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SuperVillain

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SuperVillain last won the day on November 11 2019

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  1. Might be helpful to decipher the defence out here - the handwriting is unclear and English doesn’t appear to be the first language of the person who wrote it: ”In respect of the above claim I totally ????? any claim & allogation [sic] brought against myself for funds that have been invested jointly with myself & full receipt by solicitors and investment house have been given. Full disclosure & discreption [sic] & defence has been given by Mr XXXXX on the Claimant’s responce [sic]. I do not agre [sic] & advice [sic] that I personally never under ??????? these funds other than intended for. I also do not personally the harassment of my personal responce [sic] at night for (several illegible words) and log this action by the Claimant under crime log XXXXX. Further to the aligations [sic] & Claimant claim on 11/08/2020 ref XXXXX can confirm that no encouragement was given this option to ingest was discussed with no pressure as all was 100% Claimant’s choice. All invested monies have been receipted by legal solicitor & investment co dealing with the investment. Since Claimant requested funds back all updates have been provided to the Claimant with this return. No response received from the Claimant to a recorded delivery letter sent 16/07/2020 with letter dated 15/07/2020. Also due to investment & verbal (altercation?) as why my residential ????? on 18/06/2020 ???? police were called & (several illegible words). No funds have or were taken from the Claimant by any false means or use other than that ????? & soley [sic] for the Claimant’s investment purposes, bearing in mind members of my own family also have their own personal monies invested into this investment themselves. Never have I ????? or advised the Claimant shall not get his investment monies returned to himself, but as I do not handle the transaction I can only be advised by those parties that received the Claimant’s monies and dealings with his returns.” In summary, not me guv (I’m just the middle man).
  2. Agree she hasn’t written to Court. If Keek writes to her she’ll probably pull her finger out and write to court and the hearing will he relisted (or she might even call the police again and spout more rubbish about being harassed). If he does nothing I expect the court and the claimant will do nothing and the claim will just be stayed until someone at court gets round to doing something (and they’ll probably issue an unless order). This could be months. If he writes to the Court asking for the claim to be struck out due to lack of response from the claimant, the court will tell him to make an application which will cost money and delay things even more (and if an application does get listed and heard the end result will likely be the claim being listed for another hearing). I’m not sure what to do.
  3. You should really post the claim form and particulars of claim and their defence on here ASAP. You only have a week or so to file your Directions Questionnaire (and draft directions).
  4. If it’s unclear generally go with the earlier date (so as you point out 11 September). Just bear in mind that courts are running huge backlogs of correspondence at the moment (some as much as 3 or 4 weeks behind). Does the Court order say what will happen if there is no response by the deadline?
  5. Hi, Ok, have you responded to that email? If so please can you post up your response? If not, then they claim to have tracker data? Presumably we’re saying that the tracker data is incorrect? We need to see it (not sure what format this data will be in but there may be clues in there which support you). Also, do you have any proof as to when you got your own car back from repairs e.g. an invoice for your excess or a something you signed at the garage etc. I understand that you have gone through this with them repeatedly but if you leave it be they’ll assume you accept the 20 day hire period and the claim will continue in your name. This will be a problem when say 10 months down the line they want you to sign a witness statement saying you had the car for 20 days. You’ll say no, because it’s not true, they’ll say they didn’t hear from you for ages and you’re now being uncooperative (leaving them open to chase you for any charges they don’t recover). So, I would still write to them again. Unfortunately you’ll have to keep at them. I think you should set out in writing that: 1. The car was delivered on xx/xx/xxxx and taken back on xx/xx/xxxx, and you therefore don’t accept the hire period as stated on the particulars of claim. 2. You want to see the tracker data which alleges you were using the car past the date you say they took it back. 3. That you are currently reviewing your own CCTV for confirmation as to when the car was collected and will send them a copy as soon as you have it. 4. You are concerned that a statement of truth has been signed without your authority when you have told them the dates are incorrect (assuming you did not reply to their email). 5. You are concerned that you were using your own repaired vehicle on the later days that hire has been claimed and the Defendant, who you work with, is likely to produce witness evidence to support that. 6. You will not sign any witness statement that contains information which is not true (they can sign a particulars of claim on your behalf but they can’t sign a witness statement for you). Number 4 will cause them slight concern now. Number 6 will cause them significant issues later down the line, if they continue to ignore you. (So at the very least it’ll give them a kick up the backside to try and settle quicker before they get to witness statement stage).
  6. Yea I see what you mean. As for dropping Co-Op, I don’t see the point. Pretty much every insurer will refer you to credit hire in such a situation, and even if they don’t, their garages or engineers will. As for producing your footage at Court, if the implication is to ambush your own lawyers I don’t think you should be looking to work against Principia. As you have flagged up the discrepancy to them already, they will have issues with getting you to sign a witness statement before you even think about setting foot inside a Court. If you don’t have your own CCTV immediately don’t worry about it. I would write to Principia (and I stress write to them and send a copy by post and email), and set out your concerns in writing about the amount of hire being claimed. Tell them that you’re concerned that a statement of truth (ie the signature bit at the end of the Particulars of Claim) has been signed (presumably by Principia?) and claims for hire after the car was returned, despite you telling them about the discrepancy. Refer them to the conversations that you’ve had with them about this already. Tell them that you are locating your own CCTV footage to show when the car was collected, and also that you have concerns that you work at the same place as the defendant and they will know how long you really had the hire car. Cards on the table and that will make them sweat a bit. You can post a draft here and I’ll take a look if you want. Like I said it’s important that you start taking control of the situation, and now is the ideal time to do this, while the situation is quiet in terms of Court proceedings.
  7. Ok let’s all calm down here. A Defendant filing a defence is entirely expected (if they don’t they’ll end up with a CCJ for the whole amount of the claim). The next step is that the Court will ask for directions questionnaires to be filed. Once that is done, the claim will be transferred to your local court who will set directions. Given the lockdown the Courts are prioritising higher value cases so your hearing date could well be early next year. Plenty of time for the case to settle before anyone has to go to Court (and yes they’re right when they say these cases rarely get to Court). Are Principia still maintaining that the hire charges are longer than they were, and have you sent them any proof that the car was collected earlier than they say? The quicker that issue is sorted the closer the case gets towards settling.
  8. So have they started court proceedings, and if so have you seen a copy? The terms of your agreement with Auxillis will state that you have to cooperate with their nominated lawyers (Principia) and will inevitably reserve a right to pursue you for hire charges if you don’t cooperate. Principia will plough on regardless and I suggest that you don’t voluntarily keep yourself in the dark as to what they’re up to and what they’re saying on your behalf (if they have issued proceedings it will be in your name and you will be the Claimant in the case!). The last thing you want is to suddenly find you’re being asked to sign a witness statement - likely full of incorrect information - with a court hearing scheduled 3 weeks down the line. Now as to the question of the disputed timeline, you are absolutely correct not to sign anything that is incorrect/false. Presumably you have this CCTV which shows the correct date? I would send a copy to Principia (or at least a few stills from it) which shows them collecting the car on the date you said. As DX said the court will be your local court. They need your availability information to put on the Directions Questionnaire. I would take this opportunity to tell them your nearest / preferred court.
  9. To add, not sure how far away your small claims hearing is (or if it will even take place at all in the current climate) but I would suggest as follows: 1. Contact the people you want to get statements from and see if they will do a witness statement. (Bear in mind they may be making statements for the Defendant). 2. If they’re not prepared to do a witness statement for you, and they’re not already doing one for the Defendant, then start preparing a witness summary. 3. File and serve the witness summary and application for permission to rely when you’re supposed to file the witness statements, together with a witness summons (the N20 court form)
  10. Hi Maketa - I don’t think anyone has answered your question here. My understanding is that if you can’t serve a witness statement you still need to serve a witness summary and accompany with an application. See Civil Proceure Rule 32: Witness summaries 32.9 (1) A party who – (a) is required to serve a witness statement for use at trial; but (b) is unable to obtain one, may apply, without notice, for permission to serve a witness summary instead. (2) A witness summary is a summary of – (a) the evidence, if known, which would otherwise be included in a witness statement; or (b) if the evidence is not known, the matters about which the party serving the witness summary proposes to question the witness. (3) Unless the court orders otherwise, a witness summary must include the name and address of the intended witness. (4) Unless the court orders otherwise, a witness summary must be served within the period in which a witness statement would have had to be served. (5) Where a party serves a witness summary, so far as practicable rules 32.4 (requirement to serve witness statements for use at trial), 32.5(3) (amplifying witness statements), and 32.8 (form of witness statement) shall apply to the summary.
  11. I would do an updated witness statement in this situation. I think it’s an opportunity to explain your position with the expert/instructions, sending/hand delivering her letters, the photos you took of the cameras etc etc.
  12. Wow, I’ve never seen that before. So the hearing is at her house, now all you can do is prepare for it. I think now is the time to consider starting to draft your witness statement (I think this will need to be filed and served 2 weeks before the hearing date, unless any of the Court Orders say otherwise).
  13. Hi OP. Just as a bit of background I’ve spent several years working on the Defendant side of the credit hire fence. Auxillis and Principia Law have the same company directors. The companies are linked. You’ll almost certainly have to go with them under the terms of the hire agreement. You’ve signed a credit hire agreement. You believed it was a courtesy car based on the email from Hastings. Did you read it? I know that Auxillis get you to sign these things electronically. 9 times out of 10 as stated above, you’ll not get as far as trial and the two sides will settle. In the run up, you’ll have to assist Principia as they go through the stages of litigation. Nothing to worry about immediately. The point it will affect you is the disclosure and witness statement phase. They’ll likely want to see your bank statements from the time of the accident and disclose these to the other side. They’ll also need you to sign a witness statement. They will prepare this so read this statement very (I can’t emphasise that enough), carefully before you sign it. Make sure it’s true. They’ll use a standard witness statement as a template which will say things like ‘Auxillis contacted you and explained it was a credit hire agreement‘ etc etc. Don’t sign anything that’s not true. Edit: Apologies, just read that there’s a possible liability dispute. That slightly increases the chance of this ending up at a Court hearing. Do you know how much the total hire charges are? Are they below £10k?
  14. OP, maybe this will help - https://www.gov.uk/challenge-solicitors-bill I didn’t know you could apply for a detailed assessment of your own solicitors bill. Generally speaking - what were you told at the outset. Did you sign a Client Services Agreement (contract) and did it set out the hourly rates of the lawyers working on your case? The flat fee of £175 per letter seems ridiculous.
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