Lowell Solicitors Chasing for an EE debt from 2010

[MannyUK]

I have received 2 letters out of the blue from Lowell Solicitors about chasing for £578.67 debt with EE from 2010..... This was from a time where I suffered personal loss and tragedies and was able to rectify and pay off debts I had but it looks like either I forgot this debt through passage of time or the original creditor never chased me (cant seems to remember anything from EE)....

In September I received another letter "Letter of Claim - 30 days to prevent Legal Action".... Considering this debt has been too long and have lost my job in the pandemic there's no realistic chance that I can pay nor do I want them to record this as CCJ... I've had a few that are due to fall off after the 6 years limit.

Can anyone beep me up with ideas on where to start? A friend has advised me to send a Three Letter Process that I am about to send next week but want to be sure if this is the way to go.....

I am very distressed at moment with this and any help would be welcome

[MIKE770]

First Steps read
Check dates info should they chance their arm, they are dragging old accounts , but when was the last acknowledgement you made to any correspondence??? as statute barred after 6 years Eng.Wales 5 Years Scotland
Acknowledge Claim if they send one

[MannyUK]

the first ever contact was my 3 letter process to Lowell Solicitors on 1 November 2020... Prior to this, I have never contacted, discussed or acknowledge them in any way.
4
They've not responded to my letter (I gave them 14 days to respond). Instead, yesterday, I received a claim form form the County Court Business Centre with the issue dated 6 November. I believe I've 14 days from the date to make a response.

For me to know if this account Lowell Solicitors are chasing is not statue barred, do you think I should contact EE as the original creditor for updates of the account?

Any suggestions/ideas will be helpful.

[ostell]

Instead of that 3 letter process, which sounds good but not very effective hence the claim form, why did you not send the statute barred letter form the shortcuts on the right?

Just after 5 days from the issue date of the claim form you acknowledge the claim using the details and password on the form. Nothing in the defence. This gives you 33 days to get your defence to the court.

Letter to Lowell demanding copies of all the documents that they intend to use in court in order to narrow the issues between you, as expected by the courts. As they must have these documents to hand to raise the claim you expect them by return or at the very latest within 7 days. You could point out that, according to their letter of the xxxxx the allege debt was from 2010 and therefore is statute barred,

SAR to EE to get all the documents about you.

[MannyUK]

Thanks for the notice and updates. You've given me a real insight on how to proceed.

I am going to acknowledge the County Court claim form today and intend to defend all this claim.

Please when you said "nothing in the defence" what do you mean? Do you mean I should leave the space where I need to put my defence blank on the page 4 of the claims form from the County Court?

And as you've suggested, I am going to demand from Lowell Solicitors all copies of all the documents that they intend to use in court and also also copies from EE.

[MannyUK]

Interestingly, I have received a new letter from Lowrll Solicitors dated 6 November 2020 (same date as on the County Court claim form I received).

This new letter is saying that... thanks for my earlier letters and making them aware of my circumstances "and as such we have made decisions to discontinue the claim issued against you and return the matter to our client for further review. Our client will review your request for documentation along with your data subject access request and contact you accordingly in due course ".

What does this mean to me? That is mean they've discontinue the case and will redraw the claim against me? I am just about to post the completed claim form back to the court today.

Any assistance on this will be greatly appreciated.

[MIKE770]

check with the court it has recirded discontinue,, also dsar request they have to continue and supply within 30 days

[MannyUK]

Sorry I'm a bit lost on what you said...

Do you mean I should check this out with the court to see if they have received any discontinued case from Lowell Solicitors?

And do you mean I should also ask Lowell Solicitors to supply a letter in 30 clarifying this in writing?

I had wanted to post the letter I received from Lowell this morning but for some reason it won't attach when I took a picture from my phone.

[MIKE770]

yes ring the court and ask update

DSAR you state sent to lowells (not solicitor) who stated they forwarded to lowells solicitors state they have finished their part and passed back to the office = ring the court for the update to be sure, as if they are wrong you get CCJ by default

[MannyUK]

Hi, I have tried to call the County Court today for updates to check if the case has been discontinued in regards to the letter I received from Lowell Solicitors that they have withdrawn the case from court.

Since then, I have received further letters from Lowell stating that they will want to give me more time to pay this debt....

In addition, they've also sent "Final Bill" letter from my former EE account dated Feb 2016, plus another letter about the account supposedly from EE stating that ....." EE Limited has assigned the balance to Lowell Portfolio, which means that you owe them your total outstanding balance" (this letter is dated Dec 2019).

Do I have to pay Lowell now? I have already written to EE to check and ask for details of this account.

Please can you advise my next step?

[MannyUK]

.... I need to add this update. Looking again at the supposed letter from EE about the account dated Dec 2019, I cannot actually see anywhere that the letter is from EE. I believe this letter is from Lowell although they've presented it to look like its from EE at first glance.

[Celestine]

That’s quite normal - assignment notices are very often sent out by the new creditor for both parties when they purchased the debt. We call them the goodbye and hello letters and they very often arrive in the same envelope!
Its great that they’ve discontinued the claim, now is the time to find out from Lowell and EE what this account is about. You should SAR EE primarily and be careful to use our templates so that you dont accidentally reset any Limitation time limits.

[MannyUK]

Please can you elaborate further on this for me .... "You should SAR EE primarily and be careful to use our templates so that you dont accidentally reset any Limitation time limits."

Do you think if I request the SAR from EE could reset the time limitation? I can see from one of the last bills from EE (based on what Lowell sent me ) that the last Final Bill was in February 2016, although I dont really remember when the account was in default.

[Celestine]

An account which has not yet reached six years since expiry of default notice, can be 'reset' if you acknowledge the debt. If you look at the wording of our Limitation Act template, you'll see that the wording protects you from this eventuality.
You can send a SAR to EE without acknowledging the debt, so that's not a major issue, its the dealings with Lowell that you have to show caution.

If the last bill was 2016 then you are two years away from Limitation, but it is very odd that you don't recall much of the account, so there are questions to consider.
On the other hand, now that you have a discontinuance, you could just sit tight and see what they do; which will very likely be nothing.

[MannyUK]

Thanks for your updates, I've sent EE the DSAR and look forward to hear from them.

In previous years gone by I've suffered mental health and breakdown and been in and out of hospitals, this is reason why I couldn't keep track of this account. I'm now on top of this and hope this can be resolved once and for all for me to be debt free. I'm just waiting to see what Lowell Solicitors will do and have tried several times to call the courts to find out if Lowell have actually discontinued the case.... Will the court reply to me if I write them to find out?

You guys have been excellent with your helpful advice and efforts to help us all fight unscrupulous and greedy debt collectors.