Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

[Bellrooster]

Received a claim? Yes
Issue Date: 10-9-2014
Amount approx: 906.07
Claimant: Cabot Financial
Solicitor: REstons
Original Credit: Vanquis

Particulars of Claim:
The Claiment claims payment of the overdue balance due from the defendant (s) under a contract between the defendant (s) and Vanquis dated on or about the 14/08/2007 and assigned to the Claiment on the 23/02/2011 in the sum of 776.07

Particulars a/c no: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

DATE ITEM VALUE
22/08/2014 Default balance 776.07

Post refrl CR NIL


TOTAL:- 776.07

Stat Barred? Yes

Have sent: Acknowledged the Claim, Sent a CCA request, Sent a CPR 31.14 request

Other Info:
We have had a reply from the CPR request to Reston's which I can type out in full if needed, essentially they say they do not need to supply us with anything

[Bellrooster]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Hi folks

I was wondering if anyone could advise me what to do next regarding this court claim.

This is the response I got from the solicitors re CPR 31.14 request

Dear Sir

We acknowledge receipt of your recent request made pursuant to CPR 31.14

We would point out that the claim was issued via the Couthy court business centre which is a procedure specifically provided for in the CPR. This procedure only allows a claimant to insert brief details of the claim and does not allow for the attachment of any enclosures. Paragraph 5.2A if Practise direction 7E specifically states "The requirement in paragraph 7.3 of practise direction 16 for documents to be attached to the particulars of contract claims does not apply to claims started using an online claim form, unless the particulars of claim are served separately in accorgance with paragraph 5.2 of this practise direction."

We would also remind you that CPR 31.14 states: -

"A Party may inspect document mentioned in -

(a) a statement of a case
(b) a witness statement
(c) a witness summary or
(d) an affidavit

You would have been provided with a copy of the contractual Terms and Conditions at the time the account was opened and hence we see no reason why you now require an additional copy.

Furthermore, the other documents you have requested are not "mentioned" in the particulars of claim and therefore CPR 31.14 (1) does not apply.

The particulars of claim contains suffiecient information in order for you to understand what the claim relates to, namely:

(a) the date the account was opened
b) the account number
c) the outstanding balance
d) the name of the original creditot
e)the fact that the account has been assigned to the claimant and when it was assigned.

For the avoidance of doubt, no extension is agreed for you to respond to the claim form.

My husband is 99% sure that he hasn't made a payment or acknowledged the debt in under 6 years so as I understand it that makes it time barred?

We are really not sure how to proceed next, whether we wait to see if we get anything back regarding the CCA request or if we should send a response to the solicitors.

any advice would be gratefully received!

many thanks

[Kafka]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

The critical issue for being statute barred is that you haven't made any payment or formally acknowledged the debt for 6 years (5 in Scotland). If that's not the case then the SB defence dissolved once they filed at court.

The response from the solicitor to the CPR request is a common one, and the normal response is to write back (there are examples) stating that they are obliged to supply. This is just to strengthen your case that they have failed to honour their obligations under the CPR and the CCA. When they do this the usual defence stresses the fact that they have failed to supply the relevant documentation to support their case.

Theoretically, they cannot proceed with the claim until they comply with the CCA request. The bad news is that the date of August 2007 puts the account into the revised version (2006) of the CCA that started in April that year. They still have to supply a copy of the agreement, but if they do you can't challenge its validity in the same way you can with older ones. The crux here seems to be whether they can supply a copy of the agreement. You haven't provided a timeline of dates so you can't see what the timeframes are here.

[ncf355]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Hmmm

Kaf, you can still challenge validity, its just up to the judge whether he considders any infiringment that might be found in the agreement serious enough to make the debt unenforceable

But agree that the main issues here are

1) When did you last admit thhe debt or pay anything towards it

2) If they cant supply anything for the CCA, their claim is dead

[Kafka]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Hmmm

Kaf, you can still challenge validity, its just up to the judge whether he considders any infiringment that might be found in the agreement serious enough to make the debt unenforceable

But agree that the main issues here are

1) When did you last admit thhe debt or pay anything towards it

2) If they cant supply anything for the CCA, their claim is dead

I did add "in the same way" because the scope for challenging is more limited. Its also a case that agreements since April 2007 are generally better drafted and preserved than many earlier ones due to the attention paid after the bank charges movement started around 2006.

[ncf355]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

I did add "in the same way" ......

Hi,

Sorry, no offence meant just making sure the OP understood fully

[Bellrooster]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

I think the last time we paid anything to Vanquis (we only ever paid Vanquis, we didn't pay to the company that took over the debt) would have been February/March 2008. I will need to double check that with my husband but I'm fairly certain it was then.

We haven't heard anything from Cabot as yet regarding the CCA request.

[Kafka]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Hi,

Sorry, no offence meant just making sure the OP understood fully

LOL - none taken.
I'm not used to dealing with post-2007 agreements so perhaps my take on them is not up to my usual standard! :tea:

[Kafka]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

I think the last time we paid anything to Vanquis (we only ever paid Vanquis, we didn't pay to the company that took over the debt) would have been February/March 2008. I will need to double check that with my husband but I'm fairly certain it was then.

We haven't heard anything from Cabot as yet regarding the CCA request.

This is critical for determining whether the SB defence applies. As well as payment and acknowledgement there can be a 'cause of action' that takes it beyond the date of last payment. Supposing you made a last payment and that started the default process, then the cause of action can kick in after 2 missed payments. In other words the cause of action can pull the date for SB a bit later than the last payment or acknowledgement. dates are key to this so the more detail you can provide the better we can work it out. The 6-year clock ends with filing the claim, so you need 6 years clear before that date.

The good thing about SB defence is that it is absolute, so issues like the validity of the agreement aren't relevant any more. It's the slam-dunk defence, but you need to be certain that if you plead that there really is no evidence that can limit the 6 years needed for it to apply.

[Bellrooster]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Ok, thank you.

I'll start looking through bank statements and try to determine the exact date we last made a payment.

[Bellrooster]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Incredibly bad news I'm afraid, my husband has been on the phone to the bank this evening and we've found a payment to vanquish on the 21/09/09. So SB doesn't apply.

What would you suggest is the next step?

[Ruby]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Hmmm, my Cabot court claim was issued at the beginning of September too. I seem to be seeing an awful lot of Cabot/Vanquis court cases on this site at the moment :suspicious:

[MissFM]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Incredibly bad news I'm afraid, my husband has been on the phone to the bank this evening and we've found a payment to vanquish on the 21/09/09. So SB doesn't apply.

What would you suggest is the next step?

Are you absolutely sure you did indeed make this payment and that it's not a "phantom"?:spy:

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Kaf, you can still challenge validity, its just up to the judge whether he considders any infiringment that might be found in the agreement serious enough to make the debt unenforceable

What are the chances of that actually happening? They'll just take the usual "you borrowed the money, you used the card" approach, unless there's a good argument such as mis-sold PPI which could be deducted from the balance.

I did add "in the same way" because the scope for challenging is more limited. Its also a case that agreements since April 2007 are generally better drafted and preserved than many earlier ones due to the attention paid after the bank charges movement started around 2006.

Indeed they were, even in 2006 they started paying more attention, and by 2007 there were many CMCs advertising that they could get your debt written off on the basis of a defective agreement, so most banks took a long hard look at their processes.

I think the last time we paid anything to Vanquis (we only ever paid Vanquis, we didn't pay to the company that took over the debt) would have been February/March 2008. I will need to double check that with my husband but I'm fairly certain it was then.

We haven't heard anything from Cabot as yet regarding the CCA request.

There's no need to chase that one.

[Bellrooster]

Re: Court Claim - Cabot Financial / Vanquis - 10-9-2014

Are you absolutely sure you did indeed make this payment and that it's not a "phantom"?:spy:

Its not a phantom, it's our bank who told us that we made it.

We got a reply from cabot this morning saying that they haven't got a copy of the credit agreement and that they would send one within 40 days.