Hello

About 4 years ago I received a claim from Cabot for a debt of about £26,000

- I say about because the figure has varied in their correspondence.

I made a CCA request and received no reply.

A couple of years later I was contacted by Restons who threatened me with court action if I did not pay up.

Restons took the case to court and I duly submitted my defence that they had not provided me with proof that I owed them any debt

- nothing further was heard for about 12 months, the case having been automatically stayed.

Restons then applied to have the stay lifted and applied to the court for a Pre-Judgement hearing which I attended in June of this year.

At the hearing the judge ordered that:

1. Unless the Claimant do file and serve copies of the following in 28 days, i.e. by 17 July 2017, the claim be struck out:

1.1 Credit Agreement between the Defendant and Lloyds TSB.

1.2 Default notices in relation to Credit Agreement.

1.3 Deed of Assignment between Lloyds TSB and the Claimant (and any preceeding assignments).

1.4 Notice to Defendant of any assignment.

2. Costs of today and the application be borne by the Claimant in any event.

3. Within 14 days of service upon him of all the documents above, the Defendant do file an amended Defence.

4. The application for summary judgement is dismissed.

5. Permission to appeal refused.

Restons have not provided me with copies of all the above documents.

However,

Restons have now made an application to appeal on the grounds that the judge erred.

They have been given permission to appeal

- the judge's order has been put on hold pending the appeal which is due to be heard this later this month.

I would be extremely grateful for any help as to how to proceed.

Do I need to attend the Appeal Hearing?

And if so what would I need to do?

It's only thanks to these forums that I have been able to defend this action so far.

Well done for getting this far.

Your story is pretty much identical to mine.

Restons really are a bunch of idiots.

I would say yes, if the appeal is granted then attend.

In my experience the judges are getting pretty peed off with the way Restons operate.

If they truly had a case against you they should have got their act together 18months ago by the sound of it.

10/10 well done both of you

restons are getting really desperate with cases that use info from CAG now.

yes you attend

might not be a bad idea to knock up a LiP costs sheet..

..what is it now £19p/h..

.judge might allow it as punishment.

.hopefully..

Hi,

yes that was the impression I got from the judge at the pre-judgement hearing.

The solicitor? at the hearing argued and interrupted the judge throughout the proceedings and she had to repeat herself a number of times, even telling him to be quiet.

The judge actually said

"You are wasting my time. And you are wasting the defendant's time".

The judge seemed to be pretty annoyed.

what I don't understand now though is how the judge could have got it so wrong - Restons have produced a list of grounds that the judge erred when making the order.

Restons have now been given permission to appeal the original judge's order.

They not have he She sent anyway. Apart from what's already been said, that Ali e will kill the claim.

Cabot and restons saw the amount and ate rubbing their grubby hands.

Remember, Cabot don't chase Legit debts. They're bottom feeders

was it restons though themselves or a local rep?

I assumed it was a Restons employee at the hearing.

I bet it wasn't.

Well whoever it was he came across as a quite desperate individual.

Restons Grounds Of Appeal

Ground One - The judge erred in finding that the Respondent had a real prospect of successfully defending the claim and dismissing the claim for summary judgement.

Ground Two - The judge erred in making the order for specific inspection and disclosure of any default notice, it being irrelevant to the parties' pleaded cases.

Ground Three - The judge erred in making the order for specific disclosure and inspection of any default notice, it being a document that was not and had never been in the Appellant's control.

Ground Four - By making a peremptory order with which the Appellant could not comply, and by providing the sanction of having its claim struck out if it did not comply the judge acted such as to disproportionately and unjustly deprive the Appellant of a fair hearing of its claim.

Ground Five - The judge erred in refusing to permit the Appellant to make redactions to commercially sensitive parts of the deed of assignment, when those parts had the potential to damage the Appellant's business and were irrelevant to the matters issuing.

Ground Six - The judge made the costs order at paragraph 2 of her order without permitting the parties to make submissions, amounting to a procedural irregularity such that the order should be set aside.

Ground Seven - The judge erred in making the order that the Appellant be responsible for the costs of the application and the hearing in any event, given that the issue of a default notice was one that had never been raised before and on which the Appellant might sugsequently be vindicated.

I would love to know more about Ground Five.

Goodness me they are bullies!

Is it appropriate to ask for examples of what makes up each ground for appeal???

Perhaps other forum members can advise?

the deed shows how much they paid for the debt

typically

surprised the judge has demanded that be produced as it is commercially sensitive

oh and the rest can be ignored not relevant

the ones mentioning default notice are

they've taken this tact of recent in not mentioning default in the POC?

then they say you cant see it.

however a default notice or the lack of one in the prescribed terms of part 87 is fatal to their claim.

it must exist and be compliant under CCA

Thank you everyone for your replies.

The CAG forums are awesome and amazing.

I should mention that I've also received another letter from Restons asking me to provide them with a 'Skeleton Argument' in advance of THEIR appeal.

The way I see it I don't have to communicate further with Restons.

I'm assuming that the Appeal Hearing will be taken up with Restons' submissions to the court and then I will be given the opportunity to make comments?

Is it acceptable for me to interject/object or do I have to wait for permission to speak?

At the pre-judgment hearing the judge without being explicit about it, indicated that it was in my interest at the time to actually say very little.

Going by the reasons that the rep appealed against , it feels of absolute desperation and has all the tell tale signs of a very desperate solicitor for hire

Yes, cheers and thanks to the info on the CAG forums I was able to keep going with this. But, it hasn't been pleasant over the years with the harassing letters and phone calls, etc. something the judge acknowledged at the pre-judgement hearing. The judge made a point of the length of time this has been going on.

I would love to know more about Ground Five.

 

Goodness me they are bullies!

 

Is it appropriate to ask for examples of what makes up each ground for appeal???

 

Perhaps other forum members can advise?

[Ground Five - The judge erred in refusing to permit the Appellant to make redactions to commercially sensitive parts of the deed of assignment, when those parts had the potential to damage the Appellant's business and were irrelevant to the matters issuing.]

Restons submit that:

"After the judge had resolved to make paragraph 1 of her order, it was requested that the Appellant be permitted to redact commercially sensitive parts of the deed of assignment. This was refused.

The disclosure of commercially sensitive information, which might for example include the price paid on the assignment, does not assist the parties and wider knowledge and dissemination of such information may plainly risk injury to its business.

Such information is irrelevant and ought not to be ordered to be disclosed in any event, and the judge was wrong to do so."

Regarding continued calls and letters, have a read of Harrison vs link

Reg

adding their will retort about deeds, a judge can request it to ensure the debt is indeed valid.

How on earth they can say it's detrimental to their business is laughable and reminds me of a shady United States lawyer trying to pull a fast one on a judge

Regarding continued calls and letters, have a read of Harrison vs link

Thank you I'll have a read of that.

oh and the rest can be ignored not relevant

the ones mentioning default notice are

they've taken this tact of recent in not mentioning default in the POC?

then they say you cant see it.

however a default notice or the lack of one in the prescribed terms of part 87 is fatal to their claim.

it must exist and be compliant under CCA

Thanks dx - and at the hearing the rep referred to what he called my "rubbishy defence."

As restons always do

I don't have any experience of court procedures etc so at the hearing, do I need to be proactive, should I challenge each ground or wait until I'm invited to say something by the judge?

Judge directs

Ok, cheers.

Well done for getting this far.

 

Your story is pretty much identical to mine.

 

Restons really are a bunch of idiots.

 

I would say yes, if the appeal is granted then attend.

 

In my experience the judges are getting pretty peed off with the way Restons operate.

 

If they truly had a case against you they should have got their act together 18months ago by the sound of it.

beatrestons thanks - how did your Restons story end?

[edit] ah sorry - the clue to the answer to that question seems to be in your username.

Thank you I'll have a read of that.

 

Thanks dx - and at the hearing the rep referred to what he called my "rubbishy defence."

They're sols for.hire.

They don't care if the debts legit or not.

They just want their share of the amount on that paper.

As you've seen, they'll stoop to any level to try and get it.

Even though it is not legally enforceable.

The judge knows that.

He's even called them out..but restons being restons They're saying the judge is wrong.

To me it sounds like the judge is very clued up on Cabot and restons and their tricks so he's making them dig a hole for themselves. And theyre too dumb to realise it.

Also Remember, Cabot don't chase enforceable debts.

So you know what to do now.

Ok, cheers.

 

beatrestons thanks - how did your Restons story end?

 

[edit] ah sorry - the clue to the answer to that question seems to be in your username.

Spot on, the clue is in the name . They chased us for £3K.

We owed Halifax £7K, set up a DMP with Stepchange and fully paid off the £7K.

During the 12 years of the DMP Halifax charged £3K in interest, despite promises not to etc.

After the DMP ended they passed the 'debt' around the houses and then it ended up in Cabot's hands.

To cut a long story short we had the usual letters from Reston's, and the claim which we defended. It was stayed.

A year later Reston's applied to have the stay lifted and their intention was to request the judge to strike out our defence bla bla bla. A hearing date was set.

They sent a barriste, to represent them.

Pretty intimidating and was trying to make deals with us immediately prior to the hearing to get us to pay the £3K so we 'woulndnt be wasting the judges time'.

At the first hearing the judge requested more info from Reston's within 8 weeks, set a new hearing date and berated them for delays, being poorly organised and not putting it through the small claims system.

At the second hearing they couldn't produce the info but said it was because it was over Christmas and requested more time so another hearing was set for 4 weeks later.

Meanwhile we had finally got more info from Halifax including recorded phone conversations but there were SERIOUS gaps.

At the third hearing we attended, they didn't show up.

At this point we took advantage of some free advice from a solicitor.

He wrote them a letter detailing all the things they had done wrong

, processes they had not followed,

gaps in their evidence and suggested they go away.

They sent a letter back saying they had decided to no longer chase the debt.

Great outcome in the end but so much hassle to get to that point.

We used annual leave so we could attend court,

weekends were spent going through statements, letters, preparing evidence.

Ultimately though Cabot/Restons lost out as they would have spent a lot of money fighting it. Pillocks!

Brilliant. Thanks for your reply.

Welcome to the lawful dystopia of RestonLand.

When our nightmare started and then intensified over a 4 year period we weren't really sure how to proceed beyond making the CCA request which Cabot and Restons have never responded to.

Obviously I'm hoping that the judge will chuck their appeal out as they have not complied with the original judge's order.

However, I still have this nagging feeling of uncertainty about the outcome.

The CCA request to our creditor helped us the most.

We then did one to Cabot requesting details of internal communications between Halifax/Cabot/Restons. That was fun reading! Panic and gaps.

From what you have said it SHOULD all be OK

, but I know what you mean about the uncertainty.

Hope you get a judge who wants to kick their immoral arses.