Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

[eddiemunster]

Hi there, I would be extremely grateful for any help and guidance with my situation.


I've just had a Letter of Claim from Lowell Solicitors on behalf of their "client" Lowell Portfolio I ltd. It's for a Credit Card that has been in default for a number of years. Just a little more than 6 years ago in fact. The Credit Card was with Lloyds. Once I defaulted I was contacted by several debt recovery companies, including Capquest and Wescot. I started paying an agreed monthly amount to Capquest of £15 pcm. The last payment made was about 4 years ago. Then Lowell took over the debt and I've had various letters which I've ignored offering reductions of 20, 30 % etc. The reason I ignored them is because I've been in a difficult situation personally and have been struggling financially and have buried my head in the sand. I'm a single parent to two young children and receive no maintenance from their mother. I don't want to go to court, I want the debt to go away but money is tight. I can't get credit to take out a refinancing loan either. I am also in debt with overdrafts, and HMRC arrears (I am self employed).


I would very much value anyone's view as to my best course of action here.


Many Thanks in advance.


Edd

[warwick65]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Hi

Off hand I do not know the boxes to tick on the letter but you do need to reply.
The first thing you need to do is send a S78 request to Lowell portfolio 1 - template in the box at the top of the page
Send this along with the £1 fee and send it by signed for post ( no need to pay for special delivery just signed for)

The forms itself

I personally would tick the box that says you do not recognise/owe this debt (Box D I think)

Where it says about documents you need i would then ask for simply
The agreement
The default notice
The notice of assignment
The deed of assignment

No need to fill out the income and expenditure- in fact you really shouldn't do that at the moment

Hope that helps

[Debt Camel]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

This article looks at how to complete the reply Form: https://debtcamel.co.uk/letter-before-claim-ccj/. This allows you to ask for the CCA agreement and a statement of account for the debt before they begin court action.

From what you have said, the debt can't be statute barred.

I don't want to go to court, I want the debt to go away but money is tight

A common situation.

Can you say how much you owe overall? Including this Lowell debt, any other old debts you have been hoping have gone away, the overdrafts (? how many?) and the tax debt.

Also are you buying or renting?

[eddiemunster]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Thank you so much for helping.

Overdrafts up to 4K each month. This Debt 5K. Two other defaults (Statute Barred I believe) for 3K and 5K. Tax arrears 4K.

I am renting privately.

I look forward to hearing from you.

- - - Updated - - -

Thats brilliant. Thank you so much for helping.

[Debt Camel]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Tax arrears - is that "real" tax arrears such as income tax, VAT, NI, or tax credits overpayments? If it is, you need to try to come to an arrangement to repay them. You also need to get away from the overdrafts - probably open a basic bank account, move all your banking over to there and set up a payment arrangement to repay the abandoned overdrafts - that will have to be a low amount until the tax debts are cleared.

That's quite a lot of debt. It's worth asking for the CCA for this debt and defending this case but if you lose, you may want to look at a more final option such as option such as bankruptcy.

[eddiemunster]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Thank you once again for your time and input.

Its Income tax arrears. I totally agree regarding the overdrafts. Lloyds have just trebled their charges for my overdraft with their new daily rate/fee.

I know a CCA exists with Lloyds as I've seen it a few years ago when looking into PPI. This might mean that it has been taken out of archive and misplaced though? Who knows? I'm toying with the idea of just ringing them to try and arrange a repayment plan but common sense would be to ask for the CCA I guess? I just want to avoid court at all costs. Is it possible to request the CCA and still avoid court or will we be too far down the line then?

Also I really don't want to consider bankruptcy as it would drastically affect my job.

Once again, thank you very much.

[Debt Camel]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Is it possible to request the CCA and still avoid court or will we be too far down the line then?

Yes! That is the purpose of the new letter re Claim - the reply form allows you to ask more information such as the CCA. If they produce, you then know it is much more likely they would get a CCJ (of course there could be other defences, but it removes one of them) and at that point you can offer a monthly payment and hope to get this agreed without going to court.

BUT you can't offer any monthly payment to this until you have reached an agreement with HMRC. So you need to be sorting that out asap.

re LLoyds, I suggest you get your self a new basic bank account with a different bank you don't owe any money to. Then treat the old overdrafts as really expensive debt that has to be repaid as soon as you have sorted HMRC out.

[warwick65]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Hi Eddie

With regard to a CCA - sometimes when a debt is sold on, the old owners are less likely to search for and provide a copy of the agreement to the new owners. A case in point, 5 years ago I sent a CCA request to a bank who replied with a copy of my signed agreement. 6 months later they old the debt so I sent a new CCA request , I received a reply from the new owners saying they had asked for it and now 4 1/2 years later i am still waiting. This particular debt will be statute barred in 6 months time.

I have also seen a Deed of assignment that says the original creditor will only look for the agreement for a period of 12 months once the sale has been completed - after that, well who knows.

I would also remind you that in my experience there are usually lots of other defences to a debt being enforceable, in fact the CCA request is sometimes the easiest one for a creditor to overcome. Ones i am currently aware of and if you look around the forum , include, bad default notices, bad assignments lack of regulatory notices and in some cases ( sadly not lowell) the creditor is unlicensed although I do not know how to argue that.

[eddiemunster]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Thank you DC, you are wonderful.

When I send off the CCA request for info, should I ask for anything else also? The Reply form in section 4 after box I gives a list of example documents that may be requested such as Statement of account including interest and charges, A calculation of interest claimed, The annual or daily rate of interest, Details of any administrative charges and finally a copy of the notice of assignment of the debt.

Best Regards

Edd

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you, may I ask what constitutes a bad default notice or a bad assignment? Or do you know where I can read up on this?

Kind Regards

Edd

[warwick65]

Re: Letter of Claim - Lowell Solicitors

Apart from the cca request to the creditor I would use the form to ask for
The agreement
The default notice
The notice of assignment
The deed of assignment

- - - Updated - - -

A DN should be in the prescribed form. If you google S87 consumer credit act.
Also look at S88

The assignment needs to prove the debt belongs to the creditor. Hard to specify what makes it bad

[eddiemunster]

Hi there, So I sent off the reply form requesting the information above about 3 months ago. After a few update letters Lowell Solicitors have now written to me to detailing that their client (Lowell Portfolio I) hasn't provided them with the information and they have requested that they return the case to them. I wouldn't have a clue what this means or what I can expect to happen going forward. If anyone has any experience or knowledge to share regarding this I would be extremely grateful.

Many Thanks

Eddie