Just a quick question about a County Court claim by Lowell Solicitors

[Treebadger]

Hi All,

I did search the forum but couldn't find a good reply to my question.

I have received a County court claim from Lowell. I have done the acknowledge receipt to get the 28 days time to respond.

I am intending to defend the claim based on the fact I have not received a response to my request for the CCA, which was sent in June 2018. I also want to inform the court and Lowells that I have been unemployed for 8 years due to disability and also that I have a physically disabled child who is a full time wheelchair user. I am her full time carer so my only income is Carer's allowance. I have lots of paperwork to back all of this up. I would love to be able to pay the full amount off but I am really not in a position to be able to; I might be able to come up with £500 towards it, should I make an offer?

My question. If I fill in the defence part online with the court, will Lowell Solicitors be able to read my defence, or should I send the same defence directly to them?

I am hoping that by contacting them, they will stop the court claim going through. Am I hoping for too much?

Any guidance appreciated, thanks in advance.

[jaguarsuk]

Hi All,

I did search the forum but couldn't find a good reply to my question.

I have received a County court claim from Lowell. I have done the acknowledge receipt to get the 28 days time to respond.

I am intending to defend the claim based on the fact I have not received a response to my request for the CCA, which was sent in June 2018. I also want to inform the court and Lowells that I have been unemployed for 8 years due to disability and also that I have a physically disabled child who is a full time wheelchair user. I am her full time carer so my only income is Carer's allowance. I have lots of paperwork to back all of this up. I would love to be able to pay the full amount off but I am really not in a position to be able to; I might be able to come up with £500 towards it, should I make an offer?

My question. If I fill in the defence part online with the court, will Lowell Solicitors be able to read my defence, or should I send the same defence directly to them?

I am hoping that by contacting them, the will stop the court claim going through. Am I hoping for too much?

Any guidance appreciated, thanks in advance.

You have received a claim form and unless you admit in full agreeing to pay or come to some settlement with the claimant including them discontinuing this claim will continue.

Please do not take this the wrong way, but your income and personal circumstances are of no concern to the claimant. They are debt purchasers their only concern is getting money out of you at the most amount they can.

You haven't told us the value of the claim, so we couldn't advise whether £500 might be a good settlement offer.

You should send another CCA Request to the claimant and a CPR 31.14 Request to their solicitor asking for copies of the credit agreement, default notice and notice of assignment.

Send a Subject Access Request Letter to the original creditor asking for copies of the credit agreement, default notice, notice of assignment and a full history of the account.

Have you checked your credit file? If not do it here for free:

What date is the default listed as? When did you last make a payment to the debt?

Once we have answers to the questions and responses to the letters we'll know your full legal position, then potentially you can look at whether defending or settling is your preferred way to move forward.

[Treebadger]

"

Please do not take this the wrong way, but your income and personal circumstances are of no concern to the claimant. They are debt purchasers their only concern is getting money out of you at the most amount they can.

"

I won't take it the wrong way, you are right. I was just trying to convey to them that, with the best will in the world, they are trying to get blood from a stone and the best they could hope for would be a nominal amount per month even if they win their claim. From what you've said, this doesn't seem worth trying.

Value of the claim with their interest and fees is £8,800.

I will send the documents you've kindly linked for me tomorrow morning. I will come back here once I get replies etc.

The original debt was with Tesco Credit Card. I had a default on my credit file from 2007-2013. Date of default was 2006 I think. I last made a payment to Fredrickson International on this debt, that was Sept 2017, so it's not statute barred. Does the fact that I have already had a default on my file for 6 years not have any bearing on whether you can get a CCJ for the exact same debt?

I have 28 days from 14/8/19 to respond to the court. What happens if the claimant does not respond in time? Is the court date delayed while the claimant is responding?

Thank you very much for your reply, I have a tendency to get myself worked up over things like this and getting more info has definitely helped!

[jaguarsuk]

"

Please do not take this the wrong way, but your income and personal circumstances are of no concern to the claimant. They are debt purchasers their only concern is getting money out of you at the most amount they can.

"

I won't take it the wrong way, you are right. I was just trying to convey to them that, with the best will in the world, they are trying to get blood from a stone and the best they could hope for would be a nominal amount per month even if they win their claim. From what you've said, this doesn't seem worth trying.

If it gets to the point of settling or agreeing a payment schedule it'll form part of the offer, but at this stage they'll ignore it and just dismiss you as trying to get out of paying.

Value of the claim with their interest and fees is £8,800.

£500 wouldn't be an amount they would accept, they'd probably be looking for between 50-65% of the debt as full and final settlement amount in lump sum.

I will send the documents you've kindly linked for me tomorrow morning. I will come back here once I get replies etc.

Good stuff, lets see if they can evidence their claim before we consider anything else.

The original debt was with Tesco Credit Card. I had a default on my credit file from 2007-2013. Date of default was 2006 I think. I last made a payment to Fredrickson International on this debt, that was Sept 2017, so it's not statute barred. Does the fact that I have already had a default on my file for 6 years not have any bearing on whether you can get a CCJ for the exact same debt?

That's as shame as Stat Barred was what I was alluding to, but the age of the debt may well mean they can't get documents needed for it and so lets see what turns up, or more importantly what doesn't.

I have 28 days from 14/8/19 to respond to the court. What happens if the claimant does not respond in time? Is the court date delayed while the claimant is responding?

Is the 14th the date you acknowledged the claim or the date on the claim form? You have 33 days from the date on the claim form to file a defence now you have acknowledged.

Thank you very much for your reply, I have a tendency to get myself worked up over things like this and getting more info has definitely helped!

Don't worry, we're here to help and guide you through this.

[Treebadger]

Hi jaguarsuk,

Couple of quick questions for you.

The court 'Claim Form' does not mention a default notice at all, so my understanding is that therefore I cannot request this with my CPR 31.14 request. Is that right? Will I need a copy of the default notice?

The other question was, what should I put as the date for 'ahead of filing my defence on...' please?

Thanks again in advance

[jaguarsuk]

Hi jaguarsuk,

Couple of quick questions for you.

The court 'Claim Form' does not mention a default notice at all, so my understanding is that therefore I cannot request this with my CPR 31.14 request. Is that right? Will I need a copy of the default notice?

That's correct, but I guarentee they'll include it defaulting in their Witness Statement without evidencing a default notice due to you not asking for one. This could be a good tripping point in a hearing.

The other question was, what should I put as the date for 'ahead of filing my defence on...' please?

Thanks again in advance

33 days from the date on the claim form, if you need help calculating that use Check dates. If your date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday the deadline becomes the next working day at 4pm.

[Treebadger]

Update. I have now received this reply from Lowell Soloicitors: (No identifiable info included)

lowell reply red2.jpg


As stated, they did include copies of the CCA and notice of assignment with this letter. The copies are dated 1st March 2018 but I have not been sent a CCA and NOA before today. The date of the CCA is obscured in their copy, I don't know if that makes any difference at all, just trying to give as much info as possible.

What should my next steps be please jaguarsuk?

Thank you in advance for your help, again!

Treebadger

[Amethyst]

Were you making payments between default in 2006 and 2012 ? ( I know there were payments to Fredricksons but not sure if you were paying token payments straight after default or if there was a gap before Fredricksons took over )

[Treebadger]

Were you making payments between default in 2006 and 2012 ? ( I know there were payments to Fredricksons but not sure if you were paying token payments straight after default or if there was a gap before Fredricksons took over )

Hi Amethyst,

Thanks for your reply.

I can only go back 7 years in online banking, from that I can confirm I was paying a company called "

B CARTER FIL CLNT".

This company changed name to Fredrickson International in May/April of 2015.

The earliest payment I can go back to is for £1.10 on the 2nd October 2012. The fact that it is £1.10 has jogged my memory; at one point I started paying them £1 a month as token payment and this got increased by 10% during the intervening period. Given that fact, I would say I was definitely playing a token amount between default and 6 years later in 2012.

I don't have any records of when those payments started I'm afraid.

[Amethyst]

Okay, well done for finding that out, sounds like statute barred is out of the running due to the token payments... it probably gave you some breathing space at the time and felt like the right thing to do.

So the CCA wants checking it is a copy of the original - the account was opened in 2000 - so default charges would have been in the £25 range and not £12 - can you see those listed on the agreement?

[Treebadger]

Thanks Amethyst

Have just checked the CCA and all they have sent me is the first page of the application for the card and not the actual agreement.

Nowhere on there does it state how much the default charges are. There is no financial information on the form they have sent me at all, no APR, no payment dates, no default charge costs. At the very top it asks for my choice of card design. It then lists my name and address, where I worked at the time, my bank details at the time and details of a balance transfer I requested at the time of applying for the Tesco credit card.

At the bottom, it has my signature but the date is obscured. (looks like this page was photocopied and was attached to another page, which is why the date is not fully visible.) The date reads: 10/07........ (only the top of the 7 is visible but the year definitely does not show.

There is a data protection paragraph and a 'Your declaration' paragraph, nothing else.

(It would be very difficult to redact all the personal detail from this page, otherwise i'd post a picture, is there anything else you need from it?)

In short, they have sent me a copy of the card application form instead of the Credit Agreement itself. Is this sufficient for them to comply with my request for the actual agreement? What should I do next please?

Thanks,

Treebadger

PS Upon further inspection, the copy of the signed document they sent me does not even have an account number on it!

[jaguarsuk]

Who is the notice of assignment from Tesco or Lowell? There needs to be one from Tesco

[Treebadger]

Who is the notice of assignment from Tesco or Lowell? There needs to be one from Tesco

Thanks for the reply jaguarsuk

They have sent me a letter of assignment from Tesco. It's from Tesco to me and has account number, last address they have on file for the account etc on it. It says the account was transferred to Lowell Portfolio 1 on 24th Jan 2018. Do you need any other info from it?

From a bit of weekend internet research, it seems that as they have not supplied a signed copy of the original credit agreement, they are not able to pursue this debt in court. Is that correct? If so, what should I do now please?

[jaguarsuk]

Thanks for the reply jaguarsuk

They have sent me a letter of assignment from Tesco. It's from Tesco to me and has account number, last address they have on file for the account etc on it. It says the account was transferred to Lowell Portfolio 1 on 24th Jan 2018. Do you need any other info from it?

From a bit of weekend internet research, it seems that as they have not supplied a signed copy of the original credit agreement, they are not able to pursue this debt in court. Is that correct? If so, what should I do now please?

If they have not sent a copy of the credit agreement then that is correct, it doesn't have to be the signed original and can be a reconstituted agreement. The first page of the application form wouldn't suffice as a credit agreement.

It's a shame they have the notice of assignment, it's often where they get tripped up. Let's hope that they havn't got a copy of the default notice.

Did you send an SAR to Tesco to get copies of what they hold?

[Treebadger]

It's a shame they have the notice of assignment, it's often where they get tripped up. Let's hope that they havn't got a copy of the default notice.

Did you send an SAR to Tesco to get copies of what they hold?

Lowell have not mentioned the default notice at all, it isn't even listed on the Court paperwork.

I have indeed sent the SAR to Tesco as you advised, was posted at the same time as the other requests to Lowell. I've not had a reply from Tesco yet, will update on here as soon as they do.

Really appreciate the help so far, thank you!