Shoosmiths/Arrow County Court (MBNA Europe Bank Limited)

**R0b** · 19th December 2018, 16:26:PM

Hello

Maybe I'm wrong but something seems amiss here. Before a claim can be issued, a letter before action should have been sent to you, probably by Shoosmiths. You've not mentioned receiving that and if you didn't then Shoosmiths would be in breach of pre-action protocols. Whilst I know Shoosmiths to be incompetent on a general level, they wouldn't deliberately avoid complying with the protocols.

So either you really didn't receive correspondence from Arrow/Shoosmiths, or you did and you've been selective. It is important that you give us all information especially as key as that because it may or may not impact on what your defence might be.

If you didn't receive a notice of assignment then you can argue that in your defence but equally if you have been paying the £1 to MBNA I presume they never told you that all payments should be made to Arrow, in which case you wouldn't have any idea to pay them instead.

Taken together, Arrow have alleged breach of contract of non-payment but failed to allege the date and time that payment was missed and there could be a riskier option of having the claim struck out and/or applying for summary judgment on the basis that you have made the repayments of £! to MBNA on the premise that they were the creditor, not Arrow.

A summary judgment would kick their claim into touch but there could be a risk of some costs if you lose which is why you would need to make sure all your facts are correct and evidence available. Otherwise, its a case of going through the court system, filing a defence and then attending court.

Thinking aloud, one option might be to file a defence on the basis of no breach of contract, failure to give notice to assign and possibly other arguments. You could then write to Arrow and seek a resolution perhaps on terms of what is known as a Tomlin Order whereby you agree to pay Arrow direct and not MBNA (without agreeing to pay their legal costs because they seem to have got it wrong on this occasion), otherwise you could inform them you are considering an application fro summary judgment (regardless of whether you choose to or not it's more of a threat to get them to the table).

I'll tag Amethyst to assist as well.

**James1971** · 19th December 2018, 17:30:PM

Hi,

Damn!

I've been checking through paperwork, with being ill some paperwork had accumulated. I didn't even realise I had these - not good I know!

ARROW GLOBAL - A statement of account covering 28/09/2017 to 28/09/2018. It shows payments of £1 every month. It's worth noting that these payments would not have been made to ARROW GLOBAL they would have been to MBNA Europe Bank Limited. With this there is a reply form asking for contact details and asking me "Do you owe the debt? with BOX A I agree I owe the debt. BOX B I ower some of the debt, but not all of it - the amount of debt I owe to you is £_______ and I don't owe any more than this because _______________________. BOX C - I don't know whether I owe the debt. BOX D - I dispute the debt. I dispute the debt because _______________. Then a section 2 - How will you pay? BOX E - I will pay what I owe now. BOX F - I will pay, but I need time to pay. My proposals for repayment are __________________________. And a box to agree of disagree that I have provided a financial statement. THIS DOCUMENT INDICATES "YOU HAVE 30 DAYS FROM THE DATE AT THE TOP OF THE ENCLOED LETTER TO FILL IN AND RETURN THIS FORM. IF YOU DON'T, IT COULD RESULT IN COURT PROCEEDINGS.

It must therefore have arrived with another letter from SHOOSMITHS dated 18 October 2018 - I believe this must have been the first letter I have had from SHOOSMITHS. It says they are acting on behalf of ARROW GLOBAL and are instructed to seek recovery of the outstanding balance. Please accept this letter as notice that should we be unable to agree suitable terms of repayment of the oustanding balance we are instructed to issue court proceedings against you with a view to obtaining a County Court Judement (CCJ)... may affect ability to obtain credit in the future.

Our client would prefer to reach an agreement with you for payment of the outstanding balance rather than issuing court proceedings. We therefore kindly request you contact our office on ######### as soon as possible to discuss the matter further.

We enclose the following documents which we ask you to read.... (paraphrasing)

Information Sheet and Reply FOrm
Financial Statement
Ways to Pay Form
A Statement of Account, where provided to us

We confirm the outstanding balance is £8938.24....

On the back:

This balance is owing under the terms of a written agreement dated on or around 3 May 2007, made between you and MBNA Europe Bank Limited. The debt was assigned to our client on 30 July 2010. You may request a copy of the agreement from us. Under the terms of that agreement you agreed to pay the outstanding balance.

In the event that you have previously agreed a payment arrangement or you may have offered a payment proposal, please be advised that such terms are unacceptable to our client, due to the amount of the instalment being insufficient to repay the outstanding balance within a reasonable period of time. Please note that you can still make these payments to reduce your outstanding liability, however these payments will not prevent further action.

A bit about payment methods and the reply form.

Asking for reply form and financial statement within 30 days. For the avoidance of doubt, should you not respond as requested by the specified date, we will have no alternative than to issue court proceedings against you without further reference or notice.

Should you wish to discuss... do not hesitate to contact our office....... we look forward to hearing from you no later than 17th November 2018.
---------

I guess this does not help me!

**James1971** · 19th December 2018, 17:36:PM

I will check through accumulated paperwork to see if I have a notice of assignment.

**Amethyst** · 19th December 2018, 18:13:PM

Don't worry, many people ignore documentation in the lead up to a court claim. It is a shame as they may have accepted a sensible installment plan without the court action but they might just be looking to secure the debt with the judgment to ensure they stay at the top of the list. Don't take it personally or let it worry you or affect your health. The court would only order payments at an affordable amount based on your circumstances, and it doesn't sound like a CCJ would have too much affect on your credit file? ( although everything defaulted quite a number of years ago now so maybe it is clearing up?). Anyway, your priority is your health, so just treat this as a process to go through and don't let it play on your mind.

So this is a credit card debt of £8k - it was assigned to Arrow in 2010 and token payments have been being made throughout, and actually continue.

Do you have any idea when the credit card account ( MBNA ) in this case was actually opened ?

ARROW GLOBAL acknowledged the CCA request (their letter dated 10th December), they said they do not accept that they are the creditor as envisaged by the above statue. However, we are willing to assist in obtainin that which has been requested. They said they will now process my request for documentation from the creditor and will revert in due course. They said "We confirm that all collection activity will be suspended pending provision of the document".

SHOOSMITHS responded saying "we have been made aware by our client that a CCA request has been requested. Due to this request, the account ha been placed on a 30 day hold whilst our client deal with your CCA request. The County Court Claim which has been issued against yourself will continue. However, no enforcement action will be taken until he (misspelling) CCA request has been completed."

I think you already realise that neither of those is a formal extension under the Civil procedure rules so you do still need to file your defence.

I used the Money Claim Online to submit an acknowledgement of service on 30/11/2018.

I sent a CCA request to ARROW GLOBAL LIMITED on 30th November.
I sent a CPR 31.14 request and a copy of the CCA letter to SHOOSMITHS on 30th November.

As things stand it will be quite a standard defence - they've filed a claim - you've asked for information - they haven't provided the information - so have a look Example Defence

On Arrow's contention that they are not the creditor as envisaged under the act... well- s 189 says they are, if they have been assigned the agreement - and if they haven't then how are they bringing the claim... basically.

Originally posted by 189

“creditor” means the person providing credit under a consumer credit agreement or the person to whom his rights and duties under the agreement have passed by assignment or operation of law, and in relation to a prospective consumer credit agreement, includes the prospective creditor;

Now if they do produce the documents further along you can then either try negotiate directly with Arrow, although by the sounds of their previous letter they may not be particularly open to a reasonable installment offer, or change your plea with the court to an admission with an offer to pay by installments - and provide the court with your full income and expenditure sheets, so that affordable payments can be set by them. Do you own your house?

**James1971** · 19th December 2018, 19:09:PM

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

Don't worry, many people ignore documentation in the lead up to a court claim. It is a shame as they may have accepted a sensible installment plan without the court action but they might just be looking to secure the debt with the judgment to ensure they stay at the top of the list. Don't take it personally or let it worry you or affect your health. The court would only order payments at an affordable amount based on your circumstances, and it doesn't sound like a CCJ would have too much affect on your credit file? ( although everything defaulted quite a number of years ago now so maybe it is clearing up?). Anyway, your priority is your health, so just treat this as a process to go through and don't let it play on your mind.

Thank you, yes I wish I had acted on it. I'm rather surprised, I really don't recall seeing it, but there it is.

To be honest I think my credit file was beginning to look healthier, but I do have substantial credit debts. Sadly this is not the only creditor. A combination of being made redundant and an escalation of health issues left me unable to pay them. I struggle to pay my rent each month as it is, I am in no position to make much any kind of substantive repayments.

I am a company director, I run a very small limited company from home, from which I earn less than the minimum wage but which I hope will one day enable me to meet my financial commitments. My concern is primarily that this is not jeopardised.

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

Do you have any idea when the credit card account ( MBNA ) in this case was actually opened ?

From what I can gather according to another letter I have unearthed the date of the original agreement is 3rd May 2007 and the date of assignment to ARROW GLOBAL is 30th July 2010. This is from a letter sent 5th July 2018 by ARROW GLOBAL which may be relevant. It says please find enclosed a statement in relation to your running account credit agreement which is regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974. The statement period covered is 30th July 2010 to 31st May 2018. This shows all my regular payments. A letter is also included with the same date (5th July 2018) which says:

Under the rules of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (as amended) (the CCA), we are required to provide you with statutory notices within the prescribed timescales to inform you about the status of your account. Although we always strive to provide our customers with a high quality service, we have recently identified that unfortunately we haven't always complied with the above mentioned requirement. As a result, we are carrying out a remediation to provide you with information we should have provided you historically. Please accept our sincere apologies for this error and we trust that you will find the below outcome satisfactory.

What are we dojing to fix it?

We have completed a full review of your account and identified that we haven't provided you with regular statements from 30th July 2010 until 31st May 2018. To remedy this oversight, we enclose a statement which covers the full period set out above.

Going forward, we will continue to send you regular statements to ensure you are fully informed about all the activity on your account. To enable us to keep on doing this, we would like to request that you inform us of any changes to your contact details as soon as possible as those changes occur.

What does it mean for you?

This remediation exercise in no way affects the balance of your account, your repayment arrangement or your obligation to repay the balance. We did not add any fees, interest or charges to your account since we acquired it. This means the balance quoted in the enclosed statement is the full amount still owed to us.

If you have any queries......

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

I think you already realise that neither of those is a formal extension under the Civil procedure rules so you do still need to file your defence.

Yes, I thought so.

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

As things stand it will be quite a standard defence - they've filed a claim - you've asked for information - they haven't provided the information - so have a look Example Defence

So on a brief scan that looks fairly clear, one question just to clarify. This part:

4.It is [admitted/denied] that the Defendant has [previously] entered into [an agreement/agreement] with [Original Creditor /Claimant] for provision of credit.

I imagine it would make sense to go with "admitted".

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

On Arrow's contention that they are not the creditor as envisaged under the act... well- s 189 says they are, if they have been assigned the agreement - and if they haven't then how are they bringing the claim... basically.

Yes they seem to like to juggle hats!

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

Now if they do produce the documents further along you can then either try negotiate directly with Arrow, although by the sounds of their previous letter they may not be particularly open to a reasonable installment offer, or change your plea with the court to an admission with an offer to pay by installments - and provide the court with your full income and expenditure sheets, so that affordable payments can be set by them. Do you own your house?

No I rent.

So basically file a standard defense and see where that takes things. What is likely to happen after I do that and what sort of timescale?

Thanks I really appreciate the assistance.

**James1971** · 21st December 2018, 11:23:AM

Can someone advice me, in the standard defence document it says:

4.It is [admitted/denied] that the Defendant has [previously] entered into [an agreement/agreement] with [Original Creditor /Claimant] for provision of credit.

Given that I am yet to receive the following information requested under CPR 31.14:

1. A agreement between the defendant and MBNA Europe Bank Limited (No. ################)
2. A default notice
3. A notice of assignment of the debt to the creditor

Would it make sense for me to plead "not admitted" on the basis that I have yet to receive the information I need to ascertain that.

In other words prove it?

Welcome any advise on that.

**James1971** · 2nd January 2019, 11:09:AM

The last I heard from the claimant was:

"ARROW GLOBAL acknowledged the CCA request (their letter dated 10th December), they said they do not accept that they are the creditor as envisaged by the above statue. However, we are willing to assist in obtainin that which has been requested. They said they will now process my request for documentation from the creditor and will revert in due course. They said "We confirm that all collection activity will be suspended pending provision of the document".

SHOOSMITHS responded saying "we have been made aware by our client that a CCA request has been requested. Due to this request, the account ha been placed on a 30 day hold whilst our client deal with your CCA request. The County Court Claim which has been issued against yourself will continue. However, no enforcement action will be taken until he (misspelling) CCA request has been completed.""

I submitted my defence on the 24th December. I've not heard from the claimant since filing my defence. Which basically said they had not provided enough detail for me to come to a position on the matter, they had not provided the information I requested. Just the above replies.

I have now received a letter from HM Courts & Tribunals Service (dated 27th December). It says "I acknowledge receipt of your defence. A copy is being served on the claimant (or claimant's solicitor). The claimant may contact you direct to attempt to resolve any dispute. If the dispute cannot be resolved informally, the claimant will inform the court that he wishes to proceed. The court will then inform you of what will happen. Where he wishes to proceed, the claimant must contact the court within 28 days after receiving a copy of your defence. After that period ha elapsed, the claim will be stayed. The only action the claimant can then take will be to apply to the judge for an order lifting the stay."

What is my best course of action now? Should I just wait to hear from them?

thanks

James

**Amethyst** · 2nd January 2019, 12:39:PM

Hiya, Sorry for missing your pre-festive season post.... I'm sure your defence is absolutely fine as you sent the relevant requests and got no info back and used the example as a basis - so that should be okay.

So yes now is just a waiting period, if you haven't heard anything after a month or so, give the court a call and see if the case has been put on hold. Otherwise you'll receive a Directions Questionnaire to complete and return ( quite a straightforward procedural form - info -> Directions Questionnaire )

**James1971** · 3rd January 2019, 00:19:AM

Originally posted by Amethyst View Post

So yes now is just a waiting period, if you haven't heard anything after a month or so, give the court a call and see if the case has been put on hold. Otherwise you'll receive a Directions Questionnaire to complete and return ( quite a straightforward procedural form - info -> Directions Questionnaire )

Thank you, it helps just to have that reassurance.

**James1971** · 5th February 2019, 12:21:PM

An update on this, I have received:

Letter dated 18/01/2019
A letter from ARROW GLOBAL LIMITED (ASSIGNED BY MBNA) -- Notice of change of legal representative. Shoosmiths LLP Solicitor have ceased to act on their behalf and the attached letter explains that "this matter is now being dealt with by our specialit in-house litigation team". All future correspondence to be addressed to them.

Notification dated 28 January 2019
NOTICE OF TRANSFER OF PROCEEDINGS
"This claim has been transferred to the County Court at Carlisle as the CCBC Sol is No Longer Acting."

I have received no "Directions Questionnaire".

They have not contacted me aside from the above. I have still not had the documents I requested from them and cited in the defence I filed,.

What am I best doing? Surely they have to come up with these documents? Is it worth trying to get it set aside? Should I be making contact with the claimant or the court in anyway?

Any advice most welcome.

**Amethyst** · 5th February 2019, 12:28:PM

This part

Notification dated 28 January 2019
NOTICE OF TRANSFER OF PROCEEDINGS
"This claim has been transferred to the County Court at Carlisle as the CCBC Sol is No Longer Acting."

is a little strange considering there has been no Directions Questionnaire. Might be worth giving court a call to check the status of the claim, normally it would be allocated to YOUR local court after the Claimant responds to the Defence to say they wish to proceed, and both parties have submitted their Directions Questionnaires. Is Carlisle anywhere near you? Arrow are in Manchester so it doesn't seem to be their 'local' court.

So just call court ( Northampton CCBC probably simplest as it will be on the computer system ) and say you've received notice that the case has been transferred to Carlisle and you're concerned that you haven't yet heard back from Claimant or Court since filing your defence, and could they check the status of the claim. Then come tell us what they say ( unless they say ring Carlisle, in which case you'll need to do that - but I'd try Northampton CCBC first )

On the notice of acting issue, it seems quite normal for the solicitors to chuck it back at the claimant if someone defends so don't worry on that score xxx

**Amethyst** · 5th February 2019, 12:38:PM

Hmmm reading about a little, it may be that they didn't respond to the defence, the claim has been stayed and the court has shifted the claim to Carlisle for any future applications the claimant might make to lift the stay... this person has same notice of transfer of proceedings ...

I was categorically informed that apparently the case STILL remains STAYED !
They informed me that there was no application from the claimant to have the stay lifted OR transferred BUT the transfer has taken place because they are no longer a customer of Northampton CCBC County Court.
If the claimant wants to have the stay lifted then they still have to apply to the County Court (in this case my local one now instead of Northampton) and if this happens then I was told I will then receive notification AND a copy of the claimants application direct from my local County Court.

Still give court a call to check, but sounds like it might just be on hold for now.

**James1971** · 5th February 2019, 14:26:PM

Just looked on On Money Claim Online it says:

Your defence was submitted on 24/12/2018 at 21:49:34

Your defence was received on 27/12/2018 at 01:12:54

Your claim was transferred to CARLISLE on 28/01/2019

It says the last document filed was my defence.

CARLISLE is my home city, but it's a small place where everybody knows everything. If anything goes in an announcements section of a paper for example I might as well use a megaphone!

**Amethyst** · 5th February 2019, 14:31:PM

Haha no they don't tend to do that with civil claims.... criminal cases get a writeup sometimes ( are there actually any court reporters left? ) but not civil debt claims..... anyway I suspect the claim has been stayed and Carlisle will issue some directions at some point, good you've got the confirmation the defence is all in okay.... so nope, just a matter of wait and see for now I'm afraid.

Shoosmiths/Arrow County Court (MBNA Europe Bank Limited)