Moneybarn - Court Hearing

[thescribe]

Hello, I'm after some advice please.

I have a car on finance from Moneybarn. Everything was going swimmingly but then I hit a hard few months. They have terminated the agreement and a court date for delivery up, arrears and damages has now been set tofr mid November.

I have paid less than a third under the agreement.

They are claiming:

1. An order for delivery up of the vehicle.
2. The sum of 17991 representing the balance outstanding
3. damages
5. interest pursuant to the terms from teh date of maturity until full payment at a rate of 29.1
6. costs

I have a couple of questions.

1. Is there anything I can do at this late stage to avoid losing the vehicle? I can pay the arrears in full on 29th of November but that is after the court case and in any case the agreement has already been terminated
2. They are asking for the vehicle AND the sum outstanding, isn't that double bubble for them?
3. The sum includes the interest that would have been paid over the lifetime of the agreement. If the agreement is no longer in place, why do I have to pay 5 years worth of interest?

Please help! Thank you!

[charitynjw]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Hi thescribe & welcome to LB.

I'll nudge [MENTION=71570]R0b[/MENTION] to take a quick look.

[R0b]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Hello,

First of all I need to see the Particulars of Claim on the claim form. Secondly, if a date for the hearing has already been set it sounds as if you have submitted a defence. I will also need to see that too please - you may need to amend your defence which will cost you but you may be eligible for a fee remission.

To upload photos you could go to www.postimage.org and copy and paste the thumbnail for forum link. Make sure to remove any personal information on there.

Unfortunately as they have terminated the agreement, there is no going back. Just for future reference if you are getting into arrears and can't afford to pay, you may be better off terminating the agreement yourself voluntarily which limits your liability to 50%. It means you won't owe as much but can negotiate repayment over time.

As for what they are claiming, surprising that they are asking for delivery up of the vehicle if you haven't paid 1/3 as they are generally entitled to come and collect it without the court's permission.

When a hire purchase agreement is terminated, the amount they are entitled to clam from you is as follows:

The total balance outstanding
less
process from the sale of car
less
the option to purchase

This is a hire purchase agreement yes?

[thescribe]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Hello,

First of all I need to see the Particulars of Claim on the claim form. Secondly, if a date for the hearing has already been set it sounds as if you have submitted a defence. I will also need to see that too please - you may need to amend your defence which will cost you but you may be eligible for a fee remission.

To upload photos you could go to www.postimage.org and copy and paste the thumbnail for forum link. Make sure to remove any personal information on there.

Unfortunately as they have terminated the agreement, there is no going back. Just for future reference if you are getting into arrears and can't afford to pay, you may be better off terminating the agreement yourself voluntarily which limits your liability to 50%. It means you won't owe as much but can negotiate repayment over time.

As for what they are claiming, surprising that they are asking for delivery up of the vehicle if you haven't paid 1/3 as they are generally entitled to come and collect it without the court's permission.

When a hire purchase agreement is terminated, the amount they are entitled to clam from you is as follows:

The total balance outstanding
less
process from the sale of car
less
the option to purchase

This is a hire purchase agreement yes?

Hi and thank you so much for the reply!

I haven't submitted a defence yet, the form to do so came with the notice of the hearing date?

Yes it is a hire purchase agreement and I've definitely paid less than a third.

I'll have to figure out how to send the information to you but I will be able to do that in the morning if that's ok? I really appreciate your help. Very much.

[R0b]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

I see, well the first thing to do is to acknowledge the claim. Once I've seen the relevant information I can assist properly.

If you are on your phone just take a photograph and edit the picture by redacting out the personal info and then you can upload to that site and give a link

[thescribe]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

I see, well the first thing to do is to acknowledge the claim. Once I've seen the relevant information I can assist properly.

If you are on your phone just take a photograph and edit the picture by redacting out the personal info and then you can upload to that site and give a link

Thank you again for taking the time to look at this for me! I'm attaching the particulars of claim (I hope!)

[R0b]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Thank you they are the correct particulars I am after. First of all you might have been sent an acknowledgement of service form, if you have you need to fill this in and send it back to the court as this gives you 28 days from service of the claim form to file a defence.

Secondly, have they enclosed any documents with the POC such as the Conditional Sale Agreement or the Default Notice? Did they send you a letter notifying you that they have now terminated the agreement?

[thescribe]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Hi Rob,

Yes they enclosed a copy of the conditional sale agreement, a counter claim form and a notice of hearing letter. No acknowledgement of service form.

They probably did send me a letter to be honest, but I got myself in such a state that I just ignored everything and chucked it in the bin. I don't think I still have it. Yes - I'm an idiot.

[R0b]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

So there is no claim form that looks like this https://formfinder.hmctsformfinder.j....uk/n1-eng.pdf

The acknowledgement of service form is this one http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/hm...r/n009-eng.pdf

The problem you have is if you have thrown everything away I am not sure whether they have made the claim initially online or they should have enclosed a form with the POC as above. There may be a few anomalies in their POC because they seem to be claiming for the outstanding balance plus delivery up of the car - that in effect puts them in a better position than they should be. Therefore the claim should be for the remaining balance and ownership of the vehicle should be yours or they should request delivery up and then offset the proceeds against the outstanding balance.

You also require the Default Notice letter from them which you can do and they should supply to you within 7 days of receiving the request. Really it is a question of what you want to do here, as you can defend the claim if you wish to and there could be some mitigation but also an argument that they have failed to give notice of termination as expressly set out in the Agreement and their POC fails to mention notice of termination was given and on what date - So it could in effect be a wrongful termination or they may have affirmed the contract in that they accepted the breach.

Do you recall if they had sent any further letters demanding payment since the Default Notice?

[thescribe]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Hi, there is a claim form like the one you show that is stapled to the front of the particulars of claim but definitely no acknowledgement of service form. There are two defence and counterclaim forms though, which is odd.

I've just had a dig through though and found the default notice, would it help if I uploaded a copy of that? I got one letter after that, as far as I can tell, shall I upload that too? Actually I'll just go ahead and do it :-)

[thescribe]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

Any thoughts Rob? I'm really struggling to know what to do! :-(

[R0b]

Re: Moneybarn - Court Hearing

On the face of it I am afraid there's no magic I can pull from a hat on this one. You've ignored all letters and threw them in the bin presumably in the hope that this would all go away.

Any time after the default notice did you receive further letters for missing payments from them request payment of the outstanding balance?

Did you at any point call them to say you weren't able to make the payment but could do the following month?

If the answers to the above are a no, then the only other thing you can do here is damage limitation. You could argue that they have not given notice to terminate the agreement which means they have failed to comply with the strict requirements under the contract but this is me assuming there is a clause in there saying that if you fail to pay they will give notice to terminate. I would need to see the terms and conditions of the conditional sale agreement to determine if you have any hope of raising that point. Even still it could be a bit of a wishy washy argument because your conduct in failing to pay could amount to repudiation, which is what they appear to rely on.

I suggest you acknowledge the claim and fill in the acknowledgement of service form so you have time to file your defence. I would also suggest you consider getting quotes on the value of your car and get that in writing fro dealerships, and also maybe look online for an estimated valuation.

What they can't do is ask for delivery up of the car and damages to the amount which is remaining, it would be either one or the other or they deduct the market value from the balance outstanding and then that is your real debt. You can rely on that in your defence but bear in mind if they took it to auction then the sale of that car is going to be much much less.

How many months into the contract have you had the car? There is case law which may be applicable whereby if you have had the car for a relatively short period of time and defaulted then the lender may not be entitled to all of interest under the agreement and a rebate may be awarded, but I'll have to look into it.

Again, because you are in the wrong and in my opinion (unless I have missed something) you don't appear to have a solid defence so it is all about limiting the damages.