So you think i shouldn't bring up that they have failed to show evidence of assignment to them in 2014 and further have failed to show a chain of assignment leading up to that?

I had thought that was a crucial weakness in their case, failing to show that they own the debt, so I'm surprised you don't want me to go there. Unless I've misunderstood? Happy to go with your advice of course.

not saying that

they have to produce chain of assignment, you've mentioned that already.

but let them hang themselves , its not for you to point it out, but for the sheriff to do so,

p'haps with prompting, but, assignment in Scotland can be very important or not needed at all depending upon the sheriffs own viewpoint

butharking back to the 1st CMD, this sheriff appears a cute one, so don't let that slip by if it looks to be necessary, but I think he will bury them on other issues anyway, as to date they've still NOT complied with his original orders..

Thanks dx, I understand what you're saying now.

The hearing takes place on Friday.

Is there a specific approach that you think I should take on the day, other than letting the sheriff take the lead if it seems he's going my way I assume?

I'll post up tomorrow the points I was thinking of raising and in what order etc and hopefully you can let me know what you think.

As per your point above,

I thought I'd start with pointing out that "they have failed to comply with the court's order for the principal agent to appear and for an original CCA to be produced, both of which may have shed some light on exactly what debt they are pursuing here".

Then go on to say that, "before I give any evidence, I'd like to summarise my position, which is that the claimant's have produced no original credit agreement showing that the debt in question ever existed,, despite having suggested in their claim over 4 months ago that they had one and it would be produced.

They have only produced a CCA for what ostensibly appears to be an unrelated loan. They have no proof of having ever been assigned the debt and from who they say assigned it to them, only a letter to me saying "we bought this debt" and have produced no chain of assignation" (as per your comment above, he did seem to be a sheriff who wants to see that) "from the OC to show that they obtained the legal right to recover any debt they may or may not have paid for.

Furthermore and in any event, their case is timebarred.

Based on any or all of those points my submission is that the claimant has failed to show any legal right of recovery for the debt in question and accordingly my motion today is to ask the court to grant decree of absolvitor with expenses in my favour. If it pleases the court , I'm happy to give evidence in support of those points by dealing with the claimant's averments in more detail."

Then just see if he stops me there or asks me to go through the evidence. If I'm lucky, he might already have his mind made up by this stage and I won't have to go through all the specifics flaws in the claim, which I will list here tomorrow for inclusion/exclusin as you see fit (eg the acc number sued for being a current account, the debt not being sold in 2007 as per LLoyds own staff, and certainly not sold to Prime credit who didn't exist at the time.

That the payments statements of account relate to the account being sued for, which wasn't a loan account and in any case the payments dates suggest timebarred.

That the only mention of the account in question on the direct debit produced is as a funding account for payments to a separate loan account

. That the CCA produced is for a loan account and even if it was the debt being sued for, which it isn't, it would also be timebarred. etc etc).

Does that sound like a reasonable approach so far?

Just get those main points across and see what he says?

It's possible the sheriff has changed his mind but the impression he gave last time is that he thought their case was crap and their amendments can't have done much to change that (and if anything only muddied the waters further) , so hopefully he thinks I "don't have to push an open door" again and won't be looking for too much in the way of evidence for me, instead preferring me to leave it to the claimant to hang themselves as you say, with his assistance.

I really wish youd stop trying to hang youself...

Play it by ear speak only when spoken too

Answer only WHAT IS SPECIFICALLY ASKED OF YOU..then stop!!

OK, I hear you. I know that less is more in my position as Defender, I suppose I just wanted to be prepared with arguments in case I needed them, as unlikely as that might be. I totally understand what you are saying though and I'll keep my mouth shut as much as possible!

good

you've everything you need

just use the parts IF that part is questioned.

I just received this email from Shoos:-

"Dear Mr. XXXXXXX

I would be grateful if you could give me a call in relation to Friday’s hearing.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

How do you think I should respond?

I have a missed call from them too.

Is it best to ask them to correspond via email only?

no!!

block their email address and bounce the msg back.

you NEVER talk to the fleecers or their dogs

over the phone

at your door

in an email

or

before the court hearing whilst waiting to go in

you smile and walk away.

I know I've nurse maided you but that was my fault

but you really do need to READ every other SPC or any other type of claim thread in this Scottish forum.

as far as I can see you've read NONE unless done so when not logged in..

OK I won't reply. The only issue is that I intimated my amendment and list of witnesses via email, so they know it's a valid email address. Doesn't mean I have to correspond with them if I don't want to though.

I was actually worried they were calling to drop the case or something, when what I want I really want (perhaps being greedy i Know) is for the sheriff to castrate them on the day and a decree of absolvitor.

I'm not sure where you're getting that from DX. I've read all the links I could find that were relevant and all the ones that you have linked to me. I have 19 saved chrome tabs with everything from relevant cases to the SP rules, which I've read several times now. I've had those since the start and added as I went along, so the only time I'm logging in is to see posts on the thread. I can only think that's why it appears I haven't read the things you're referring to.

I had also read not to make contact with DCAs or their dogs, but obviously I have to do that to intimate parts of the procedure like amendment etc and doing it by letter or email makes no difference as you're still communicating with them to intimate. I did both so they couldn't say they didn't receive anything and postpone things any further.

I'm sorry if you feel that you've nurse-maided me but I assure you I've spent hours reading the relevant materials, several times.

good thank you

some people get so tied up in issues they forget the basics

you really don't want to give them the opportunity to back out before it gets to the sheriff..

cause if you do, you cant ask for costs.

but if its thrown out or however they lose..once infront of him you can...

Yeah that was my thinking, I don't want to speak to them, but thought I had best check with you just in case.

I mean the rules try to promote and encourage negotiation between the parties, so i just wanted to check I wasn't being obstructive in a way that would annoy the sheriff by not answering calls and emails.

Deep down though I know that this solicitor is probably only now looking at this case properly for the first time since he raised the case, having wasted a lot of my time (and more importantly yours) with everything that has gone on up until this point.

So i'm delighted that you're saying I can ignore him as I suspect he might be calling to try and cancel/postpone the proof, either to give himself more time or to withdraw the case as unless we're completely missing the point, he's now realising that he has a crap case and a sheriff that might tear strips off him for not complying with his orders to appear and produce a valid CCA.

And yes I must admit to having a habit of overthinking and overcomplicating things so I apologise for that!

so what one says..if I didn't like it I wouldn't be on cag...

don't forget too....

threads are read by 10'000's of people that never register nor post on CAG....

my advise and my postings encompass this by making them read what I've said and p'haps it applies to them or might ping a bell..not directly relevant to YOU.

in all truth we see p'haps 0.1% of claims issued here on cag.

the more concise and simple the posts ...the clearer people reading will understand things.

when this is over anf you've won....i'll tell you a funny story when I was once sitting in the Ralia café some months back...

but for now jot down the hours you've spent on this and your material costs...

are you taking time off work to attend?

NO probs, I really appreciate the help and didn't mean for my post above to sound ungrateful in anyway.

Ok I will do. I'm self employed so I'm taking time off to attend but only from myself rather than an employer. It's still lost time of course. I'll be sure to write it all down. The LLoyds calls alone covered 5 hours with time spent on hold lol, though I won't mention those unless i need to when questioned.

being self employed is a difficult one.

but if it transpires, be sue to let the sheriff know your employment status...

OK will do. I'll just be happy to get absolvitor but expenses would be a bonus. I'll give half of whatever I get to CAG.

well we know its the sheriff that doesn't like them

so you might get lucky

FWIW if you were gainfully employed..

you can get £90 if you took the day off

Yeah fingers crossed

HI dx,

The claimant has lodged a motion to abandon the action

could I ask you to delete post 157 or at least remove the line that mentions the name of the solicitor at Shoosmiths.

I meant to remove the name of the solicitor in the email I posted up from Shoos but having spoken to the solicitor today he asked me to remove it from this website on the basis that it's defamatory because I referred to him as "a muppet".

I'm not worried about that because i don't think it is defamatory since the comment would have to be false for that to apply. One could easily argue that since the action has been raised spuriously and before any evidence of a legal basis for claim has even been found (and eventually could not be found) and then subsequently abandoned the day before a proof, my comments have some merit. Nonetheless, it wasn't my intention to attack anyone personally.

I was talking to the solicitor on the recommendation of the sheriff clerk.

I told them I wanted absolvitor with expenses and not a dismissal and they said that they'd look into what options I have procedurally and get back to me, but meantime I should contact shoosmiths and explain my position.

I did that and explained that given the hoops I have required to jump through in this case to try and get to the bottom of what the claim is about, not least because the principal agent refused to attend court even when instructed by the sheriff, that I wanted absolvitor to be sure the matter could not be rehashed and brought again.

I explained that I was considering approaching the FSA on the basis that they are in breach of current guidelines which advise companies not to bring cases which they know are timebarred, as appears to be the case here, (and also on the basis that they are raising spurious cases on a speculative basis).

He is taking his clients instructions and will get back to me on Monday as he couldn't reach them today and is out of the office on Monday. He advised there appears to have been a consolidated loan for which the client has been unable to obtain the required documentation, hence the abandonment. Obviously that's something they should have clarified before raising an action and certainly before now.

In the meantime, the proof won't go ahead and the claimant's solicitor has advised the court to hold off on delaying with their abandonment motion until he has taken instructions on abandonment with expenses of £300 in my favour.

The court advised that if the claimant is not agreeable to that I can lodge an incidental motion to have a hearing on the case in order to argue for absolvitor.

I need to wait until Monday to confirm whether that will be necessary.

If they decide to raise any further actions in relation to any matter, regardless of the merits, then it would be my intention to involve the FSA and any other relevant bodies to look closely at this claimant, these solicitors and their practices, which amount to nothing more than abuse of legal process, safe in the knowledge that expenses are minimal at £300 in even a case abandoned at the 11th hour.

There is now way I am going through this again without taking them to task on their practices to the fullest extent and their behaviour in this case and others on this site would support that.

They never expect anyone to defend and in 85% of cases they dont

They wet themselves and either admit..ignore..or phone and pay..

If everyone was to stop paying dca's tomorrow the WHOLE industry would collapse overnight

Yeah its so sad that people don't end up on sites like this where they can realise that and not be exploited.

Don't get me wrong, i messed up and got myself into a lot of debt when i was younger and I'm not saying I'm not accountable.

But even with defaults i paid back way more than i ever borrowed and let's not forget that under the current fiat-based monetary system, the money banks lend is created out of thin air and borrowed into existence at zero cost to them anyway!

Even if you think that's fair, which i don't, it certainly can't be fair for these parasites to come along decades later and pretend to own a debt that you now owe to them, scaring people into making payments.

If the people on this site were to collectively aporoach the FSA, the press and their politicians with what's really going on in this industry, there would be even more outcry and investigation than we have seen to date,

particular in relation to certain claimants like cabot abusing the legal system and the low max expenses of the simple procedure with spurious claims they know they can't substantiate, or don't even bother to check they can substantiate

It's a disgrace.

cost to the tax payer of processing these eventually-abandoned claims must be huge

no its the biggest financial industry there is....

Sadly it is. Hopefully we'll be less financialised after the next global financial crisis. Next year if not before is my bet.

Cabot/Shoosmiths have agreed to Absolvitor with expenses in my favour.

Thanks so much for all your help with it guys, and especially dx. I really appreciate everything you guys are doing on the site to help people.

I'll donate half the expenses to CAG as a thank you and to reflect all the work that dx has put into helping me with the case.

Cheers

I don't think they can initiate that the sheriff has to.

?

why not ring the sheriff clerk and tell them about the letter you have and how does it get actioned?

you would rather not not? have to attend a further hearing with further expenses you might not get back?

are the expenses in Absolvitor limited to only £300 then?