CCJ from VWFS (Car Finance)

[Unknown2023]

Hi Rob.

I have attached the particulars of the claim along with my credit agreement and a few other bits for you to look over. There's also a resettlement figure which I asked for early on after buying the car which shows the wrong figure for the agreement on it too. The paperwork is a bit of a mess there are different agreement figures on everything.

I've also attached the disposal notice of the car which VWFS supplied as part of their witness statement.

Great idea with the police statements, I will definitely request those.

I hope that the documents help to clarify things a little better, I will now start drafting a defence with your template

Thanks again for all your efforts


https://docdro.id/RkJyt7q

[R0b]

Thanks for uploading, I have a few immediate comments you may wish to add as part of your defence.

1. Given that the cash advance listed on the agreement is wrong, it would seem the rest of the calculations are tainted and therefore incorrect. In particular, the cash advance, the cash amount for the vehicle and then ultimately the total amount payable. Logic follows that the interest would also be incorrect since the interest was based on a much higher value. Each of these singularly and taken together make the agreement an improperly executed agreement for failing to meet the requirements of the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 2010 as previously mentioned and the effects of that pursuant to s65.

2. It would also follow that the default notice sent to you would be deemed invalid on the basis that the total amount payable and the total amount paid are incorrect. Because the total amount payable has been substantially overstated and the total paid to date also substantially understated, the default notice is, therefore invalid. The section underneath which refers to your voluntary termination right underneath the total price payable and total amount paid would presumably therefore be substantially overstated by some £6k. In case you didn't know, your VT right allows you to terminate the agreement at any time before the final payment becomes due and only be liable for 50% of the total price payable. In hindsight, this may have influenced how you responded to the default notice if you were only required to pay £3k instead of £9k.

Just as an FYI there is a Court of Appeal case that supports the above called Woodchester Lease Management Services Ltd v Swain & Co. 1999 and in that case the default notice overstated the sums by a few hundred quid. The Court held that this was not a de minimis act such that it was so small an issue it need not be bothered with, and instead held the default notice to be invalid. Since your case involves much higher sums, I would be confident that a court would find the default notice invalid in your case.

3. That letter dated 9 March 2020 claiming you failed to comply with the default notice and that VWFS are claiming you repudiated the agreement (which means basically you committed a material breach going to the heart of the contract by not paying your arrears as required by the contract) and because of that they are accepting your repudiation and terminating the agreement is wrong due to the invalid default notice.

Under section 87 of the CCA 1974, a creditor can only terminate the agreement by giving a valid default notice. VWFS' act of treating the contract as terminated confirmed by further acts of bringing legal proceedings and statements that the agreement is now terminated, constitutes an unlawful termination of the agreement which is a repudiatory breach in of itself.

-----------

I can't see you have uploaded the particulars of claim which would be good to see as I can only see the witness statement relating to the set aside application. Just a point on the set aside application, do you know if it was set aside under CPR 13.2 (mandatory grounds) or CPR 13.3 (discretionary grounds i.e. you have a real prospect of defending the claim or there is some other good reason)?

I noticed in the witness statement a fatal error by VWFS in paragraphs 16-17. CPR 6.9 has a very strict process on ascertaining a defendant's address for service. They say that they carried out a trace but was inconclusive and therefore decided to issue the claim to the last known address but those steps are fundamentally wrong.

The requirement is to take reasonable steps to ascertain the current residence. Carrying out a trace is one option and if the results returned addresses, then investigations should be carried out to confirm your current residence. Even if that was inconclusive, before they can issue at the last known address, they have to consider if there are alternative methods to serve the claim form and if there is, they must make an application to the court to consider serving the claim form using the alternative method. Social media, email address, text message, WhatsApp, message board you frequent are all alternative methods and I am assuming that VWFS had your telephone number or email address on their system? If so, they failed to comply with CPR 6.9. The consequence of that is it means that service of the claim form is deemed invalid and you can have the claim set aside as of right under CPR 13.2, which means the court must set it aside and there is no discretion.

Not that it matters now but something to be mindful of if you are in this situation again with a default judgment, because I see alot of claimants fail on this step and it can be an easy win, with costs also typically awarded because the court is acknowledging that the claimant failed to comply with the CPR so they incorrectly requested judgment due to their negligence.

[Unknown2023]

Wow you really don't miss a trick!! I will certainly add these and will upload a draft for you to look at before I submit if that's okay.
This is all sounding like amazing news. The interest was actually my next question, am I still liable to pay that back or do I include that to be written off as part of a counter claim?
It looks to me as though I've paid around £18k and the total payable should be more like £46k so yes as you say the whole finance agreement is completely worthless. However is this not my fault also for not checking before I signed it?
And by the way I didn't actually sign it, they have e signed that document on my behalf as my copy is not signed at all and neither is the vehicle order form.

The set aside I tried for mandatory grounds but the judge was satisfied that the claimant had made every reasonable effort to locate me. However I totally agree with you that they made no effort, considering their solicitor managed to trace my new address a few weeks later! And yes they had my contact details email etc but didn't bother to try and get hold of me. That is really good to know for future though.

With the default notice and contract termination now being void does that play against me? The last thing I want to do is enter back into a new agreement especially with the car now long gone.
Also that notice of termination states that they are taking steps to repossess the vehicle now, another small win.

This took a bit of digging but I have found the original particulars of the claim from ccbc:


Thank you for calling the Civil Contact team for the Civil National Business Centre,



Please see your case details below as requested.



Claim No:



Claimant: VOLKSWAGEN FINANCIAL SERVICES (UK) LIMITED



Claimant solicitor:

Telephone:

Reference



Judgment amount: £11430.39



Defendants Address:





Date of Issue:



Particulars of claim: THE CLAIMANT AND THE DEFENDANT ENTERED INTO A FINANCE AGREEMENT NUMBERED xxxxxxxx WHICH WAS REGULATED BY THE CONSUMER CREDIT ACT 1974. THE DEFENDANT BREACHED THE FINANCE AGREEMENT AS A RESULT OF WHICH THE CLAIMANT HAS SUFFERED LOSS AND DAMAGE BEING THE SUM OF GBP10599.67. THE CLAIMANT HAS DEMANDED THAT THE DEFENDANT PAY THE SUM OUTSTANDING IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF THE FINANCE AGREEMENT. HOWEVER, THE DEFENDANT HAS FAILED TO DO SO. AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS THE SUM OF GBP10599.67 TOGETHER WITH CONTRACTUAL INTEREST FROM 09 JUNE 2023 TO 16TH AUGUST 2023 AT 6.16% PER ANNUM BEING GBP123.43 AND FURTHER INTEREST ON A DAILY BASIS UNTIL THE DATE OF PAYMENT AT THE RATE STATED FOR THE PRINCIPAL SUM THE DAILY RATE BEING GBP1.79 TOGETHER WITH THE COSTS ON AN INDEMNITY BASIS PURSUANT TO THE AGREEMENT. 16TH AUGUST 2023

I hope this clears things up a bit more and I'm happy to upload anything else which may be of use.

[Unknown2023]

Also forgot to say. The set aside was given on discretionary grounds to prove that I had paid the 1k cash deposit and 6k deposit via a part exchange (turns out it was actually 7k)

VWFS had no answers for this at all and their defence was that I was making it up. So judge ordered that I file a defence and show evidence of these deposits.

[R0b]

Unless my memory is failing me, all of this works in your favour and I think VWFS' goose is cooked. The good thing about bringing a counterclaim is that VWFS have to file a defence, and I would love to see what sort of defence to the counterclaim they conjure up, maybe going to the extreme of claiming the paperwork you have is false, who knows.

It's not your fault for not checking it because VWFS are required under the CCA to ensure the contents of the agreement are correct and in line with the Act and the underlying regulations. They can't blame you for not checking as a defence, well they can but its a non-starter in my view.

Anyway, before I sign off it might be helpful to give you some tips on drafting the defence and counterclaim. Typically, particulars of claim should be numbered and the defence should address each of the numbered paragraphs in the particulars of claim, but as we can see, VWFS have not done that. I am a fan of sub-headings to help guide the reader as to what you are saying but it is not an absolute requirement to do this, each to their own. If I was looking at drafting a defence like yours I would consider the following sub-headings:

1. Introduction. You already have this in the example of the unenforceable agreement defence I uploaded before, and you may want to consider deleted para 1.3 as you can't make reference to the paragraph numbers in the Particulars of Claim (POC) since there are none.

2. Relevant Facts. Here you are going to provide a very concise summary of the background leading up to today. Only include the relevant factors you are seeking to rely on and wanting to bring to the court's attention. Basic things you probably want to include is that you starting off making the payments on time but due to circumstances you were no longer able to afford the repayments, VWFS issued debt letters, default notice and then termination of the agreement for repudiatory breach accoridng to the letter dated 9 march 2020. Brief mention of the default judgment, an application was successful in setting aside the judgement and give relevant dates etc.

3. The Hire Purchase Agreement. This is where you want to explain certain details of the agreement. I've provided an example below as to what you may want to reference but as a minimum, you need to mention the calculations such as a the cash price, deposit, total amount payable, total interest on credit etc. Note that in the cash advance section you need to specify the understated amount and then further in your defence/counterclaim this is where you argue it was wrong in the improperly executed agreement section.

1.png

4. Implied Terms of the contract. This is where you reference the relevant sections of the CCA that we have talked about that are implied into the contract under that Act e.g. sections 60, 61, 65, 90 and 91. You can basically look up the legislation online and then copy and paste those relevant sections if you really want to.

Right after the contract terms you list out on the previous point and on a new paragraph, you should then say something like There were the following implied terms under the CCA 1974:

5. The Claimant's Claim.In this sub-heading this is where you essentially address the allegations being made against you. As there are several elements to this, it might be sensible to make set out in sections for each part to signpost what you are arguing, something like the below. You then address each section as we discussed here.

The Agreement was improperly executed

The default notice issued by the Claimant was defective and invalid

The Claimant's notice of termination of the Agreement for repudiatory breach was a wrongful termination

6. Conclusion. This is where you summarise and round off why the claimant is not entitled to the sums claimed. There is already an example in the unenforceable agreement and you could use that as your conclusion.

7. Counterclaim. Now this is where you draft your counterclaim. Normally, in a counterclaim you would have to set out the background details to your counterclaim and other relevant information. However unless there is information you have missed, it is standard practice for your first paragraph of your counterclaim to say, The Defendant repeats paragraphs 1 to X (inclusive). This is doing exactly what is says, you are effectively repeating what you have already stated in your defence and it means you don't have to duplicate things but get straight into your counterclaim arguments.

Using the same method as above, sub-headings would work best but you don';t have to do them. If you were to use sub-headings, I've given some examples below to get you started but feel free to modify to suit your style. Always start with your strongest arguments, in this situation I would say the 1/3 rule is your best followed by wrongful termination and then improper execution of the agreement.

Claimant's breach of the CCA 1974 by retaking protected goods

Claimant's wrongful termination of the Agreement amounted to a repudiatory breach

Improper execution of the Agreement

At the end of your counterclaim you write a conclusion similar to your defence. After that and before the statement of truth you need to say something like the following:

AND THE DEFENDANT COUNTERCLAIMS:

(1) Pursuant to section 91 of the CCA 1974, all sums paid by the Defendant under the Agreement.

(2) Interest on the sums listed in (1) above.

(3) Further or in the alternative to (1), damages for repudiatory breach in the sum of XXXX [I'll explain this poiint in another post when you provide your draft defence and counterclaim, this is optional]

(3) Costs.

(4) Further or other relief as the court sees fit.

[Unknown2023]

Hi Rob,

I have put together a defence and I would very much appreciate if you could please have a read through it and see if anything in your eyes looks out of place or doesn't make sense? It seems a little repetitive in places but I think it reads okay.

I have a couple of questions;

Firstly I wanted to clarify something in S90(5) of the CCA 1974 - It states that subsection (1) shall cease to apply if the agreement has been terminated. Can I discount this because my agreement was repudiated by a breach made by VWFS or would this still stand?

Secondly, I am struggling to work out what the actual cost of the car would have been and how much credit I took because every piece of paper shows a different figure. Do I need to include this or should I leave the judge to work this out if he needs to? I'm confident that either way I would have still paid more than a third of the total of the agreement, it even states on the agreement by their figures that a third would be £13,195.75 and that if they take back the goods I have the right to get back any money that i have paid into the agreement. And do I need to state that the agreement was still less than £60,260?

Lastly, I should send the defence to the claimants solicitors as well as the Court? And it would be okay to email along with scans of attached evidence?

I hope it all makes sense and please let me know of any points that you pick up on that are wrong or don't make sense I am happy to amend and take criticism. I may have written it wrongly with it all being in third person? Thank you!! (Excuse the dodgy formatting) I have also blanked out particulars.


INTRODUCTION

1. In this Defence: 1.1except as expressly admitted, the Defendant requires the Claimant to prove its claims;
   1. 2 entirely without prejudice to that requirement and except as expressly admitted, the Defendant denies each and every allegation in the Particulars of Claim.

RELEVANT FACTS

1. On 20 January 2018 the Defendant entered into a Hire Purchase agreement with the Claimant under agreement number XXXXXXXXXXXX for an Audi A6 AVNT 2.0 TDI motor vehicle with registration number XXXX XXX. The Defendant made the first repayment of £500 on 01 March 2018 followed by 21 repayments of £500 on the first day of each successive month before falling into hardship.
2. Due to a marital breakdown the Defendant was no longer able to afford the monthly repayments for the car. On 12 November 2019 the Defendant sought debt advice from the debt charity Stepchange, who advised to make token payments of £1 on the first day of each successive month for the vehicle in order to continue keeping possession of it. This began on 17 December 2019 through to 17 November 20. The defendant made various different repayments during this time (see payment schedule).
3. At the time of contacting Stepchange the Defendant was also engaging with the claimant in order to come to an amicable agreement where the car could be retained, but this was unsuccessful. The Defendant requested for the interest on the account to be frozen, but this was denied. The Defendant asked for the loan to be extended but this was refused. The Defendant also asked if the monthly repayments could be lowered but was told to either sell the car or hand it back.
4. On 21 January 2020 a default notice was issued requiring the payment of £1,498 by 09 February 2020 but the Defendant could not afford this repayment.
5. On 09 March 2020 the Claimant terminated the credit agreement and confirmed that they would take steps to recover the vehicle.
6. On 31 October 2020 at around 0700 the Defendant was travelling southbound along the A34 near Oxford when they were followed by police. The Defendant was brought to a stop and removed from the vehicle, where they were left with their pregnant Fiancé and their autistic child at the side of the road. The Defendant was informed that a stolen marker had been placed on the vehicle by request of the Claimant in order to recover the vehicle. The vehicle was subsequently sold at auction for £17,200.
7. On the 15 September 2023 the Defendant became aware of a judgement through a credit scoring app on their smartphone. Further investigation revealed a CCJ brought against the Defendant by the Claimant for the sum of £11,430.00 which comprised of arrears plus interest charges. The Defendant immediately applied for a set aside hearing which they and a representative of the Claimant attended at XXXXX County Court on ...... 2023, where the judgement was successfully set aside.

THE HIRE PURCHASE AGREEMENT

1. The agreement was regulated and subject to the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (The “CCA 1974”) and all other applicable regulations made thereunder. Under the terms of the agreement:
   1. the Claimant advanced a sum of £33,181.23 to the Defendant (the “Loan”);
   2. the total charge for credit for the loan was £5,604.02
   3. the total price payable by the Defendant to the Claimant for the loan was £39,587.25
   4. the Defendant was required to pay the total price payable by 48 repayments in equal monthly instalments of £500

IMPLIED TERMS OF THE CONTRACT

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief as alleged or at all. The Defendant will say that the agreement was not properly executed within Section 61(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (the “CCA 1974”) because the agreement failed to correctly state the amount of credit in breach of Schedule 1 to the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 2010. Specifically, the agreement failed to state that the Defendant had made an advance payment of £8,000 which was to be deducted from the total cash price.
2. By virtue of Section 65(1) of the CCA 1974, the agreement is only enforceable against the Defendant if the court makes an enforcement order under section 135 and section 136 of the CCA 1974.
3. Under the Civil Procedure Rules, Practice Direction 49C applies to improperly executed agreements and sets out what must be included in the Particulars of Claim. The Claimant has failed to meet these requirements.
4. By virtue of Section 90(1)(b) of the CCA 1974, the Claimant is not entitled to recover possession of the goods from the Defendant except on the order of the court, where the Defendant has paid one third or more of the total of the goods.
5. Section 91 of the CCA 1974 states that;

(a) the regulated agreement, if not previous terminated, shall terminate, and
(b) the debtor shall be released from all liability under the agreement, and shall be entitled to recover from the creditor all sums paid by the debtor under the agreement.

1. Furthermore, the claimants claim is based on the assumption that the agreement was properly executed and therefore, entitled to enforce the agreement. As can be seen by evidence of the deposit, that is not the case. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the claim because:
   1. The requirements of Practice Direction 49C have not been met.
   2. In order for the court to consider whether to enforce the improperly executed agreement, there would have to be a whole new set of pleadings and arguments such that it would mean a further trial and possibly further directions given. That would (a) unfairly prejudice the defendant because effectively allows the claimant a second bite of the cherry for something it never pleaded and (b) runs entirely contrary to the overriding objective in that it will create additional expense to both parties, will not be dealt with expeditiously and fairly, will be allocating further court resources which could be better allocated elsewhere for other cases.
   3. The most compelling reason being that the sole purpose of the judge is to determine the case according to what has been pleaded in the particulars of claim. It is not the role of the judge to assist the claimant nor introduce new pleadings that have arisen after the fact. It is up to the claimant to plead his case how he wants. The Claimant could have pleaded their case and bring an action to enforce the improperly executed agreement but they chose not to do that.
   4. Furthermore, the Claimant has been on notice since the judgement was set aside, that the Defendant intended to argue that the agreement was improperly executed. It has had ample time to amend its pleadings to seek an order to enforce the agreement, but it has chosen not to do so. For these reasons, the court must dismiss the claim.

THE CLAIMANTS CLAIM

1. The agreement was improperly executed. By virtue of Section 60(1) of the CCA 1974 the Claimant is required to ensure that certain terms are included in a credit agreement (the “Prescribed Terms”). In addition to these prescribed terms there are further regulations which must be adhered to, set out in the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulation 2010. Specifically, under Schedule 1 of the Regulations:
   1. Paragraph 5 requires the credit amount to be stated. This is calculated as the credit amount of goods, less any deposit.
   2. Paragraph 9 requires the Claimant to calculate the total amount payable, this is calculated as the total credit amount plus total charges payable plus the deposit amount.
2. If the Claimant fails to meet the prescribed terms, then by virtue of Section 61(1)(a) of the CCA 1974, the agreement is deemed to have been improperly executed. Section 65 states:

1. An improperly executed agreement is enforceable against the debtor or hirer on an order of the court only
2. A retaking of goods or land to which a regulated agreement relates is an enforcement of the agreement.

1. The hire purchase agreement is an improperly executed agreement contrary to section 61(1) of the CCA 1974 because the HP agreement fails to include the deposit amount paid under the agreement, which is a prescribed term that must be included as set out in The Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 2010. This also bears suggestion to all other calculations being incorrect, namely the cash amount for the vehicle, the interest calculation and the total amount payable, all of which constitutes towards an improperly executed agreement.
2. The default notice issued to the defendant on the 21 January 2020 is invalid due to the total amount payable and the total amount paid being incorrect. The total amount paid to date has been substantially understated, this ultimately (not to my knowledge at the time) affected my rights regarding Voluntary termination of the vehicle and ultimately influenced how I might have responded to the default notice had it been issued correctly at the time.
3. The letter dated 09 March 2020 claiming the repudiation of the agreement is invalid. Under Section 87 of the CCA 1974 a creditor can only terminate the agreement by giving a valid default notice. The Claimants act of treating the contract as terminated confirms by further acts of bringing legal proceedings and statements that the agreement is now terminated, constitutes an unlawful termination of the agreement which is a repudiatory breach within itself. Accepting the Defendants repudiation and terminating the agreement is wrong due to the invalid default notice.

CONCLUSION

1. For the reasons given in this Defence, the Court invited to dismiss the claim in its entirety.

COUNTERCLAIM
Claimants breach of the CCA 1974 by retaking protected goods.

1. By virtue of Section 90(1)(b) of the CCA 1974, the Claimant is not entitled to recover possession of the goods from the Defendant except on the order of the court, where the Defendant has paid one third or more of the total of the goods. The Claimant has not taken into account the following information:
   1. The £1,000 cash deposit paid by debit card on 20 January 2018 to (Dealers name).
   2. The £7,000 diesel scrappage deposit paid towards the vehicle, on disposal of my previous vehicle, a grey Seat Leon registration XXXX XXX (see attached evidence).
   3. The £401 advance payment is not correct, there is no record of this deposit being made in any of the original documents.
   4. This Defendant has in fact paid £8,000 deposit towards the vehicle, including 22 payments of £500 and 12 token payments of £1, bringing the grand total paid to £19,012 to date.
   5. The agreement states that if the Defendant has paid in at least one third of the agreement, notably £13,195.75 and the goods are taken without the Defendants consent or a court order, then the Defendant has the right to claim back any money that has been paid under this agreement.
2. The Claimant issued an invalid default notice on the 21 January 2020. Following this, the Claimant sent a letter on 09 March 2020 which wrongfully terminated the agreement, amounting to a repudiatory breach of the agreement in itself.
3. The Claimant included several false figures on the original agreement, including the cash advance figure and the total payable amount. This automatically rendered the interest figure to be incorrectly calculate and subsequently the amount the Defendant is accused of owing to ultimately be incorrect. All of this together forms an improperly executed agreement entirely.
4. The Defendant will seek to claim costs to the sum of £19,012 and the required 5% fee of £950.60 is enclosed with this document.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH
26. I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

SIGNED …………………………………………..

NAME …………………………………………..

DATE …………………………………………..

[R0b]

When is the deadline to file your defence?

I have limited time over the next couple days so I might not be able to reply until the weekend.

As for s90(5), it actually says that s90(1) doesn't apply if the debtor terminated the agreement. You didn't terminate, VWFS did. That act in of itself amounts to a repudiatory breach which you can accept but you never terminated the agreement because it was already carried out by VWFS. Therefore s90(1) is still in play in my view.

There's a few comments I could make just looking at what you have drafted, if you can upload that into a word file using the template and upload it on here, it will be easier for me to add some comments to it instead of writing out a long list.

[Unknown2023]

Thanks Rob I will do that now. The judge said I had until Tuesday 5th to file but the order I received in the post said Tuesday 12th so a couple more days, if I could get it sent in this weekend that would be super

[R0b]

Ok, understood.

Does the order say that you have to file and serve the defence or just file the defence?

File = with the court

Serve = on the other side

If you need to serve it on the other side, I would reach out to them or their legal rep and ask if they will accept service of the defence by email and if so what email would they like it sent to.

If they have already listed an email address on the claim form then you don't need to ask them as you can use that one since it is implied the email address listed on the claim form can be used for service.

[Unknown2023]

Please see attached when you have some spare time, I have made a couple of adjustments already.

Edit: It does actually say to serve to the Claimant also, I just checked the order again ha!

[R0b]

Sorry this is late but I have been really busy over the weekend and have only had a few hours to look at this. I thought it might be easier to present you with an example defence based on the information you have given rather than comment and feedback given the short time you have to file and serve your defence. It is a particularly rushed one but I think it gets most of the necessary points across.

There are a couple of points to note:

1. This is just an example defence, you will need to decide if any of it is relevant and fits your current situation as some of the paragraphs I am merely making speculative points since I don't have all of the info. If it's not factually correct and you want to include that part, then you should amend it.

2. I have included a number of additional things that I probably didn't mention before but I thought it would be best to include as a one size fits all as they are relevant to your defence and counterclaim. It is possible that I may have missed some things off or certain parts may not make sense so you may need to update or amend.

3. I highlighted things in square brackets/XXXX that would need your input.

4. There's a part around section 90 and I mentioned a calculation of what the correct total price payable would be around £44k. I've based this amount as a rough guide using the website HP Hire Purchase Calculator (themoneycalculator.com). I entered the details I had available such as the cash price, 8k deposit, length of term, interest rate at 6.16% etc. and that resulted in providing the total interest charges.

I then used the correct calculation under the Consumer Credit Agreements Regs to calculate the total price (cash value + deposit + interest) but what I havn't added to that are any other fees under the agreement so you would need to check to see if there are any stipulated. I think it refers to a option fee of £10 but there may be something else which may give a different result.

I then divided that total price by 3 to give you the 1/3 amount. You then caclulate your total payments to date. I based this on the witness statement provided by VWFS but that seems to be wrong based on the deposit amount, so you need to work out how many monthly instalments you made at full price and then any partial payments you made over the last X months. You will then add that total to the £8k deposit amount and then decide if that is over the 1/3 price. I am taking the assumption that it is because £8k is a chunky amount.

Those details will need to be replaced the figures I have inserted in that paragraph 20.5 if you are using it.

5. I made a reference to Annex A which is where you need to insert following that page a copy of your evidence showing the 8k deposit. I assume you will print, sign and then scan your defence in so just make sure that your paperwork follows Annex A when you scan it back in. Subject line should be Claimant Name v Defendant Name (Claim No. XXXXX) - Defence and Counterclaim.

6. Don't forget in your email to the court you will need to call them to pay the counterclaim fee. Either give them a contact number or tell them when you will call but should be no more than a couple of days after or you risk having your counterclaim struck out.

Hopefully you'll have time to read and digest and I will be around periodically tomorrow if you have questions, but most of the example defence is self-explanatory.

Final point: Do check you have the claimant name correct. I am pretty sure the correct name is Volkswagen Financial Services (UK) Limited based on the company details I found on companies house and the FCA website. Double check your agreement if in doubt.

[Unknown2023]

Rob, this is absolutely amazing thank you so much for your efforts! That summarises my defence in a much better way.

One point I noted, the agreement termination fee was actually £9,390.63 on the default notice which you wrote constitutes to half of the agreement price, not that it matters too much as all the figures were incorrect anyway.

Everything else you calculated looks perfect and I am going to print this out now and hand deliver to the courts today, I will let you know what the Courts decision is when I hear back!

[R0b]

Rob, this is absolutely amazing thank you so much for your efforts! That summarises my defence in a much better way.

One point I noted, the agreement termination fee was actually £9,390.63 on the default notice which you wrote constitutes to half of the agreement price, not that it matters too much as all the figures were incorrect anyway.

Everything else you calculated looks perfect and I am going to print this out now and hand deliver to the courts today, I will let you know what the Courts decision is when I hear back!

Just make sure to pre-read this and edit anything because I have spotted a couple of errors already. For example para. 14 says the VWFS termination letter says the agreement was not treated as terminated when it should say it is treated as terminated.

Also in 19.2 I refer to Rule 7.3.5 when it should says Guidance 7.3.5

20.2.5 also has a colon with the word "and" at the end, they should be replaced with a full stop.

There's also some repretitive words in places like "on the basis that"and "highly likely". Not a major issue but I hate using the same words several times in the same sentence or paragraph so you might want to use some other words to make it read more easily and cleaner.

Make sure to send it on the other side as well once you are happy with your final version.

[Unknown2023]

So I filed my defence and Counter Claim to the court in time. Today I received a letter ordering that the claimant needs to reply within 28 days. Is this standard procedure? I will be interested to see what they have to say in response

[Unknown2023]

Hi Rob. I've received the claimants reply to my Defence and Counter Claim today (a day late) if you care to take a look at it?