Letter before Claim advice please

[Pauline2023]

So today I received a letter before claim from TM Legal, I had previously send them a CCA request in which they replied with the agreement and one of the documents they supplied was the default dated back to dec 2016 so I was planning on sending a statute barred letter in response, however it looks as though I made a payment of £5 in 2018 so this has reset the 6 year clock so now not statute barred, I also logged an affordability complaint back in 2018 and the original creditor replied saying they had carried out checks and believed I could afford the loan at the time. ( I was at the time up to my eyes in debt with multiple pay day loans, credit cards. loans and behind with most bills ect so most definitely could not afford it and I fell in to arrears within a few months of the loan.
I have worked really hard to sort myself out and this is my very last 'bad debt/default on my file so had really hoped this would have dropped off my credit file as its due to at the beginning of Dec .
so what do I reply now to the letter before claim ? I cant pay it in full as its over £3500, I also don't want a CCJ as this would put me back to square 1 so I am keen to get this sorted before it gets this far.
So should I set a repayment plan ( which would be a token amount as I cant afford any more or is it worth sending a full and final offer which I can only afford a small amount around 10% ( as just had a very small tax rebate)
Thank you in advance

[Pauline2023]

just checking things and the account actually fell into arrears in aug 2016 so by december 2016 was already 5 months behind, yet a default wasn’t registered on my credit file until 2017 not sure if i can do anything with this info but thought i’d mention it

[R0b]

Hello

Are you able to upload a copy of the letter before claim from TM Legal, making sure you redact or cover up any personal information?

How you respond really depends on how you want to address the situation. Are you certain you made a payment of £5 back in 2018 because that seems to be a bit of a rogue payment if you stopped paying for a long period of time and even more strange that it (may) have been the only payment in 2018 that was made. Unless you are absolutely certain it came from you, I would be inclined to put the claimant to proof that the payment was paid from your bank account by supplying the account number and sort code - debt purchasers are quite sloppy with their paperwork or lack of it and come up with all sorts of statements and claims that could be misleading or false.

If you're inclined to simply come to a repayment plan, then you need to make sure you are not admitting liability in any way because that can be used against you especially if TM Legal don't accept your settlement offer or payment plan. Sometimes creditors see an offer or repayment or settlement as a weakness and may put further pressure on by issuing a claim anyway - so think very carefully before you choose what you want to do.

Best practice is that if you want to make a settlement offer, you should send them two letters:

- The first letter is your denial of liability or request for further information so you can assess the merits of their claim with further denial of liability once you have that information. Sometimes setting out a robust response and reasons why you deny the liability, could make TM Legal think twice about issuing a claim knowing they might not have the right information to support a judgment in their favour and (usually at late stages, if you hold your nerve) discontinue the claim.

- The second letter is a without prejudice letter, which means the court cannot see this letter or it can't be referred to by TM Legal unless you consent either by referring to it yourself or agreeing for it to be disclosed to the court (usually not a good idea to consent as it can be harmful to you depending on what you say in the letter). The letter will usually say something like that you continue to deny the liability, however in the interests of the overriding objective and saving time and costs on either side, you are will to discuss settlement terms. You should then set out those terms of settlement.

By doing it this way, you are protecting yourself in the event TM Legal decides to issue proceedings regardless of what you say, you can still file a valid defence without admitting liability to the debt. As I mentioned above, most debt purchasers have a lack of paperwork and even though you received the agreement, they may not have complied with the CCA request under legislation, which is something you can rely on as a defence point to suggest they cannot enforce the agreement.

Once you let us know how you wish to proceed we can help guide you through rhe process.

[Pauline2023]

Thank you so much for the advice, I will upload a copy of the letter once I have received it ( currently they have sent me an email telling me they have sent a letter of claim )
I think I did pay the £5 as it was around the time I was setting up payment plans for other debts, if I remember correctly I didn't continue with further payments as the original creditor marked it as settled on my credit and it remained dormant until recently when perch took over the debt and then its come to TM ( I think they are all the same company ) If they are unable to prove the payment came from me however, could I still try the statute barred route ? and would I say this on the reply form ? and the fact that the actual default date is actually a year earlier than has been recorded on my credit file
Ideally I want to avoid a ccj being issued as this would make things so difficult

[Pauline2023]

Hello

Are you able to upload a copy of the letter before claim from TM Legal, making sure you redact or cover up any personal information?

How you respond really depends on how you want to address the situation. Are you certain you made a payment of £5 back in 2018 because that seems to be a bit of a rogue payment if you stopped paying for a long period of time and even more strange that it (may) have been the only payment in 2018 that was made. Unless you are absolutely certain it came from you, I would be inclined to put the claimant to proof that the payment was paid from your bank account by supplying the account number and sort code - debt purchasers are quite sloppy with their paperwork or lack of it and come up with all sorts of statements and claims that could be misleading or false.

If you're inclined to simply come to a repayment plan, then you need to make sure you are not admitting liability in any way because that can be used against you especially if TM Legal don't accept your settlement offer or payment plan. Sometimes creditors see an offer or repayment or settlement as a weakness and may put further pressure on by issuing a claim anyway - so think very carefully before you choose what you want to do.

Best practice is that if you want to make a settlement offer, you should send them two letters:

- The first letter is your denial of liability or request for further information so you can assess the merits of their claim with further denial of liability once you have that information. Sometimes setting out a robust response and reasons why you deny the liability, could make TM Legal think twice about issuing a claim knowing they might not have the right information to support a judgment in their favour and (usually at late stages, if you hold your nerve) discontinue the claim.

- The second letter is a without prejudice letter, which means the court cannot see this letter or it can't be referred to by TM Legal unless you consent either by referring to it yourself or agreeing for it to be disclosed to the court (usually not a good idea to consent as it can be harmful to you depending on what you say in the letter). The letter will usually say something like that you continue to deny the liability, however in the interests of the overriding objective and saving time and costs on either side, you are will to discuss settlement terms. You should then set out those terms of settlement.

By doing it this way, you are protecting yourself in the event TM Legal decides to issue proceedings regardless of what you say, you can still file a valid defence without admitting liability to the debt. As I mentioned above, most debt purchasers have a lack of paperwork and even though you received the agreement, they may not have complied with the CCA request under legislation, which is something you can rely on as a defence point to suggest they cannot enforce the agreement.

Once you let us know how you wish to proceed we can help guide you through rhe process.

Thank you for this, so to date other than the email telling me they are sending a letter of claim I have still not had any letter of claim and its been 10 days I have had no further email correspondence, so now I dont really know what to do as I cant reply to a letter of claim I don't have, my fear is that they will just try and apply for a ccj which having read some other posts isn't unusual for TM Legal
I would really appreciate any advice
Thank you so much

[Endleigh]

Any news or update?