should be defending myself.

[Pezza54]

For the time being just make sure you file the DQ with the court electronically by next Monday. I was told by court staff you can print your name if you can't sign it electronically
There is advice on how to complete the DQ on the right hand column of this page.

[R0b]

Something doesn't quite add up. It would be helpful if you could respond to some of the points below.

1. If you haven't done so already, I would be submitting a subject access request to Thames Water so you can see what evidence, invoices and bills etc. they have on your account. Given the lapse of time, there may be nothing if the account has been purged in line with their retention policies.

2. Is the property on a water meter or estimated?

My initial thoughts are that a bill of £1,662.21 for the months of April 17 to June 17 seems a pretty extortionate. The fact that a final bill has been generated means absolutely nothing and is merely a red herring to throw you off. That bill could have been generated based on previously issued invoices sent to the property, which is why you need to make the subject access request for that information.

In any event, I would be arguing that the final bill means nothing other than the fact that a figure has been given, £1,662.21 in the space of 5 months seems very high (I'm in the north and pay about £350-£400 a year). The onus is on BW to show that that fee was actually based on the usage between those months, which would in my view seem to have been brought in within time and therefore not statute barred. If the bills were based on estimation, you could do a check online to see what it might have cost yearly and use that as evidence to support your case that the bills were more likely than not, based on earlier invoices.

If, however, that final bill was generated based on previous bills invoiced to you then the clock starts to run from the date of the invoice when the sums of money were first demanded. Either way, you urge the court to dismiss the claim in the absence of that evidence, which I'm presuming they don;t yet have. Don't give the game away and keep this in your back pocket until the hearing otherwise they may be able to scramble something that indicates something in their favour.

Of course all of the above would amount to nothing if the final bill is indeed for those months of water usage actually incurred. Also as a side note, I believe by law they are entitled to bill you until you actually notify them you have vacated. Never assume that your liability ends when you leave without notifying them. They will probably only becoming aware if the new owner calls them up to set up an account.

[Outofmydepth]

For the time being just make sure you file the DQ with the court electronically by next Monday. I was told by court staff you can print your name if you can't sign it electronically
There is advice on how to complete the DQ on the right hand column of this page.

I will do I'll need to scan the original as the links from the sidebar don't seem to work on my Mac.Can I assume that mediation involves an admission of some degree of liability or acceptance of the legitimacy of the claim on my part.

I definitely need to get the form in by Monday.

Funnily enough the letter from BW Legal implied that I needed to respond to them by 1st August with absolutely no mention of a 24th July deadline which I suspect was deliberate in the hope that I'd concentrate on their letter and wouldn't look too closely at the court papers, miss the deadline, and create the opportunity for them to go directly to requesting the court strike out my defence and issue a summary judgement against me.

Even while I was preparing this post this morning, a further letter arrived from BW Legal ; this time drawing my attention to their "numerous attempts" to contact me and attempts to "resolve matters on amicable terms" and enclosing their own N180 directions questionnaire (submitted in good time by them).

They're pushing again for mediation and I'm uncertain whether I should agree to mediation. Can mediation result in the same outcome as a hearing in terms of a claim or defence being successful or not?

Thanks for taking the time to reply, btw it's greatly appreciated.

[Outofmydepth]

Something doesn't quite add up. It would be helpful if you could respond to some of the points below.

1. If you haven't done so already, I would be submitting a subject access request to Thames Water so you can see what evidence, invoices and bills etc. they have on your account. Given the lapse of time, there may be nothing if the account has been purged in line with their retention policies.

2. Is the property on a water meter or estimated?

My initial thoughts are that a bill of £1,662.21 for the months of April 17 to June 17 seems a pretty extortionate. The fact that a final bill has been generated means absolutely nothing and is merely a red herring to throw you off. That bill could have been generated based on previously issued invoices sent to the property, which is why you need to make the subject access request for that information.

In any event, I would be arguing that the final bill means nothing other than the fact that a figure has been given, £1,662.21 in the space of 5 months seems very high (I'm in the north and pay about £350-£400 a year). The onus is on BW to show that that fee was actually based on the usage between those months, which would in my view seem to have been brought in within time and therefore not statute barred. If the bills were based on estimation, you could do a check online to see what it might have cost yearly and use that as evidence to support your case that the bills were more likely than not, based on earlier invoices.

If, however, that final bill was generated based on previous bills invoiced to you then the clock starts to run from the date of the invoice when the sums of money were first demanded. Either way, you urge the court to dismiss the claim in the absence of that evidence, which I'm presuming they don;t yet have. Don't give the game away and keep this in your back pocket until the hearing otherwise they may be able to scramble something that indicates something in their favour.

Of course all of the above would amount to nothing if the final bill is indeed for those months of water usage actually incurred. Also as a side note, I believe by law they are entitled to bill you until you actually notify them you have vacated. Never assume that your liability ends when you leave without notifying them. They will probably only becoming aware if the new owner calls them up to set up an account.

Apologies for my kind of lengthy answers at this stage. This action has resurrected one of the most difficult and traumatic periods of my life in a very unwelcome way, (one I had been trying to put behind me) but I'll try to answer as fully but concisely as I can.

Point 1: Definitely something I need to investigate - I only became aware of the existence of this bill a week ago. I'm recovering from total hip replacement a few weeks ago so I'm only now mobile and up to dealing with this stuff.

2. The property had no water meter at any point during my period of occupancy. it would have been a bill generated based on average consumption for a property of that size/type.

3. That bill did not reference the period of 1/4/2016 to 1/4/2017 - there would have been a whole year/complete billing cycle, preceding the final bill, where the property was also under the complete control of the new owners/developers.

My suspicion is that the developers completely ignored the April 2016 - 2017 water bill and also the following year's bill generated in April 2017. I would stake my life on that closing bill having been generated as a result of the subsequent sale of the property in June 2017.

Your answer would seem to suggest that I would have remained liable for all subsequent water charges indefinitely if the developers had not sold the property on.

By way of some context: My situation was complex as I had been living with extreme disrepair for a number of years - the original landlord having a kind of feudal outlook as his family had built the area I lived in around the early 1900s. I was possibly one of the last and youngest sitting tenants in the country (I was 24 in 1985 when I moved in under a very obscure protected shorthand tenancy). By being young and concentrating on my career, I was oblivious to issues like gas safety, so the flat had never had gas safety certificates at any point during the entire 31 year tenancy and the wiring was also eventually condemned.

In the decade preceding the eviction, I had become ill due to sub-lethal carbon monoxide exposure - eventually the fire was condemned gas supply was disconnected after I'd had it tested. Eventually I had an opportunity to confront the landlord over the whole situation, the disrepair, gas safety, harassment, and a whole lot of other stuff which I put in writing. Next thing I knew was that I had a new landlord - he had sold the property with me in situ.

For the next 2 1/2 years, with no electricity, gas, running hot water and temperatures of 4c in winter, I clung on until I couldn't fight them any longer - they had failed to supply required evidence of tenancy/rent and so my local borough refused HB. Consequently, they took me to court over unpaid rent and alleged unspecified arrears that they'd bought from my previous landlord. I technically won a disrepair countersuit of the maximum apparently allowed under legal aid of £5,000 for some of the worst conditions the judge had ever seen, but the award went directly back to the owners to offset those arrears.

So the developers won in the end and on 31st March 2016, I was forcibly evicted from the property without the opportunity to collect my possessions or much more than I could carry. I was literally homeless and over the summer slept near Epping Forest and occasionally sofa surfed until I eventually clawed myself back into respectability but at the cost of a major heart attack and a great deal of trauma. It's extremely difficult to see most of what you've worked for end up in a succession of skips and even have to lose your cats.

I photographed much of this process, the skips etc, and over 7 years later, even I find it all hard to believe, but I documented it as much to help explain my homelessness as at times, I couldn't't find the words..

Under the circumstances surrounding my abrupt departure/eviction, I neglected to save my Thames Water account paperwork and it wasn't an issue that I gave much priority at the time, being mostly concerned with finding shelter and rehoming myself. I had no account number and no way to prove my identity as bill holder for that account until now, courtesy of BW Legal.

So, getting back to your reply, that £1662.21 probably covers the previous year carried over as well maybe longer. My water consumption for those past few years would actually have been minute - without gas, electricity, or hot running water, I bathed/showered at friends. even the toilet didn't flush properly towards the end...

My main question is whether a bill generated such a long time after a proper has changed hands still leaves the previous occupant liable. I had no meaningful opportunity to engage with Thames Water for a considerable period and lacked ID/proof to gain information about that account. Is there an obligation upon the owner of a property to update utilities after a reasonable period? Surely they must have received interim bills or demands at some point during the 15 or 16 months after taking possession?

Maybe I'm being naive, but I can't see how I could remain liable, apparently, potentially indefinitely.

I also really appreciate the effort you've put into trying to help.

[Pezza54]

Sorry to hear about the trauma you suffered for years in your past life. Pleased to read that your quality of life has now improved.

I recently downloaded the DQ (form N180) from a government website, completed it, printed and signed it, and posted it to the address in Northampton provided. I could have attached the document to an email and transmitted it to the court email address.

Commonsense says you are not responsible for the cost of water and drainage that was used after you vacated the property on 31 March 2016. The new owner must bear some responsibility for informing utility companies that they took possession from 1 April 2016. After all, it was the new owner that benefitted from the supply of fresh water. Have you still got any evidence that you had to vacate the property on this date?

Once your DQ is submitted you will have plenty of time to attempt to obtain info from TW. If you do receive old bills you could try to work out approximately how much you owed TW on 31.3.2016

[Outofmydepth]

Sorry to hear about the trauma you suffered for years in your past life. Pleased to read that your quality of life has now improved.

I recently downloaded the DQ (form N180) from a government website, completed it, printed and signed it, and posted it to the address in Northampton provided. I could have attached the document to an email and transmitted it to the court email address.

Commonsense says you are not responsible for the cost of water and drainage that was used after you vacated the property on 31 March 2016. The new owner must bear some responsibility for informing utility companies that they took possession from 1 April 2016. After all, it was the new owner that benefitted from the supply of fresh water. Have you still got any evidence that you had to vacate the property on this date?

Once your DQ is submitted you will have plenty of time to attempt to obtain info from TW. If you do receive old bills you could try to work out approximately how much you owed TW on 31.3.2016

Thanks for your response, I appreciate the support.

While I lost virtually all of the documentation, by chance, I found that I had actually photo/scanned Form N54 Notice of Eviction on 30th March 2016 at a friend's place using my old iPhone 4s. That image clearly shows the date of issue of by Bow County Court as 12/February/2016, with the claim and warrant number and the date of the eviction - 31 March 2016 at 9 AM. I have corroborating photos of the aftermath of the eviction, including the broken and padlocked door and of the skips showing my possessions and furniture being dumped. If necessary, I would expect the metadata from the images to confirm their authenticity.

Again purely by coincidence, I'd only finally got around to upgrading both my (obsolete) Mac and iPhone; a huge amount of personal data on that phone, which had been inaccessible since well before the pandemic, suddenly became available after restoring the contents to the much more current iPhone. I was able to retrieve my entire history of WhatsApp conversations, texts, photos, Dropbox files, emails and other scans etc, which the old iPhone (a 4S) had not been able to access due to obsolescence . Al of this more by luck than judgement as I've only had this new phone for a week and access to the data for a few days. This dormant time capsule of data and photos covering 2011 to 2018 "magically" became available while setting up the new phone (a 13 mini).

This solved my biggest worry which was actually proving the eviction took place; Bow County Court (in Stratford, East London) closed its doors in around 2018(?) and is now apparently up market housing. Without any eviction documentation or specific claim details, I understand I would have possibly needed to search the National Archives to locate the information, with no guarantee of success. I now have access to a complete chronology of the entire saga as it unfolded.

So to pull all of these things together:

1. I believe I have ample evidential means to prove the eviction took place on 31st March 2016 with the attendance of court bailiffs, and that following the property owners taking possession and control of the property, that I was left homeless and without any right of further access to the property.

2. Before beginning this reply, I successfully downloaded from N180 which I will complete and email. My original defence was submitted electronically in a similar manner.

3. My only remaining uncertainty at this stage is whether I should agree to mediation or not. I am certain that the particulars of the claim are not remotely factually accurate and I believe it will need a hearing.

I am painfully aware that the law (in practice) is frequently not about common sense and fairness, but I am completely unwilling to shoulder the full responsibility for the entirety of a debt (plus additional costs) that, as you pointed out, common sense would dictate I ought not to be held responsible. As I have no intention of changing my position on the claim as it now stands, is accepting mediation what I should be doing at this stage?

Is their whole claim actually defective?

Is my original defence (before I was made aware of their evidence) not incorrect, in light of that new information?

Is the period before 2016 not statute barred? The claim is based on a bill prepared in June 2017 and covering a period from 1st April to 28th June. They are relying on that bill as their sole proof of their claim not being statute barred?

Finally, I fully intend to pursue a subject access request with Thames Water, I'm certain that the April 2016 - 2017 bill will have been in my name also, and that there will have been correspondence regarding payment of the account that will have been ignored by the developers. On the Companies House website, I found that their property investment development company has been dissolved, but I believe that information about the dates of changes of title to the property should be accessible from the Land Registry.

As you've pointed out, once I've submitted Form N180 , I will have bought breathing space to properly defend my position.

Once again, I really appreciate your assistance; this episode has dragged up difficult memories and I was reaching a point a couple of days ago, where I was so worn down by their unrelenting tide of correspondence and complete assumption that they've already won, that part of me just wanted to say "**** it" I'll pay the £50 per month they've set up to make it go away.

The support I'm receiving here is keeping me in the fight.

[Pezza54]

Good to hear you've got evidence to prove you vacated the property on 31.3.2016. This evidence should be attached to your witness statement at the appropriate time.
I can't see any point agreeing to mediation if you are not prepared to negotiate financially. Agreeing to mediation may delay the case though if the other party also agree to mediation.
It sounds like the debt collector is trying to bully you into accepting a payment plan.
If you haven't received a final demand from the power company or companies, who notified them of the change of bill payer? If it was your original landlord or the new property owner, why didn't they notify TW as well?
The water bill, £1662 for a 2 month period sounds ridiculously high and probably a mistake. Could the new owner have got a meter installed leaving your name on the account and then used a lot of water for building work?
Send the SAR to TW and wait for their response.

[Outofmydepth]

Good to hear you've got evidence to prove you vacated the property on 31.3.2016. This evidence should be attached to your witness statement at the appropriate time.
I can't see any point agreeing to mediation if you are not prepared to negotiate financially. Agreeing to mediation may delay the case though if the other party also agree to mediation.
It sounds like the debt collector is trying to bully you into accepting a payment plan.
If you haven't received a final demand from the power company or companies, who notified them of the change of bill payer? If it was your original landlord or the new property owner, why didn't they notify TW as well?
The water bill, £1662 for a 2 month period sounds ridiculously high and probably a mistake. Could the new owner have got a meter installed leaving your name on the account and then used a lot of water for building work?
Send the SAR to TW and wait for their response.

Thanks again, I'm in the process of completing the pdf.

The claimant's copy of N180 agrees to Mediation, and that the small claims track is appropriate, but does not consider that the claim is suitable for determination without a hearing.

their reason:

"The case requires technical submissions on a number of aspects of the Claimant's claim, including the formation of the contract. Such submissions will be presented by either counsel or a solicitors-agent. Equally, the Claimant will want to cross-examine the Defendant and/or their witnesses. Therefore the case is not suitable to be dealt with on paper, or without a hearing."

My current draft response (I'll email the completed form to the court at the last possible minute) is:

"Based on information contained within the evidence very recently supplied by the Claimant; information which was previously unknown to the Defendant, the Defendant now believes the case to be more complex than was previously understood, and with potentially serious legal consequences for other parties beyond the scope of the current claim and County Court Jurisdiction.

In light of this, the defence intends to make documentary submissions, challenging the legitimacy, on factual grounds, of the whole of the claim in terms of his personal liability and, as a matter of urgency, is currently obtaining the necessary further supporting documentary evidence, further legal advice, and, if necessary, possible legal representation in court, based on the implications of this new information.

Therefore, the Defendant strongly agrees with the Claimant that mediation would not be an appropriate course of action under the circumstances, and that a hearing is essential."

Your other questions are ones I've been asking.

The bill they're using as evidence is the closing bill from Thames Water.

£1662 for a two month period would be excessive, but I suspect that this closing account would encompass any outstanding water charges from previous billing cycle(s).

Thames Water bills annually from 1st April to 31st March, therefore since I was evicted on 31st March 2016, on the following day, 1st April 2016, a new and complete billing cycle would have commenced which lay completely outside of my legal period of tenancy/occupancy.

The owner/developers would have received a bill for water supply services that full year from 1/4/2016 to 1/4/2017 and subsequently one from the following year from 1/4/2017 to 1/4/2018 and I would assume, a number of reminder letters during at least the first year.

Under the heading "Account activity", the closing bill from makes reference to:

a "last bill (dated 03 April 2017) £1,901.33

Cancelled charges to allow issue of revised bill -£292.89

Total new charges for this period £53.77

Total amount due £1,662.21"

All of this account activity seeming to have taken place more than a whole year after my eviction/departure from the property, with the final bill stating:

"For the supply of water and wastewater services to:

[My old address] from:

01 April 2017 - 07 June 2017"

and dated 28 June 2017, the date the claimants cite as the date of their cause of action, based on this bill.

I believe that the (extremely shady) owners/developers, consumed water during their refurbishment, in my name, for well over a year after I was evicted and that they must have repeatedly and deliberately ignored over a year's worth of water bills and reminders addressed to me at that property, until they subsequently sold it on. Isn't this a form of fraud; ie knowingly obtaining goods or services by deception?

I suspect that this account closing bill was generated by the actions of the subsequent owners, due to the sale of the property and that the cancelled charges in the closing bill were as a result of it covering only April 1 2017 to June 7 2017, and replacing (I would expect) an already issued standard annual bill from April 2017 to April 2018 as previously as per their previous practice.

I assume that if the property had taken another year or two to sell, then the developers would have continued to use water billed in my name.

It's my understanding that new owners/occupiers have a responsibility to notify utilities of a change within a reasonable time, otherwise the previous occupant seems to be able to be held accountable indefinitely. There must surely be a cutoff point?

luckily my gas had been condemned and capped a number of years previously and my wiring had been also condemned by EDF, with a £258 E reading on my key meter due to ongoing standing charges, so I can expect no nasty surprises from other utilities. There would have been no possible opportunity for the developers to take a free ride on my other pre-existing utility accounts.

My only other nagging concern is that if I'm correct, then they won't have informed the local council of the change of ownership/occupancy either, so there may be a potential council tax issue in the future?

Once I've submitted the N180 this evening, I need to submit a SAR to Thames Water for the missing paperwork/bills and I need to check with the Land Registry the exact dates on which the property changed ownership.

Thanks again for your help and apologies once again for the length - I'm really trying to keep things concise and accurate....

[Pezza54]

What you wrote rejecting a judgement without a hearing reads perfectly. You appear to have the defence well in hand.

Be great if you keep forum users updated as the case progresses.

[Outofmydepth]

What you wrote rejecting a judgement without a hearing reads perfectly. You appear to have the defence well in hand.

Be great if you keep forum users updated as the case progresses.

Thanks! I will.

I truly appreciate you taking the time to read all of this. I was becoming very worried that my approach was too wordy. I've spotted a major error though; They seem to badly want mediation, but not a paper hearing, so I'll have to amend my pdf accordingly to reflect my agreement that a paper hearing would not be an appropriate course of action.

I feel some psychology at work to try to scare/bully me into submission and just settle and to be honest this whole business is making me ill, but maybe my latest response is written enough certainty, but vague enough to maybe give them pause for thought.

I'll leave it to the last possible minute to email it to the court in case anything else crops up.

Thanks again

[Outofmydepth]

A quick update: completed N180 submitted as PDF to Northampton CCBC by email (CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk), before Midnight (24th) - automated receipt of email received by me. Also, CC sent to Claimant's email at same time.