County Court Summons - can i defend it?**WON CASE STRUCK OUT*

[stephen7]

hi all,
as per a previous post of mine, i am preparing to defend a CCS from a DCA. they recently bought the debt from paragon, who, in turn bought/took over the debt from universal credit in 1999.
due to my financial circumstances at the time, i had agreed with universal to freeze the account and for them to accept reduced payments. at no time have i had anything from them regardingunfreezing the account and to increase payments. the original loan was for £1700, i have repaid almost £1800, but the new DCA is now taking me to court for over £6100.
i consulted a solicitor, whose best advice was to make the DCA an offer and hope they accept it.
anyone got nay ideas/advicw as to the best way to defend it, if indeed, i can?

[pt2537]

Hi

can you post up the particulars of claim please removing all personal details first

regards

paul

[Edz11]

Smells a bit iffy this. Paragon only sell dodgy stuff. Which means it may well not be kosher.

[stephen7]

hi paul,
i took 2 loans( this one was for £1700 ) out with universal credit in 1996. due to my circumstances in 1998, universal took me to court over the first one and received a judgement.
because of this, instead of taking me to court over the second, they agreed to freeze the account and accept a reduced payment of £15.00 per month ( should have been £27.00).
i have been paying this amount ever since.sometime in 1999, paragon took over the loan from universal, but have never asked me to increase payments and have continued to accept the £15.00 per month. at the begining of this year it was passed on to arrow global receivables ltd.
i received numerous calls from them demanding the full amount (£5900). this was the first time i knew they were charging interest.but informed them i could only carry on with the monthly payments, and that i disputed the amount owed.
at times over the years, i may have missed the odd payment, but have also made increased payments to compensate for this.
i have now received the CCS for the amount of £6177.01 plus court fees of £190.00 and solicitors costs of £100.00. totalling £6467.01.
from an original loan of £1700.00 and having already repaid £1800.00 surely this can't be right, or am i just naive?
do i have any defence?
by the way, i have just printed out the template asking for details of the debt as there is none on the summons.also got a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) , but the details only start when paragon took over. have also lost the letter of agreement from universal ( well, it was 10 years ago )

[pt2537]

Hi stephen7

what does the County court claim form say? there should be the basic outline of their case IE "the Claimant claims the sum of xxxx under a credit agreement etc"

it would be helpful to know what their particulars are, some of them ive seen are so illiterate so im interested as to what they are claiming

regards

paul

[stephen7]

hi paul,
on the CCS:
the claimants claim is for monies due from the defendent under an agreement between the parties dated 19 november 1996 regulated under the consumer credit act 2006 full particulars whereof have been delivered to the defendant
the claimant also claims costs.
apart from demands for payments. i have received nothing from them. this was a joint loan including my wife, so we both have received a summons. does this mean i would have to do everything in duplicate? one for me and one for the wife?

[pt2537]

OH DEAR, theyve well and truly pooched those particulars

you would think they would at least know which act pf parliament they are going to sue you under

the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is the act which is relevent here schedule 3, s11 of the Consumer Credit Act 2006 prevents s15 repealing s127 (3) of the 1974 Act for agreements made before s15 came into effect since the agreement is alleged to have commenced in 1996 the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is the relevant act in this case.

they really dont have much of a clue what they are doing obviously

you are both defendants in this action so any defence will be a joint defence so no need to do everything twice

Regards
paul

[tomterm8]

have you sent a consumer credit agreement request at any point?

Thing is, paragon usually has a copy of the agreement, BUT if this was taken over from an earlier company, by now it probably doesn't exist any more.

oh yeah, the POC are majorly crap.

Do you have a letter confirming interest was frozen?

[stephen7]

Originally Posted by tomterm8

have you sent a consumer credit agreement request at any point?

requsted it and was sent a copy of an agreement, but NOT the original

Originally Posted by tomterm8

Do you have a letter confirming interest was frozen?

unfortunately not any more, requested that also, but never even got a reply
with regards to this:
you would think they would at least know which act pf parliament they are going to sue you under

the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is the act which is relevent here schedule 3, s11 of the Consumer Credit Act 2006 prevents s15 repealing s127 (3) of the 1974 Act for agreements made before s15 came into effect since the agreement is alleged to have commenced in 1996 the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is the relevant act in this case.

they really dont have much of a clue what they are doing obviously

can you explain as to what this would affect in my case?
is it worth sending off the letter of request for details, would them suing me under the wrong act be beneficial to me?
and what is the next best course of action?

[pt2537]

well basically it shows how stupid they are, they have started an action in court against you and they are quoting the wrong act of parliament .

this is an issue for your defense so no need to raise this with them now

[stephen7]

so, i won't inform them of that then, it's a start, thank you.
have sent off my letter of acknowledgement to the court informing them i intend to defend the claim, so i believe i have about another 21 days to get my defense together.

[pt2537]

well,

In the XXXX County Court
Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME)
Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER)


Dear XXX

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below.

The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought.

1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened.
2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to:

a. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations by your company, or by any previous creditor
b. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.
c. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.
d.Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).
e. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.
f. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.
g. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998
h. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.
i. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.

3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court.


I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim.

Yours sincerely,

XXXX (type, don't sign).

thats the letter you need to be sending to the DCA who has issued the claim against you, i assume this is the template letter you are refering to? it need to go special delivery as a matter of urgency

with regards to the defence, that is not so much of a problem as we can have that put together in a few minutes, well not quite minutes but we need to wait til you get a reply to the CPR request,if you dont get a reply then we can file a holding defence until the judge orders them to comply

[stephen7]

paul,
thanks again, yes that is what i was refering to,have printed it out and will send first thing in the morning.
so i guess things are on hold till i get a reply. or not, whichever the case me be.

[pt2537]

Hi stephen,
thats it basically, we wait and see if they send anything, then if they do send a credit agreement you will need to post a copy on here so we can scrutinise it and see if it is compliant with the law, if its not then its game over for them

if they dont have the agreement then its game over too, but if they dont supply anything before the date to file your defence, we will file a holding defence to keep you ticking over

regards
paul