First ever county court letter received! Help! (Lowell)

[clueless1980]

Hi,

Thanks for reading first of all. I have a few debts from the past due to personal circumstances that lead to me not dealing with things in the appropriate manner. This is the first court letter I Have ever received though and have been working to improve my credit rating so would very much like to avoid a ccj and paying lowell a penny to be honest.

The letter is dated 15/10/18 from Northampton County Court Business Centre.

The case is relating to a capital one credit card debt from 2004 which was then assigned to Lowell in 2015. The total amount they are claiming is £260.

I certainly have not paid or acknowledged the debt for more than 6 years so assume this would come under being statute barred? What if without my knowledge capital one have been sending out default notices withing the last 6 years or lets say in 2015 when lowell aquired the debt? Would that mean the debt wouldnt then be statute barred until 2021?

As said, ive had a few debts in the past and had a few debts that seem to have done the rounds between various debt collection agencies, I find it hard to believe Capital 1 kept the debt until 2015 to be honest as i dont recall anything as recent as that at all. I assume they must have purchased the debt from another one of these such establishments. I didnt have a bank account around say 2010 until maybe 2016 so couldnt check my online banking history either for payments, I just really cant see how I could have paid anything to the debt within the last 6 years though.

Do I click the start AOS at this stage to buy more time to fire off some letters to Lowell/Capital One? Its all a bit much to take in and just need some confirmation/guidance on what I am doing.

many thanks, I have tried reading but its all becoming stressful and dont want to do something wrong to ruin my defence.

Court letter states

1)the defendant opened a case with capital one regulated consumer credit account under the reference _ _ _ on 05/2004 ('the agreement')
2)in breach of the agreement, the defendant failed to maintain the required payments and the agreement was terminated.
3)the agreement was later assigned to the claimant on 03/2015 and written notice given to the defendent
4)despite repeated requests for payment, the sum of _ _ _ remains due and outstanding. And the claimant claims
a)the said sum of _ _ _
b)the interest pursuant to s69 county court acts etc etc etc
c)costs


thanks again

[Amethyst]

Hey clueless

First, Welcome to the forum, second, well done for dealing with this Don't let it stress you. Shout at me if I go to fast or talk gobbledegook, I'd rather you ask stuff than muddle through getting stressed and possibly getting something wrong...

So they don't give the date of default/termination in the particulars of claim. Normally a sign that it may be statute barred so you may well be right... but we shall see.

Yes first thing to do is acknowledge the claim on moneyclaim online, tick the intend to defend in full box, and that's it - don't fill in any reasons or anything - that comes later.

Info - Acknowledge Claim
Then we should get some letters off. Easy one first is the CCA request to the claimant - Lowell - so you can get that done and sent off.

Example - CCA Request
Then the CPR 31.14 request to the solicitors ( Lowell Solicitors?) we want to adapt a little to include the statute barred contention so we can get that out of the way early. Let me put something draft wise together in the morning for you ( I'll post back on here )

It will also be useful to send a SAR ( data protection subject access request ) directly to Capital One … this should get details of when it defaulted and whatnot...which you can then compare with what Lowell come up with.

Subject Access Request Letter

Does anything show on your credit files at all ? ( if you want to check use Noddle, ClearScore and MSE Credit Club rather than the pay services on Experian, Equifax and TransUnion ( same data) )

So your jobs Acknowledge the claim, Send the CCA request to Lowell, and the SAR to Capital One.

And we'll look at the rest in the morning ( sorry I'm flagging a bit tonight for writing a letter that'd make any sense )

[clueless1980]

I'll get on with what you've suggested. I massively appreciate the help, especially so promptly!

I've managed to get my credit report from mse and all thats on there is my current bank account. Nothing else. No closed or defaulted accounts and as said, just the one open account.

I have also acknowledged the claim.

I'll do the letters first thing in the morning and get them off recorded delivery!

Thanks again for your help Amethyst

[Amethyst]

Nice one I'll come back in the morning and give you a hand with the rest and detail what to expect xxx No more stressing tonight ok!

[clueless1980]

Good evening,

Letters sent, special delivery or whatever it is that's guaranteed by 1pm tomorrow.

Is it the waiting game now or do I need to submit anything online?

I can't wait to get all this sorted....

many thanks

[Amethyst]

Well done - and sorry I entirely forgot to do your CPR letter this morning !! I shall do that now to send off tmw then you can relax for a bit, see what comes back and keep an eye on your defence deadline ( which is 33 days after the issue date printed on the claim form - calculate here https://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html but should tell you on Moneyclaim online anyway )

Your defence has to go on before that deadline even if the claimant replies saying they have put the case on hold.

okay letter ( and so sorry, other things over took me this morning )

[Amethyst]

Send this one to Lowell Solicitors ( should be the address in the second box down on the claim form )

Your name
Your address
Your postcode

23/10/2018

Claimants name
Claimants address
Claimants postcode


Dear Sirs,

Claim Number: XXXXXX

Request for documents mentioned in a statement of case under CPR 31.14

On 20/10/2018 I received a County Court claim from yourselves on behalf of Lowell Portfolio of which I have acknowledged receipt indicating my intention to defend in full.

To enable me to file my defence and/or counterclaim, I require inspection of documents you mention in your statement of case ahead of filing my defence on 16/11/2018.

1. Agreement / Contract
2. Default and/or Termination Notice
3. Notice of Assignment
4. Copies of demands for payment

You should note that this claim has not yet been allocated to a specific track and the provisions of CPR 27(2) are of no effect. Had your claim not been issued through the CCBC the Claimant would have been obliged to attach copies of the documentation upon which it relies to the Particulars of Claim.

I, as Defendant, am entitled to see the documents on which the Claimant intends to rely. You should ensure compliance with your CPR 31 duties and ensure that the document(s) I have requested are copied to and received by me within 14 days of receiving this letter.

If you require more time in which to comply with this request you must tell me in writing and confirm your agreement to an extension of the time allowed for me to file my defence as allowed under CPR 15.5 so I may notify the court.

Please note that it is my contention that any debt which may have been owed to Capital One historically, which is denied, would in any event be statute barred pursuant to section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980. In the event you do not believe this is the case I request you provide me with evidence of payment or acknowledgment of any debt with Capital One in the six years prior to your issuing the claim in this case.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Your Name

[Amethyst]

Okay, once the letters have gone off, give it till about 10th November if you haven't heard anything and then come back on here and we can put a defence together. The standard example we use as a starting point is here >> - Example Defence -<< so you can have a read through that and it should bring together for you why you're sending off the letters Ask any questions at all of course.

Once the defence is entered, before 16th Nov I believe it is, then the court send a copy to the claimant. The claimants then have 28 days to reply to the court to say if they want to continue with the case. If they don't ( usually because they don't have the documents yet ) the case gets put on hold ( stay ) until such time as they find the documents....not the best situation as it just hangs over you a bit.... then is quite a good time to consider a reduced settlement if you think your defence is winging it a bit if they did come up with the documents. Otherwise it's just a wait and see game.

If they do want to proceed they'll tell court and you'll receive a Directions Questionnaire to complete and return - this tells the court where you want the hearing to be and whether you're willing to do through Mediation to try sort out the claim before court ( this again depends on documents and how strong you feel your case is by then ).

Once both yours and Claimants Directions Questionnaires are in to the court, they'll send the file over to the relevant court, who will issue directions and a hearing date ( usually not for 3/4 months ). Before the hearing the claimant has to pay a hearing fee, and both you and the claimant will need to write witness statements and exchange them ( and send a copy to the court )…. sometimes the claimant waits till then to actually provide any documents at all - and if they can't they tend to discontinue the claim at that point.

Then the hearing... not many people actually get that far along so not worth worrying about at the moment Hopefully that helps a bit anyway... it's normally 5/6 months overall if everything is returned on time etc until it's all settled and sorted. Lots of wait and see stuff in that time too.

Hopefully the statute barred defence will just get a discontinuance early doors anyway- but we'll see what they come back with. Just let us know anything you receive and don't let anything worry you - it's not a massive debt, so if it turns out your memory is way out time wise, and they come up with all the documents you can look at settling out of court without a CCJ over a few months of instalments.

[clueless1980]

thanks very much again, I really do massively appreciate the help, you're providing a fantastic service and I'l be sure to leave positive feedback regardless of whatever happens!

all letters are off now and its 33 days from the issue date of 15/10/18 which is 17/11/18.

hopefully they'll cease with the action!