I received a court claim form on the 7/11/18 (issue date 5/11/18) for unpaid water charges amount totaling £5,095 for the period 1/4/2007 to 31/3/2019

I have lived at the property for longer but never actually paid anything for water rates, due to being unemployed and not being to afford it.

have been i receipt of yearly water bills and various uk search limited letters for amount owing.

recently shulmans got involved and sent a few letters before court action.

all of which i have ignored due to large debt amount.

I have rung up northampton county court to verify if the claim form was send by them.

they acknowledged the letter and told me the service date is 10/11/2018.

Any advice on how to proceed would be very much appreciated as i'm unsure of what i can do and how to go about it.

I rang southern water yesterday and enquired to my account and was told it had gone over to their litigation team.

I have not rung their litigation team as of yet as i dont want to say the wrong thing.

Thank you in advance for any help offered

please complete this:

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?419198-You-have-received-a-Claim-What-you-need-to-do.-**UPDATED-2018**

one note

they cant charge you outside of 6yrs!!

Just off to work now, will try and get a reply done around 6.30pm while on break

Thank you for response

Thread moved to General Legal Issues Forum...please continue to post here to your thread.

Regards

Andy

Name of the Claimant : southern water services

Date of issue : 05/11/2018

Particulars of Claim :

1.The claimant is a statutory water and sewage undertaker pursuant to the water industry Act 1991 (the act)

2.The claimant claims the sum of £5,094.64 for unpaid water and/or sewerage charges payable under s.142-144 of the Act and Claimant's Charges Scheme.

3.The unpaid sum of £5,095 is for water and/or sewerages services provided to the Defendant(s) at ###################

For the period 01/04/2007 to 31/03/2019

4.The Claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Claim Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 01/04/2018 to 02/11/2018 on £240 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of £1.12

Have you received prior notice of a claim being issued pursuant to paragraph 3 of the PAPDC (Pre Action Protocol) ? Received letter from shulmans llp - letter before court action

What is the total value of the claim? £5,094.69

Is the claim for - a Bank Account (Overdraft) or credit card or loan or catalogue or mobile phone account? Water

When did you enter into the original agreement before or after April 2007 ? Been at the property longer than 1/4/2007

Is the debt showing on your credit reference files (Experian/Equifax /Etc...) ? Don't know

Has the claim been issued by the original creditor or was the account assigned and it is the Debt purchaser who has issued the claim. SW

Were you aware the account had been assigned – did you receive a Notice of Assignment Just standard letters from uksearch Ltd acting on behalf of southern water

Did you receive a Default Notice from the original creditor? Received a bill totally the amount owed only

Have you been receiving statutory notices headed “Notice of Default sums” – at least once a year ? Received yearly totals of debt owed only

Why did you cease payments? Haven't made any payments

What was the date of your last payment? No payments

Was there a dispute with the original creditor that remains unresolved? No, however I remember asking southern water to send copies of all bills but this was before 2007 and never received them

Did you communicate any financial problems to the original creditor and make any attempt to enter into a debt management plan? Not that I can remember

pop up on the MCOL website detailed on the claimform.

.

register as an individual

note the long gateway number given

then log in

.

select respond to a claim and select the start AOS box.

.

then using the details required from the claimform

.

defend all

leave jurisdiction unticked.

click thru to the end

confirm and exit MCOL.

.

get a CPR 31:14 request running to the solicitors

[adapt the current account version].. ask for copies each yearly bill from 2007 to present day and any other paperwork they intend to rely under the claim.i

.

type your name ONLY

no need to sign anything

.

you DO NOT await the return of paperwork.

you MUST file a defence regardless by day 33 from the date on the claimform.

Will get MCOL done in the morning and have

CPR 31:14 hopefully all ready to post on Monday.

Thank you for advice

get both done tomorrow!!

that will be 7 days already wasted of your allowed 33days if you wait till monday

On CPR 31:14 , do I remove bullet points 1 to 6 or 2 to 6 and add the request for all bills 2007 onwards and other relevant paperwork?

Sorry if it seems like a silly question, I just don't wanna send it off and it be wrong

Yes..blue bit above good work!!

I have responded on MCOL website and have sent CPR 31:14 off as recorded delivery.

Thank you so much for your help and advice

In regards to the response pack sent with the claim, do i need to send it off aswell even tho i've acknowledged claim online?

what should be my best way in moving forward with my defence?

No...start looking at others here for style form and layout

Dont forget to inc the bills outside of 6yrs are statute barred too

Will have a look and start getting my defence ready

Thank you again for advice

Getting somewhere with my defence, but before I post up on here to ask if it's ok, I just need a little help wording the following.

When I received county court claim, I rang up southern water and explained that I hadn't received any bill and had now received court claim. The lady I spoke to said, they couldn't take any payments from me until the amount on the account had been zero'd as it's been passed onto there litigation team to deal with. I was given a phone number for this team but was hesitant to call it. I have since rang the number and it turns out to be uk search limited. No details were given over phone.

And ?

Was wondering how to write that and include it in my defence?

Why do you want to include that in a defence?.....you only respond to the particulars plead in an initial defence....Accept or Deny

Ah ok, sorry am very much a noobie to all this. Thought I might have to expand on the accept or deny to the particulars

Plenty of water utils claimform defences on cag

Use the search cag box oof the top red toolbar

Quick update.

Just got in and have received alot of paper work from shulmans.

Mainly southern water household charges scheme from years 2012 to present

Also yearly bills and a few default notices, from 2009 to present as they don't have paperwork for prior years.

My cpr request for "any other documents you intend to rely upon under the claim" was invalid under rule 31.14 as it wasn't stated in the particulars. "

The request is entirely disproportionate and unreasonable at this stage".

They provided all yearly bills.

But stated in the annex as 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2009 (surley a typo)

They have recalculated the balance on the claim and applied a credit of £2,304.07 for period upto 30 September 2012. In order to remove statute barred element.

In addition the most recent bill has me charged for a 2 bedroom when infact this a 1 bed flat.

Rang southern and they have amended that bill and last year's based on me being a single occupant.

so what are SW going to do about the claimform/claim?

its obv now incorrect?

That's what I was thinking...

Shulmans have stated that they've recalculated balance to 22 November 2018.

£3,119.98

Interest at £0.61 until judgement or sooner payment.

Shulmans invite me to make full payment or to forward a reasonable offer of repayment for our clients consideration.

This figure includes amended court issue fees(£105), legal representative costs on issue(£80),interest calculated 1/4/2018 - 22/11/2018 (£144.36)

Balance outstanding (£2,709.62)

but that's not what the claimform states.

can you not simply ring sw, make an arrangement and get them to drop the whole claim as it was wrong figures, that way no legal fees and that will put shulmans back in their box