Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

[Madcookie]

Hello all,

My partner received a letter recently from Lowell Portfolio I LTD RE:Lowell Finance Limited stating that she owed them over £1200 from a CCJ that had been defaulted against her. This was due to an old debt, which looks to have been about £8 according to the fees issued since. She never knew about this debt, she still doesn't know what it is for but thinks looking at the time of it, it could be when she swapped bank accounts, so maybe some unsettled costs?

When the CCJ was issued she was living at an address that is not where they appeared to have sent the original court letters (that was her mums address but she never passed it on). This can be seen on her credit reports. On these grounds we applied to have the CCJ set aside. We have a hearing re. this on Monday, but are not sure what we need to prepare or argue to prove all of this. I see that to have a CCJ set aside you have to prove that you kept your creditors informed, but as stated she never knew she was in debt, so would have had no reason to consider this. Not long after the bank account swap she spent several months in Greece, with no UK address. This could be why she never knew about the original debt.

I'm not sure why it took lowell so long to catch up with her, but now they have we need to fight it. £1200 is not something we can afford, with 2 young children, and not only that it looks like robbery considering what it started as.

I cant supply the original debt dates tonight as she is away due to a family emergency. I will endeavor to get these as soon as i can, if needed.

We received 3 letters from the court.
First just a notice of transfer of proceedings.
Second a general form of judgement or order - which states "List the application to set aside judgement for hearing on the first open date with a time estimate of 15 minutes plus 5 minutes reading time"
Third, Notice of Hearing of application, which give the date and time of the hearing.

Any advice would be massively appreciated. If you need any more info let me know.

Kind Regards

Anthony

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Good morning [MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION] [MENTION=87380]Diana M[/MENTION].

We've filled in the N180 as it seems like a simple form. but after reading some other cases we have in the section C1 added "The Defendant also requests special directions from the court pursuant to CPR 27.4 (a draft is attached)"

The attached draft says
"

DRAFT ORDER

Dated .................... 2017

District Judge ................................. has considered the statements of case and directions questionnaire filed in the claim and the District Judge having decided that before a final decision about allocation can be made

IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. Unless the Claimant serves on the Defendant within 14 days of the date of this Order [the documents it refers to in its statements of case, the Claim will be struck out and there be judgment for the Defendant] OR [the following documents, the Claim will be struck out and there be judgment for the Defendant:

• original copy of the agreement
• default notice,
• and notice of assignment

2. Upon the Claimant complying with paragraph 1, the Defendant is permitted to file and serve an amended Defence within 14 days."

we have no info from them other than what is in post #62 and having seen they often fail to comply have taken this option. do you agree? and do we have to send a copy of the draft to lowell? i know we send them a copy of the N180

We have to post this tonight as we go to devon tomorrow till the following saturday and will have limited access to internet and no printers.

Kind regards

Anthony

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Evening all, we now have all the paper work back from the court and could do with some advice in what to do next. I've attached the two forms from the courts, the first confirming the set aside, the second is a notice of proposed allocation to the small claims track. this one has to be filled in and sent back to court and lowell by the 30th. what should i write in each section? [MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION] [MENTION=87380]Diana M[/MENTION] your help would be greatly appreciated here.

We also got 2 letters from lowell. First the reply to the CPR. This was dated the 4th of may, which was our defense deadline (although the date stamped on envelope was actually the 5th). This letter was accompanied with a letter from 2013 that states that they had bought the debt from lloyds. a funny thing was the address on it. they'd sent it to a more recent address my partner had lived in than the one they used for court case, even though court case was a year later! not sure what games they were playing there.

Even more interesting, they also sent in the same envelope a letter addressed to another 'customer' who owed them money. I'm sure there could be an issue with data protection here?

The second letter just states they're getting in touch with Lloyds for my partners details.

I've attached all correspondence. If you need any more info please let me know. Again thank you for your help!!

Kind regards

Anthony

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

The thing is they agreed to have it set aside. the representative told us that in the waiting room (first we knew of their plans). Then during the hearing the rep told the judge that we had all agreed to have it set aside. Again our own lack of prep and knowledge is to blame for not asking for a consent order.

Once the defence is submitted i intend to start planning for what is needed at the next hearing. we will make sure we have a babysitter so we can both go in this time. we will also run through this a few times so my partner is happy with it all.

Thank you for all your help so far

Anthony x

[Diana M]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Most LIPs get flustered in court. That's what the other side are hoping for.

As I said earlier it's a pity you didn't agree a Consent Order for the set aside with the Claimant especially since they didn't oppose your Application (from what you've said).

That way you'd have avoided the ordeal of a hearing and could have continued playing smoke and mirrors with the Claimant over documents.

What matters at the moment is your wife must be comfortable with what her Defence says.

Di

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Hi [MENTION=87380]Diana M[/MENTION]

You are correct with regards #48, I have removed the part of the paragraph now that mentions claimant and poc, but have left the request to Northampton Business centre in.

I have just found the email address for there solicitors, i can ask her to email when i get home. still worth it? If so i will still leave that in...?

with regards what she said in court, she did mention an overdraft, although with nothing from Lloyds and with it being such a long time ago she was making an educated guess, hopefully, rather than admitting liability. She was very flustered and overwhelmed during the course of the session. we had expected for us both to go in and she was under prepared.

i don't think she raised the SB as she didn't know what that meant.

Kind regards

Anthony

[Diana M]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

I'm not in a position to comment on your proposed Defence ( I have to respect my firm's insurance) but keep in mind that this document will be signed and sworn by your wife since it's her claim so make sure she's in total agreement with the contents.

If you plan to say that you have asked the Claimant for the POC then you need to make sure you have evidence of that (was it by email?) in case you're challenged on this point further down the line. (You don't need to produce the evidence at this stage.) Maybe I've misunderstood post # 48 which is your response to my question about asking the Claimant's solicitors for the POC.

Also quiz your wife on what she said in court about the debt (if she did). It may be awkward to deny knowing anything about the Lloyds account if she's already told the court it was an overdraft etc.

You previously posted that the DJ at the last hearing nudged her in the direction of three possible Defence arguments. One of them was SB. So did she raise the SB issue at that hearing (which would have been recorded) and if so did she tell the court that it was a bank account she was referring to?

The legal representative for the Claimant would have made a note of what was said and provided the information to the Claimant.

Di

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Thank you [MENTION=3599]MIKE770[/MENTION] for the heads up with regards the case number, I hadn't realised this was to be redacted also.Thanks [MENTION=49370]Kati[/MENTION] for fixing this. I've also gone back and removed all my attachments as they all had the case number showing. [MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION], post #43 is the only one i couldn't remove, as it is your post, this has the claim number on the top, I assume this will need to go too?

Thank you [MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION] for the amendments, I've incorporated them in to the defense and have added the updated attachment. Your draft copy is 100 times better than I could ever come up with

If all is good by you i will print and send....?

Thanks again

Kind regards

Anthony

[Amethyst]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Oops missed your question. Yes a copy will need to be sent ( served) on the claimant at the same time you send the orginal copy to the court. Very brief cover letter - Dear Lowell, Please find enclosed the Defence in Claim XXXXX pursuant to the order dated xxxxxxxxx by D J Stacey. Sincerely, MC. Will do fine.

[Amethyst]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

and I've redacted it and put it back up lol xx

Thank you my lovely xx

[Amethyst]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

I wasn't joking about it being a very rough draft btw I think we are correct not going into detail about the possibility of it being an overdraft - if the claimant provides evidence of it being an OD and not being Stat Barred then you can amend defence to argue unfair charges / account closure etc etc. For now this will likely be enough though.

So some notes...

Para 1: add in the short version for clarity - then you're fine using it onwards.

... Particulars of Claim (POC)despite requests to the Claimant. ...


Also can you split the para and renumber all as it's a bit long. Maybe...

1: The Defendant did not receive the original claim xxxxxxxxxx from Northampton County Court or the Claimant. Judgment in Default was awarded to the Claimant however this judgment was set aside at a hearing and this Defence is submitted pursuant to the order of District Judge Stacey on 03/04/2017.

2: The Defendant has still not received a copy of the original Particulars of Claim (POC) despite requests to the Claimant. Two email requests have been made to The Northampton Business Centre requesting copies the POC. The Defendant has not received a response.





Para 4:

4: The Defendant has sent a formal Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act 1998to Lloyds Bank Plc as original creditor, in order to find out more information relating to this claim, and is awaiting a full response.

Para 7:

7. Neither Lowell Solicitors and Lowell Financial LTD have provided me with any of these documents.

Para 8: change to 77-79 as you don't know if its a credit card or a loan , or even a hire purchase agreement, so just cover all of them.

8. On the 24/4/17 I sent a formal request for a copy of the original agreement to Lowell Financial Ltd pursuant to sections 77-79 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 along with the statutory £1 fee.


Para 9: Same as in 8 slightly amended.

9. The Claimant has failed to comply with my formal request under s. 77 - 79 of the Consumer Credit Act and therefore cannot enforce the agreement.

[Kati]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

ALERT Case number etc showing

No Panic I've modded it.

and I've redacted it and put it back up lol xx

[Amethyst]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

No Panic I've modded it.

Just having a read through now Mc xxxx

[MIKE770]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

ALERT Case number etc showing

[Madcookie]

Re: Setting aside a CCJ - Lowell

Good morning @Diana M , @Amethyst , Thanks for your reply.

I've written the defense and have added it as an attachment. Will you please have a look through and see if i need to amend anything?

I believe i have to send this to the court and lowell. Is this correct?

If so do i just send one to the PO BOX address they gave or should i do that, plus the solicitors and normal lowell address @Amethyst
posted?

Again thank you for your help, you've been fantastic through out this!!!

Kind Regards

Anthony