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Munchkins_mum v Lowell/BW Legal
Hello, I've been a long time lurker, first time poster.
Any help that anyone with more legal knowledge would be most appreciated.
I have today received a county court claim form from Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd (address for documents as BW Legal)
for an alleged overdraft with Lloyds.
The total being claimed is £2,500 odd plus £105 court fees and £80 solicitor's costs.
The particulars of the claim read;
'claimant's claim is for the sum xxxx being monies due from the defendant to the claimant under a financial services agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974 between the defendant and Lloyds TSB Bank plc.
Defendant failed to maintain the contractual payment under the terms f the agreement and a default notice has been served and not complied with. The claim includes statutory interest pursuant to section 69 of the county court's act 198 at a rate of 8% per annum (daily rate of 0.52 from the date of the assignment of the agreement to the date of issue being an amount of £158.60.
A Little background to my circumstances.
I am a single parent to 3 children, I separated from my husband in 2008 after an unhappy marriage. I was forced out of my home with my children (who were all aged 3 and under at the time).
My ex-husband has contact with the children and in recent years we maintain civilised towards each other, however at first it was extremely acrimonious on his part. This led to me asking for nothing in our divorce, and I was left with much of our joint debt in my sole name, stupidly.
The year before we split I had transferred debts in his name onto credit cards in my own name to take advantage of low interest rates.
Our house was sold for negative equity (secured loans against the house totalling £25,000 were not cleared as our house was only sold for around £140,000 5 years ago (frustratingly the same houses now sell for £200,00!)
To cut a long story short, I have not been working over the last few years due to the children not being in full time education, instead I have been studying towards a career in accountancy. I am now working part time, however the £600 a month I currently earn is not the majority of my income-I receive housing and tax credits help, and I receive nothing in maintenance from my ex-neither do I want to add to my stress by taking him to CSA.
I have other various debts all acquired around or before 2009, totalling around £35,000 - realistically I know that bankruptcy is my best option, however it would throw my career path back a fair way so I would like to avoid it. I applied for assistance towards the bankruptcy costs several years ago, as I could not actually afford the £500 odd to declare bankruptcy ironically, however now that I am starting to work in finance I really don't want to jeopardise my future career prospects due to my past.
I have been burying my head in the sand over these debts for a long time, as I don't have assets (I have a car which I need for work, but it is over 10 years old and of little value, and what I have to live on is what the council has deemed as the amount required amount to live from with 3 children, therefore I don't want to start making payments to various debtors for years upon years.
I'm sorry for waffling but it is a complicated situation-and this alleged overdraft in particular.
I did take out an overdraft with Lloyds bank but do not have any paperwork relating to it as I have moved unexpectedly and lost all paperwork, so I have no idea if the amount quoted is a fair figure. I do know that before I stopped using the account I had a lot of money in fees and the bank refused me any kind of help but instead kept piling on the charges despite knowing I was a single parent living solely on benefits at the time, therefore I do feel that the actual overdraft figure was most likely way under this mark.
To add confusion to matters, in hindsight my Lloyds overdraft when taken out was a ticking time bomb.
At the time I took it out I was only 18 or 19, and worked for Lloyds Bank. I started there when I was 17 and was initially forced to take out a Lloyds bank account to have my wages paid into as they refused to pay them into another account.
I was then strongly encouraged to take out a credit card and overdraft, and I know that affordability calculations and such were overlooked, I was reeled in by offers of highly preferential employee rates of interest - which too my own detriment, as soon as I had children and left employment of the bank these soared to a completely unaffordable amount, yet whenever I spoke to branch staff they were unwilling to provide any help apart from once or twice single charge waivers.
In this sense I feel I was completely mis-sold the overdraft and to be honest am quite angry at myself for allowing myself to be reeled in, but I don't know if the fact I was cajouled into taking out the overdraft and credit card has any bearing on my situation now with regards to the county court claim. I know that moving on 10 years I am a lot more weary in what I take out, but unfortunately my past is still haunting me and I don't know my best course of action. Should I defend this case? Should I just agree some kind of nominal payment for the next 50 years?! I can't see any way out of the situation I am in, let alone the chance of ever getting to a future where I can start to look at building savings/a pension and such.
I thank you all in advance for the advice you have.
Kind Regards
Munchkins_mum
Any help that anyone with more legal knowledge would be most appreciated.
I have today received a county court claim form from Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd (address for documents as BW Legal)
for an alleged overdraft with Lloyds.
The total being claimed is £2,500 odd plus £105 court fees and £80 solicitor's costs.
The particulars of the claim read;
'claimant's claim is for the sum xxxx being monies due from the defendant to the claimant under a financial services agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974 between the defendant and Lloyds TSB Bank plc.
Defendant failed to maintain the contractual payment under the terms f the agreement and a default notice has been served and not complied with. The claim includes statutory interest pursuant to section 69 of the county court's act 198 at a rate of 8% per annum (daily rate of 0.52 from the date of the assignment of the agreement to the date of issue being an amount of £158.60.
A Little background to my circumstances.
I am a single parent to 3 children, I separated from my husband in 2008 after an unhappy marriage. I was forced out of my home with my children (who were all aged 3 and under at the time).
My ex-husband has contact with the children and in recent years we maintain civilised towards each other, however at first it was extremely acrimonious on his part. This led to me asking for nothing in our divorce, and I was left with much of our joint debt in my sole name, stupidly.
The year before we split I had transferred debts in his name onto credit cards in my own name to take advantage of low interest rates.
Our house was sold for negative equity (secured loans against the house totalling £25,000 were not cleared as our house was only sold for around £140,000 5 years ago (frustratingly the same houses now sell for £200,00!)
To cut a long story short, I have not been working over the last few years due to the children not being in full time education, instead I have been studying towards a career in accountancy. I am now working part time, however the £600 a month I currently earn is not the majority of my income-I receive housing and tax credits help, and I receive nothing in maintenance from my ex-neither do I want to add to my stress by taking him to CSA.
I have other various debts all acquired around or before 2009, totalling around £35,000 - realistically I know that bankruptcy is my best option, however it would throw my career path back a fair way so I would like to avoid it. I applied for assistance towards the bankruptcy costs several years ago, as I could not actually afford the £500 odd to declare bankruptcy ironically, however now that I am starting to work in finance I really don't want to jeopardise my future career prospects due to my past.
I have been burying my head in the sand over these debts for a long time, as I don't have assets (I have a car which I need for work, but it is over 10 years old and of little value, and what I have to live on is what the council has deemed as the amount required amount to live from with 3 children, therefore I don't want to start making payments to various debtors for years upon years.
I'm sorry for waffling but it is a complicated situation-and this alleged overdraft in particular.
I did take out an overdraft with Lloyds bank but do not have any paperwork relating to it as I have moved unexpectedly and lost all paperwork, so I have no idea if the amount quoted is a fair figure. I do know that before I stopped using the account I had a lot of money in fees and the bank refused me any kind of help but instead kept piling on the charges despite knowing I was a single parent living solely on benefits at the time, therefore I do feel that the actual overdraft figure was most likely way under this mark.
To add confusion to matters, in hindsight my Lloyds overdraft when taken out was a ticking time bomb.
At the time I took it out I was only 18 or 19, and worked for Lloyds Bank. I started there when I was 17 and was initially forced to take out a Lloyds bank account to have my wages paid into as they refused to pay them into another account.
I was then strongly encouraged to take out a credit card and overdraft, and I know that affordability calculations and such were overlooked, I was reeled in by offers of highly preferential employee rates of interest - which too my own detriment, as soon as I had children and left employment of the bank these soared to a completely unaffordable amount, yet whenever I spoke to branch staff they were unwilling to provide any help apart from once or twice single charge waivers.
In this sense I feel I was completely mis-sold the overdraft and to be honest am quite angry at myself for allowing myself to be reeled in, but I don't know if the fact I was cajouled into taking out the overdraft and credit card has any bearing on my situation now with regards to the county court claim. I know that moving on 10 years I am a lot more weary in what I take out, but unfortunately my past is still haunting me and I don't know my best course of action. Should I defend this case? Should I just agree some kind of nominal payment for the next 50 years?! I can't see any way out of the situation I am in, let alone the chance of ever getting to a future where I can start to look at building savings/a pension and such.
I thank you all in advance for the advice you have.
Kind Regards
Munchkins_mum
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