CCJ issued while I was out of the country, is statue barred

[JacobS]

Hello all. Will try to be succinct

I have had a CCJ awarded against me while I was out of the country working. The warrant has been suspended by the creditor (Restons/Cabot) once I wrote to them stating the debt was statute barred.

I submitted an N244 form asking for the judgement to be set aside as the debt is statute barred.

Restons called me today but I asked them to call back tomorrow. Does anyone have any idea what they might say or try and get me to agree to on the phone call?

Should I just ask them to contact me in writing instead?

I don't have a court date as yet.

[JacobS]

Sorry I should add that the debt defaulted more than 6 years ago and no payments or acknowledgements have been made by myself in that time. Cabot claim that payments were made on the account as recently as last January, but this was certainly not by me or anyone acting on my behalf. I have heard that some of these accounts end up servicing themselves somehow as the amounts are always small. I am going to request full details of these payments but I know they were not made my myself

[DE DOGS]

Hmm as previously advised to other members. Do not talk to them by telephone, only by mail. It has also been posted before, payments are made to your A/C you need full details of who and by what means payments were made by, what Bank made the payment, no doubt it was a typing error.

[JacobS]

Many thanks I will ask them to write to me when they call

[JacobS]

Another question, I am hoping the judgment will be set aside and I can enter my defence of the debt being statute barred. Can I start requesting things like the 'payments' that were made to the account by another party and the original contract (it is an overdraft from a current account from around 2003)

[JacobS]

I have my date. August 21. I am going to request details of the "payments' made and also a GDPR request for all the information they hold on me. Would anyone recommend anything else? I am planning on attending myself but does anyone think I should obtain legal representation?

[Celestine]

Just for reassurance, please confirm date of default. Are you absolutely certain there was six years between default and issue of court claim (which stops clock)
Yes absolutely data request for everything but most specifically those mystery payments.
No CCA in this case as overdrafts are not covered, so you cannot request copies of original contract.

As long as you are watertight on your default date, Limitation is an absolute defence and you will not need any other defence points to succeed.
You should be fine to self represent and unless the claim amount is over 10k you cannot recover legal costs.

[JacobS]

Celestine,

thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

The account was previously on my credit file but dropped off 2 years or so ago, so I do not have the default, however I do have a letter from Restons Solicitors that the "termination date" was May 2010, and the Date of Assignment was January 2013.

Termination Date: May 2010
Date of Assignment: January 2013

I assume (I hope correctly) that the date of assignment is when the debt was sold to Cabot, and so must have been after the default date and is therefore well over the 6 years. They claim a payment was made in January 2020 (this was not made by me or anyone acting on my behalf)

They also sent me a statement of account showing credits from December 2012 until Dec 2019. These were all for around £20 every month in that period. Again, those payments were not made by me or anyone acting on my behalf. I have read that these may be the account paying itself and is sometimes used to show payments have been made and therefore the clock has not stopped.

So the only issue I have to is to prove that those payments were not made by myself, and then the default will be very clear, which I would have defended had I been in the country when the papers were served and been able to lodge a defence.

Thanks for the info about legal costs and all your help. You have a wonderful site it is literally saving my life right now!

J

Just for reassurance, please confirm date of default. Are you absolutely certain there was six years between default and issue of court claim (which stops clock)
Yes absolutely data request for everything but most specifically those mystery payments.
No CCA in this case as overdrafts are not covered, so you cannot request copies of original contract.

As long as you are watertight on your default date, Limitation is an absolute defence and you will not need any other defence points to succeed.
You should be fine to self represent and unless the claim amount is over 10k you cannot recover legal costs.

[Celestine]

OK yes that sounds like you have got a good argument for limitation.
Can you access your own bank statements to prove no payments come from your account.
Not sure what you mean by the account paying itself, but if it is, then that would not be acceptable - hopefully the SAR will reveal all. Please let us know if you need any help drafting anything.

[JacobS]

Hi all. The hearing is on Friday, I am now drafting my papers. No response was received to my SAR, but I have been sent the details in the court filings. It shows what they claim are payments I made to the original creditor (HSBC), which were sent to Cabot.

Each month there is a payment entitled: Bank Giro Manually Posted- they claim to not have the details of who/where this payment comes from.
Each month there is a corresponding outgoing payment: Debt Sale transfer (Debit) for the same amount.

They say: "It is not realistic for the original creditor to be able to trace these payments to an individual"

[Celestine]

They say: "It is not realistic for the original creditor to be able to trace these payments to an individual"

Nonsense! These are clearly some sort of internal systems process. These payments are within 6 years old, by not explaining them they weaken their case substantially.

Good luck on Friday, keep us posted X

[JacobS]

Thank you again Celestine. I have seen a few comments to just keep my defence simple- would you agree and are there any templates I should follow?

[Celestine]

We have a defence template in the right hand sidebar: https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...-court-claims/
The words 'Debt Sale Transfer' seem to suggest these payments are somehow connected to the transfer of the account from the original creditor to Cabot? The credit/debit structure of the payments underlines that this was an internal process, but if you can match them to your own current account statements (showing no payments) that might nudge an unsympathetic Judge in the right direction.