This is the letter I have received:

we note that you have recently files a defence to the court proceedings against you.

we would like to point out the claim was issued via the county court business centre which is a procedure specifically provided for in the cpr. this procedure only allows the claimant to insert brief details of the claim and does not allow for the attachment of any disclosures. paragraph 5.2a of practice directiona 7e specifically states "the requirement in paragraph 7.3 of practice directin 16 for documents to be attached to the particulars of the claim does not apply to claims started using an online claim form, unless the particulars of claim are served seperately in accordance with paragraph 5.2 of this practice direction.

in any event we are struggling somewhat to establish the grounds which you are defending the claim issues against you. to clarify you acknowledge entering into a credit agreement with the original creditor and utilizing the credit facility. you also acknowledge that you were issued a notice of assignment by the claimant.

we note that you go on to state that repayments were being made in respect of the account until a previous account servicer was no longer instructed to collect repayments, you also state that no further correspondence was received until the aforementioned notice of assignment. in view of this it is unclear why you would not have contacted the claimant at this stage to commence repayments which you by evidence your own admission were happy to make in acknowledgement of the debt. should you have any evidence of repayments you believe were not allocated to your account we welcome the same being provided to us within the next 14 days.

we agree that your account will be marked as closed and satisfied with the original creditor as this update will have taken place upon your account being purchased by the claimant and closed by express gifts.

in view of the above we are unsure why you have requested evidence of how you entered into an agreement when you are clearly aware of the same.

the information provided to our firm is that the last payment made in respect of this account was in 2013 and a balance of £667.92 remains outstanding, as above if you hold any evidence to the contrary please forward to us.

we are not aware of any properly constituted request having been made pursuant to s77/78 of the consumer credit act 1974, please therefore provide us with evidence that a valid request has been made to the creditor and that the appropriate statutory fee has been paid, in any event we respectfully point out that even if a valid request has been made non compliance with such a request only renders the account unenforceable until such time that the request has been complied with, it does not mean that the claimant is unable to recover the debt.

finally we wish to remind you that in december 2016 you contacted our firm and made us aware of your intention to complete a financial statement confirming your repayment proposals, this is clearly an indication that you do not in fact genuinely dispute the claim issued against you.

in view of the information set out in this letter, we do not believe your defense has any real prospect of success and we will therefore recommend to our client that an application be made to strike out the defense and to enter judgement against you for the full amount claimed, together with legal fees and costs. should you wish to avoid these further costs being incurred then we invite you to withdraw your defense by completing the enclosed form n9a and returning to office within 14 days.

alternatively our client is prepared to consider any reasonable settlement proposals you may wish to put forward in order to resolve this matter amicably and avoid continuation of this litigation, please contact us within 14 days should this be an option of interest to you.

This is the complete letter.

I suppose my next course of action is to provide a copy of the letter i sent with regard to s77/s78 CCA along with tracking details showing proof of receipt and proof of the postal order along with proof of any payments I can prove that I have paid to the previous company.

Or do i call to discuss what they are willing to accept to stop this going any further?

Thankyou for your help

Okay.....

Well first off you did not question or raise their first paragraph...so thats from the standard template response.

The grounds you are defending on are quite clear from the defence...you are putting the claimant to strict proof to provide the documents..that they have the agreement on which its claim relies on....and were have all the payments gone made to Regal.

Until they can satisfy a copy of the agreement and a full set of statements of account with payments and a true balance..the claim remains defended.As per Civil Procedure Rule 16.5(4), it is expected that the Claimant prove the allegation that the money is owed.

The enclosing the n9a part is template...thats on all their responses....

file with your defence for now......lets see if they wish to proceed.

Thank you Andy, shall I reply with proof of s77/s78 CCA and just state that I wish to carry on defending the claim until they can provide proof of agreement and what I owe?

Thank you Andy, shall I reply with proof of s77/s78 CCA and just state that I wish to carry on defending the claim until they can provide proof of agreement and what I owe?

No..because a section 77/78 request is not valid unless its sent to the creditor...you dont send it to a Solicitor..they know that..it states in your defence were it was sent...they are winding you up.

No..because a section 77/78 request is not valid unless its sent to the creditor...you dont send it to a Solicitor..they know that..it states in your defence were it was sent...they are winding you up.

Thanks for your reply, do I need to acknowledge their letter or just ignore until they make the next move?

ignore.

My defense was filed on the 20th February which is 16 days ago,

am I right in thinking that if I let the 14 days they have given me elapse then the claim would technically be stayed anyway and they would have to have the stay lifted to resume proceedings?

Ive read lots of threads on this and most have varying outcomes,

I presume that my best outcome is pestons feel there is too many things they have not got in order in which to pursue a small amount of money and that the letter they have sent me is just trying to scare me into either submitting to their tactics and calling them to make payment?

you're learning...

Hi its been 36 days now since I had to submit my defense, I have checked the mcol website and nothing has changed on there and also I have had no further correspondence from the other parties, how long have these guys got to reply to my defense please?

read the comms you got from the court acknowledging your defence

post 57

post 57

Yes it was me that wrote post 57 I just assumed I would get either some notification from the court as to the lack of reply to my defense or I would be able to read something of the sort on the mcol website when i logged into the claim

You don't normally hear anymore from the court but if you give them a bell they will confirm if the claim is stayed following no reply to your defence.

Although as it's Rectums you're dealing with it's what they do and in a few weeks you'll receive their application to lift the stay, strike out/summary judgment.

How much was the original balance owing to the OC when you started the £10 monthly payments.

If you've got records (bank statements) showing payments to Regal, who never passed it on, then I would be finding out how much, if anything, should be remaining from the original balance after deducting the 3 years of payments and compare that to what is now being claimed.

In this situation if it was me and for an easy life, if the correct amount owing is relatively small I would have either challenged the amount claimed and offered what you believe is the correct balance and if they didn't agree then gone with a very basic defence along the lines of your very first post.

UPDATE

Nothing more was heard of this regarding the court action, we received one letter asking us to get in touch with Restons with regard to the payments i made to the liquidated company.

After a couple of emails, my offer of £300 to settle the debt was accepted which is £400 less than they were originally after me for.

A good result I think, thank you everyone for your help and input.

what about the court claim?

have they discontinued it?