Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

[ditzee]

Can someone kindly help me by providing some clear concise advise on how to deal with a County Court Claim received in the post yesterday?

I suffer from agoraphobia and social anxiety disorder and consequently am unable to work and claim ESA and am classed as "vulnerable" by DWP and receive extra income as part of me ESA income to reflect this. I fell into financial crisis some time in 2009 after losing my job and and falling into depression and illness. I lost my owned home and have currently live in a rented property. I have been chased by the original creditor HBOS PLC for some time now and now they are proceeding with court claim. Can you please advise as to how I should deal appropriately? I am unsure as to when my last payment was made but would hazard a guess it would be in latter part of 2009. I requested a copy of the CCA in April 2014 after receiving some advice on this forum. I did not receive anything until 12/6/14. I received what looks like a photocopy of some form of reconstituted agreement and does not provide any figures, payments or signature details and I do not have an up to date default of payment statement from them.

Please can someone provide some basic clear guidance for me asap?

Kind regards

[Kati]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi @ditzee ... I've moved your thread to the court claim section I'm sure you will get lots of help from the knowledgeable Beagles, but while you're waiting would you be able to type up the 'particulars of claim' from the front of the form (personal details removed of course )
and then have a look at this for what your first steps should be:

Firstly, don't panic.

Secondly, many of these Consumer Credit debt based Court Claims are issued through the County Court Business Centre and are rather lacking in detail and information. The are often claims bought by debt purchasers who don't have the paperwork to back them up to hand and who wing it on the hope that they obtain a default judgment.

So, first steps (within 14 days of receiving the claim)

1: ACKNOWLEDGE THE CLAIM - you can do this online usually at www.moneyclaim.gov.uk
You'll need your claim reference and password from the front of the claim form - this will extend the time you have to respond to the claim to 28 days from when you received it

2: Send A CCA REQUEST to the CLAIMANT ( see here )
This applies to all credit cards / loans / hire purchase / store cards type debt. It doesn't apply to Mobile Phones / Utilities or Overdrafts.

3: Send a CPR request to the CLAIMANT'S SOLICITORS ( see here )
This applies to everything unless they happen to have supplied you with a bunch of paperwork to back up their claim (v. unlikely)

If you are unsure of any of those steps then please make a new thread on the forum (you must be registered to do this)

Once those letters have been sent off you should make a new thread on the forum (you must be registered to do this) and make a post titled the claimants name v your username, and containing the date of issue from your claim form, date of service (ie when you received the claim form), type out the Particulars of Claim (exclude account numbers) and tell us the approx amount of the claim. Also tell us any specific disputes or background to the claim you may have. If you know please also tell us the last time you made a payment towards the debt or acknowledged the debt in writing, and confirm you have acknowledged the claim, and what letters you have sent off.
OR
If you received a court claim and want to start a new thread in this forum please complete this form . Thank you.


And people here will help guide you through the next steps.

NOTE: The defence date is 28 days from service (ie when you received the claim) or 33 days (which allows 5 days for service) from the issue date printed on the front of the claim form.

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Kati

Firstly thank you so much for replying so quickly I really appreciate it.

Particulars of the claim:-

The Claimant's Claim is for the sum of £835.58 monies due from the Defendant to the Claimant under a Financial Services agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 between the Defendant and HBOS PLC and assigned to the Claimant on 2/7/2013 notice of which has been given to the Defendant. The Defendant failed to maintain the contractual payment under the terms of the agreement and a default notice has been services and not complied with. The claim also includes statutory interest pursuant to section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% per annum (a daily rate of 0.14 from the date of the assignment of the agreement to 2/7/2014 being an amount of £51.24.

I recall that the original debt refers to a Barclaycard which I think was taken out around 6/2007. As I have stated earlier I think I defaulted payment some time late in 2009 and I know for sure that I have never made any form of payment or made contact with any creditor since this date. I wrote to Bryan Carter on 4/4/2014 requesting a copy of Consumer Credit Agreement as is my entitlement under sections 77-79 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and subsequently received a letter from Bryan Carter on 12/6/2014 stated they enclosed account documents provided by their client as request and hoped that clarified matters. The enclosed document was merely photocopies of terms and conditions of the Barclaycard. Nothing within the copied documents states actual date the card was issued or contains my signature. I cannot trace finding any documentation from Lowell stating the debt had been re-assigned to themselves. I have a letter from Lowell going back to 9/2012 stating statement of account was 23/9/2012 and period of cover 1/9/2010 to 31/8/2012 was £970.93 and no payments received within that time frame.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

[Kati]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

OK ... next would be acknowledging service of the claim (can be done online via MCOL) and then a CPR 31.14 request to BW http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...ic-information

If you can email me copies/pictures of anything you received I can post them up on this thread (redacted) for the other Beagles to look at

[Debt Camel]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi ditzee,

can I ask if you have any other debts? For example a mortgage shortfall from the house you owned?

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Thanks Kati. I will do as advised. I have just been through my paperwork again and it seems I have misread or misunderstood some of my paperwork. It would appear that Lowell have purchased 3 outstanding debts of mine. The one whereby they have instructed bwlegal to issued this claim is not the debt I referred to whereby I stated I wrote to Bryan Carter requesting CCA - that is another debt and hence the difference in the amounts owed. I apologise for the confusion.

It would appear that I have not previously entered into any correspondence whatsoever relating to this debt so should I be requesting CPR 31.14 from bwlegal and CCA from Lowell as this has not been previously requested? I will endeavour to try to e-mail documents/scan them over the weekend and hope this makes more sense.

[Kati]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Yep CCA to Lowell CPR to BW

no apologies needed xx

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Debt Camel

Thank you for your help. I had my home re-possessed and was left with a shortfall debt of £41,219.01. I believe this debt has been purchased by Lowell. Again, I apologise for any misunderstandings or confusion on my part but due to my illness I have not retained all letters relating to my debts and find it difficult to deal with. To date, this is the only debt whereby court proceedings have been initiated against me.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Kati]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

I will endeavour to try to e-mail documents/scan them over the weekend and hope this makes more sense.

my email address might be useful :lol: (I forgot to put it on my previous post ) kati@legalbeagles.info xx

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Thanks Katie,

I will try to scan documents I have relating to this claim over the weekend period.

Many thanks xx

[Debt Camel]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Debt Camel

Thank you for your help. I had my home re-possessed and was left with a shortfall debt of £41,219.01. I believe this debt has been purchased by Lowell. Again, I apologise for any misunderstandings or confusion on my part but due to my illness I have not retained all letters relating to my debts and find it difficult to deal with. To date, this is the only debt whereby court proceedings have been initiated against me.

Given your health problems and the size of your debts, I think you should consider bankruptcy to get rid of all the debts, rather than try to fight them one by one as they pop up. Have you looked at this an option before?

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Debt Camel,

Yes I have however I am unable to find the finances in order to go to court to declare myself bankrupt - I have no assets, savings and live in rented accommodation in receipt of ESA. Thanks.

[Debt Camel]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Have you looked at reclaiming any PPI on your debts? This and other ways of finding the daftly high bankruptcy fees - which in your case would be £525 - are looked at here > http://debtcamel.co.uk/help-with-bankruptcy-fees/

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Debt Camel,

Yes I have however I am unable to find the finances in order to go to court to declare myself bankrupt - I have no assets, savings and live in rented accommodation in receipt of ESA. Thanks.

You could qualify for remission of the court fee. With regards to the deposit, there are charities, funds and organisations that may be able to help:

• Funding bankruptcy fees – a list of various organisations
• British Gas Energy Trust
• Severn Trent Trust Fund
• Charis Grants
• Royal British Legion
• Turn2Us
• Christians Against Poverty
• Rowland Hill Fund

[ditzee]

Re: Urgent Advice Please BW Legal - Lowell & County Court Claim

Hi Kati

Unfortunately I have had problems with my printer and scanner today but think it is just about sorted now. Can I please clarify something about the CPR 31.14 letter? I am addressing this to bwlegal but am unsure as to what date to put on letter whereby it states that I require inspection of document ahead of filing my defence on ?????. The court papers show an issue date of 23/6/2015. I received the paperwork on 26/6/2015. I have today (28/6/2015) completed my AOS direct to the court via their online website stating I am defending the case in full. Can you please provide me with the correct date I should be inserting on the template letter?

I hope to get these letters completed later today or tomorrow morning so I can send them by registered mail or should it be special delivery tomorrow? If I can get my scanner to work I would like to e-mail these documents to you so you can give them "the once over" and I will also send copies of the letters relating to the claim. I have remembered that I should enclose £1 po for the CCA request to Lowell.

Look forward to hearing from you Kati x