Help! Received Court Claim Form**WON**

[MR2Phil]

Yeah, and I really appreciate you taking the time to help me on this, Paul. I'm just a bit worried, as you can imagine. I will wait a bit longer to acknowledge as I have 14 days from 26th (or is that 5 days after the 26th to be served?). Either way, I'll treat it as 26th to be on the safe side. I have asked for all the documents etc (as advised) so I'll wait and see what happens. IF they have all the douments necessary to proceed against me perhaps I can then appeal to their better nature?! JUST when I thought I was getting myself straight......

[pt2537]

Originally Posted by MR2Phil

Yeah, and I really appreciate you taking the time to help me on this, Paul. I'm just a bit worried, as you can imagine. I will wait a bit longer to acknowledge as I have 14 days from 26th (or is that 5 days after the 26th to be served?). Either way, I'll treat it as 26th to be on the safe side. I have asked for all the documents etc (as advised) so I'll wait and see what happens. IF they have all the douments necessary to proceed against me perhaps I can then appeal to their better nature?! JUST when I thought I was getting myself straight......

Hi phil, totally understandable mate,

let me try and help you put your mind at rest,

here a thread What would you do?

for you to have a look over, it goes to show that we do win some

however i think at this stage of things youve got little or nothing to lose, you have the right to have the documents shown to you so you can see that their claims are legitimate and that the amount they claim is indeed what you owe

Regards
paul

[andyorch]

"I will wait a bit longer to acknowledge as I have 14 days from 26th (or is that 5 days after the 26th to be served?). Either way, I'll treat it as 26th to be on the safe side."



Hi Phil
You have till the 14th Dec to file your A.O.S I would recommend a call to the court just to check,phone number is top right of Summons, tiny print.
Court staff are quite helpful and will advise.As you quite rightly state serves no purpose in acknowledging too early the time frame remains the same to submit your defence and offers you the opportunity to keep them guessing and play them at their own mindgames.I would recommend say 12th Dec.
They will no doubt be watching M.C.O.L in eager anticipation to see if you intend to defend or not and i would strenously advise you to defend in full.Anything less will only give rise to them hoping to attain a S/Judgement.If the ball was on the other foot dont you suspect they would do same!!!




Regards
Andy

[MR2Phil]

Cheers Paul and Andy! Paul, I've just read through that link you gave me...excellent result for Rosie! Andy, ok I will leave it for a few more days then...let them sweat! Ha ha!

[pt2537]

Hi Phil,

i think it would be prudent if you havent already done so just to check with the court what time frames you have to follow. the last thing you want is not to submit a document because you are out of time

im glad you had a chance to read rosies thread as its a good example of what weve already advised

the thing we must always be mindful of though is that sometimes credit agreements do turn up and if this happens then we can look at the next step if this happens.


still at this stage all we can do is wait and see what they send


regards
paul

[MR2Phil]

Morning,

I received a letter today from CL Finance informing me that they had been assigned the debt...the letter was dated 23rd November, which I thought a bit weird, considering I received the notice from the court way before this letter! Its a pretty standard thing by the looks of it, demanding the full amount in 14 days etc.

I was thinking...probably around half of this is made up of penalty charges (perhaps less, just a guess). Could I do a counter claim at some stage?

[pt2537]

Hi Phil,

can i just confirm something,

CL finance are the ones taking you to court yes? can you confirm the date of the summons and also the date on the postage mark from the letter you are quoting

if they are not legally assigned the debt im fairly certain they dont have a right of legal action in their own name,assignment is a tricky area but to have the right to sue in your own name the assignment must be carried out prior

[MR2Phil]

Hi Paul,

I think (don't have them to hand right now) that the date of issue of the court papers was 26th November. The letter I mentioned above (assignment of debt) does not have a postmark, I've already looked for that. It's just one of those "Business Post" things. It mentions that GE Capital (the store card company) have assigned them the debt and that I should send full payment directly to them to avoid judgement against me.

I still don't recall ever having a proper default notice. Would this have come from GE Capital? And what about the fact that the amount they've quoted must contain LOADS of penalty charges?

[pt2537]

Hi phil,

well, under the civil procedure rules pre-action protocols there are rules that must be followed, they should have acted reasonably to resolve the issue before commencing proceedings

ok, to help me get a grip of whats happened, can you list a brief breakdown as to what has happened in the lead up to court,

has there been any letters from anyone threatening court action or informing you that in X days they will commence proceedings ?

with regards to the charges, they can be reclaimed for sure

and a default notice would have come from GE capital AFIK as CL have only just appeared on the scene

[MR2Phil]

Ok, breakdown...

Card was taken out with GE Capital back in 2003 (I think). Never had any trouble with them, always paid off amounts etc. Only really got into trouble around this summer when circumstances meant I moved into a flat on my own and costs rocketed and I got into a situation where I wasn't able to meet payments etc. I tried offering a certain amount but they wouldn't budge. For example, they wanted £120ish but I could really only afford £80, then the next month it was £190 and so on...so I could never meet my arrears. I had numerous letter from GE Capital threatening action etc but I kept trying to make payments where I could so (I thought) they could see I was serious about getting myself out of the mire with them. This was until one day I tried to pay £80, they said the debt had been passed to Viking(???) and that they would be in touch. They wouldn't take my money. Viking NEVER, EVER got in touch, except to write to me to say that the debt had been passed BACK to GE Capital, who then, in turn, informed me that proceedings would start without further notice. A week or so later, the court papers arrive from CL Finance which brings me to this point. As I said, the Notice of Assignment arrived today. They have had the request for information regarding this account, which I sent off last week by Special Delivery.

The truly annoying thing about ALL this is that I WANT to pay it off! I am in no way trying to get out of paying it, I just want them to be reasonable! I don't want the CCJ, that's all! Ok, the fact that I can't pay it right now means I have to go down the defending route but if we could come to an agreement then all would be happy. I don't understand why they didn't explore this avenue before slapping this on me

[pt2537]

UNBELIEVABLE PHIL !!!!!!!!

they should have acted reasonably in trying to settle this dispute

at the end of the day im sure that the judge would view in your favor that you have been trying to resolve this reasonably

the thing is that while i accept that you want to pay these fools they have to act within the civil procedure rules and also have to produce the documents requested and the documents must be in the prescribed form etc

we can look at the defence and include their unreasonable behavior and the fact that CL have taken legal action without trying to resolve the issue which is viewed as a big no no

[MR2Phil]

Ok, good. Thanks for reassuring me. I don't have any proof that I have tried to be reasonable in my payments though as it was always spoken over the phone, rather than put into writing...I think I am going to phone CL and at least see what they have to say for themselves with regards to coming to an agreement. I would feel a lot better about it but I still want them to knock off the amount created by penalty charges!

[pt2537]

Hi Phil

lett us know what they say, especially if they agree to discontinue proceedings as you have a legitimate defence as things stand so bear this in mind. DO NOT under any circumstance accept that they have discontinued proceedings until you receive a notice of discontinuance . these companies dont play by the rules so just remember that

[MR2Phil]

Well...I just wasted 5 minutes of my life and 5 free minutes on my phone bill talking to Howard Cohen who act on behalf of CL. Rather cute sounding girl told me that the only way I could avoid the CCJ was to cough up in full inside three months. This is a glimmer of light as it could give me time but I explained to her that, as a poor teacher on a poor teacher's wage, I couldn't afford over £300 a month for three months. I also explained that if it went to court the judge would only make me pay what I could afford anyway. She paused at this but then carried on saying there was nothing further she could do to help.

Still sounded cute though...

So I guess I sit tight and wait to see what documents that have on me.

[MR2Phil]

I am just about to submit my AoS and tell them I intend to defend. Can someone please tell me if I need to enter a reason as to why I'm defending? What are my grounds etc?

Many thanks