Advice please re threat of court action

[gardener]

Hello.

Financial problems mean I cannot pay the regular payments on more than £70K of credit card debt. My Income/expenditure account is about £400 a month short after half of our secured debt like the Mortgage plus work-travel, food etc. My OH's income is keeping us going. Two debt advice agencies said offer £1pm token payment at the moment. Most creditors accepted.

I disputed the Egg agreement because of the upcoming "Approved Limit" court case and stopped the £1pm. Egg issued a defult notice and terminated a month later. They sold the debt of over £8.5k to Cabot. Cabot sent me a very poor copy of the agreement (hard to read). I queried this but they say it doesn't matter because the original would have been legible.

They are aware of my current financial state but keep sending letters demanding I pay the whole sum in full immediately or contact them to arrange to settle the outstanding balance.

I just got this letter from their in-house solicitor

Dear Mxx xxxxxxxxxxxx
We write on behalf of Cabot Financial (UK) Limited with regards to your account. In order for you to fully understand and appropriately respond to this letter, we are providing you with the following information relating to your account:

Name of Account Holder: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Original Account Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Creditor: Egg
Date debt was assigned to Cabot Financial (UK) Limited: xxxxxxxx
Current balance outstanding: £xxxx
A notice of assignment has already been sent to you.

Your account is currently in default. Despite previous correspondence and requests from us, you have failed to settle this account. Accordingly, the outstanding balance is now payable immediately.

Should you wish to settle this account or discuss a payment plan you must contact us either by telephone or by post immediately.
We have also included information about free debt advice organisations, which may be able to assist you in this matter.

This is an important letter and you are obliged to respond to this letter by writing to us by virtue of the Practice Direction to the Pre-Action Protocols within the Civil Procedure Rules 1998. If we do not receive a response within one month of the date of this letter, legal proceedings will be issued against you without any further notice or warning to you. If you intend to represent yourself in any forthcoming proposed legal proceedings, we can provide you with a copy of the Practice Direction upon request.

We are obliged to inform you that should you not comply with the Practice Direction, the Court has the power to impose sanctions, which may include costs sanctions.

Call one of our Litigation Officers on 01732 524610 (Minicom: 01732 524630). Our opening hours are Monday to Friday
8am to 7.30pm and Saturday 9am to 2pm.

We now look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Morgan Solicitors
Collections Department

I see now that the "Approved Limit" court case was lost and I can restart the token payments but apart from that I need sound advice what to do next, firstly what to reply.

Thank you.

[Amethyst]

Re: Advice please re threat of court action

Definately go back with an installment repayment offer that you can afford. It is unfortunate you stopped paying due to the approved limit stuff but what is done is done.
They are a bit full on with the stuff about CPRs, but I assume you have sent them letters regarding the approved limit stuff with a bit of legal jargon in before (templates from CAG?) so their backs will be up already.

Have the other creditors frozen interest / charges ?

What plans have you got longer term ? (the £1 a months won't hold them off for very long) Equity in your property etc ? (just looking at the big picture)

[The Debt Star]

Re: Advice please re threat of court action

I had nthis problem with Egg and stopped paying them after I disputed the account on CCA issues. I was following CAG advice on stopping payments as paying Egg was described as "weak" over there. I was also new to all of this stuff at that point so followed that advice.

When it became clear that CCA disputes were a no-no in the vast majority of instances, I did find on a SAR that I had been sold monthly premium PPI on my Egg credit card and that permitted me to continue the dispute and I kicked it off to the FOS which has gridlocked everything.

In the meantime, I have started paying Egg a nominal payment by crediting my loan account direct with repayments that I can affiord. i did not give them the option. I just started paying them direct and will continue whether they instruct a DCA on their behalf or not.

Paying them something makes it much harder for them to come after you and it generally slows things down imo.