Chrissie, This is the first step and the correct way to go. Make sure to include a £1 postal order with each letter and DON'T DON'T DON'T sign the letters. It wouldn't be the first time they'll have an unsigned agreement and conveniently enter your signature from a letter. If any of them come back and say they are requesting the documents from their "client", immediately send them the new European Union Directive regulations below, they hate this and if any single part of their argument is not 100% in order, they will drop the account like a hot potato. All DCAs acting on behalf of an original creditor must now have a full assignment of benefits and responsibilities for the original agreement. In short, they must not be acting on behalf of another organisation. 16. ASSIGNMENT OF RIGHTS 16.1 Where any rights of a creditor under a consumer credit agreement (for example the right to be repaid the money) are sold or transferred to a third party, notice of that assignment must be given to the borrower as soon as reasonably possible, except in the circumstances described below. This requirement applies to all regulated consumer credit agreements other than agreements secured on land. This requirement is in new section 82A of the CCA43. 16.2 It is the responsibility of the assignee (the creditor acquiring the rights) to ensure that notice is given. However, he does not have to give notice himself, but can agree with the assignor (the creditor assigning the rights) that the assignor will give notice instead, depending on what is more sensible in the circumstances. It is important, however, that notice is given as soon as reasonably possible and in a way that is clearly understandable by the borrower. 16.3 Notice does not have to be given where arrangements for servicing the credit are unchanged as far as the borrower is concerned. For example, if Creditor A sells his rights under a credit agreement to Creditor B but Creditor A still collects the borrower’s repayments in the same way and is the only point of contact for the borrower on matters regarding the agreement, notice does not have to be given. 16.4 Where notice has not been given, and arrangements for servicing the credit do subsequently change, the borrower must be informed of the assignment on or before the date that change happens. Again, this must be readily comprehensible to the borrower. 16.5 The definition of “creditor” in section 189 of the CCA applies to this new requirement on assignment of rights. This means that when an assignee purchases debts (or otherwise acquires rights under a credit agreement) it also acquires certain obligations to the borrower including the duty to comply with CCA requirements (such as the rules on statements and notices and other post-contractual information). The assignee becomes the creditor under the agreement. This ensures that essential consumer protections under the CCA cannot be circumvented by assigning the debt to a third party." The CAG is full of helpful people, you are in the right place. Don't let these companies get you down.

No they can not use an original application. The only way they can prove ownership of a debt is to provide you with a copy of the Deed of Assignment in which the debt was transferred to you. They almost never produce this as they buy debt in bulk and it will have many other people's details on it. The will produce it in court to prove ownership though so tread carefully on this issue.

Many thanks for the helpful replies. I have drafted the following letter to HBOS and include it below for your comment.

Any help would be appreciated on this one. I was under the impression that a defaulted account appears on your credit file once with the date the account was defaulted and the closing balance of the account. HBOS have been "updating" my file on a monthly basis with the payment history showing a status of default each time. All the other creditors who defaulted me when I entered my Debt Management Plan did so only once and have not updated the file any further. It is my understanding that once an account has been defaulted, the lender no longer has the legal right to process your data other than for purposes of gaining legal advice. Surely this would render the continued updating of a closed account as being in a status of default as unlawful and prejudicial to my ability to obtain credit in the future. Furthermore, HBOS can not provide either the terms and conditions of the agreement at its inception or a properly formatted credit agreement containing the prescribed terms. They have stated this in their last letter. All they were able to send me was a barely legible application form and a copy of the current terms and conditions. They did not default the account when I entered the Debt Management Plan, surely they should have as I was unable to comply with the terms of their alleged agreement. They waited for 2 years to default the account???. I had made the agreed payments through my DMP every month and hadn't been late or missed any payments. HBOS decided for reasons known only to themselves that they were going to resume charging interest and making demands for full payment. The default notice itself gave a period of only 1 day for remedial action to be taken on my part and this had expired by the time I received it. Do I have grounds for removal of the default? I'm most interested in their ability to continue to update the status of the account as being in default. I entered my DMP over 2 years ago, I now manage it myself and am making monthly payments to all of my creditors, on time and in full. Its seems totally unfair that HBOS can do this and effectively put me back to square 1 each month by ensuring that their information stays on my credit file for the next 6 years.

Any help would be appreciated on this one. I was under the impression that a defaulted account appears on your credit file once with the date the account was defaulted and the closing balance of the account. HBOS have been "updating" my file on a monthly basis with the payment history showing a status of default each time. All the other creditors who defaulted me when I entered my Debt Management Plan did so only once and have not updated the file any further. It is my understanding that once an account has been defaulted, the lender no longer has the legal right to process your data other than for purposes of gaining legal advice. Surely this would render the continued updating of a closed account as being in a status of default as unlawful and prejudicial to my ability to obtain credit in the future. Furthermore, HBOS can not provide either the terms and conditions of the agreement at its inception or a properly formatted credit agreement containing the prescribed terms. They have stated this in their last letter. All they were able to send me was a barely legible application form and a copy of the current terms and conditions. They did not default the account when I entered the Debt Management Plan, surely they should have as I was unable to comply with the terms of their alleged agreement. They waited for 2 years to default the account???. I had made the agreed payments through my DMP every month and hadn't been late or missed any payments. HBOS decided for reasons known only to themselves that they were going to resume charging interest and making demands for full payment. The default notice itself gave a period of only 1 day for remedial action to be taken on my part and this had expired by the time I received it. Do I have grounds for removal of the default? I'm most interested in their ability to continue to update the status of the account as being in default. I entered my DMP over 2 years ago, I now manage it myself and am making monthly payments to all of my creditors, on time and in full. Its seems totally unfair that HBOS can do this and effectively put me back to square 1 each month by ensuring that their information stays on my credit file for the next 6 years.

Thanks for the reply, will keep this thread updated.

As per title, Bank of Scotland have not replied to my CCA request. I've sent them the following letter today and was wondering if it is OK?

Many thanks for this and sorry for the late reply. I haven't heard a thing from either Asset Link or their solicitors. Is this a good thing?

I sent the above letter on the 5th and it was received by Asset Link Capital/Link Financial who sent a reply saying they were looking into it and would reply in full in due course. This was duly followed the next day with an email from their solicitors saying that the letter had been passed to them for consideration of the points raised. It is my understanding that under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998, Asset Link are allowed to share information with their solicitor for the purpose of receiving legal advice. I also understand however that they are NOT allowed to pass any more data than is absolutely necessary for the purpose at hand. This would not include names, dates of birth, agreement numbers, original agreements and basically delegating the entire case including all correspondance with the alleged debtor to their solicitors. Does anybody disagree with this?

I will remove the Without Prejudice statement and send the letter tomorrow. Many thanks again for your assistance, you're a star!

I have drafted the following letter to be sent tomorrow. Any guidance would be appreciated:

lookinforinfo, Thanks for your excellent reply. Unfortunately they didn't send me a copy of the Ts & Cs (surprise!). I'll get a letter fired off directly to Asset Link outlining the points you have made above. Thanks once again.

I did it in the form of a CCA 1974 request and included the £1 fee which they have accepted. Asset Link insist that all correspondance is made through their solicitors. They supplied a copy of the original agreement but are now over the 12 days + 1 month for supplying a full statement of account. I assume the debt is now unenforceable without a court order? I wouldn't have thought the court would look favourably on them failing to provide a statement of account and initially demanding over £2000 more than their claimed Deed of Assignment is for. Another point is that I now live in Germany. They are insistant that they can bring an action against me in a German court. I have had legal advice of the opinion that the contract existed under the law of England and Wales and therefore any case would have to be heard in a British court. The agreement was made when I resided in the UK, I have been advised that a German court would only hear a case where one party was located in Germany at the execution of the agreement. All companies agreed to stop charging interest with the exception of GE Capital Woodchester, they just went quiet for a year, collected a years worth of payments at £106 a month then sold the debt to these parasites. Any help is much appreciated.

Posted this in another section and got no response. A bit of a complicated situation here but I'll try to explain as best I can. I had a loan with GE Capital Woodchester on which I had made payments up until I took out a Debt Management Plan with Payplan over a year ago. Payments were made to all of my creditors on time every month but GE Capital Woodchester decided to sell their debt to a company called Asset Link Capital (No. 1) Limited. GE claim they sent me a letter to that effect but I did not receive any letters from GE or Asset Link. A few months ago I received a letter from McClure Naismith solicitors claiming that I owed their client (Asset Link) a total of just over £9000. This figure could not have been possible as I had made payments totalling £2250 to the account over a period of 14 months and the initial amount borrowed was only £8450, £550 less than what they claimed I owed them. I initially disputed the amount owing and requested a true copy of the credit agreement which they provided inside the timescale set out in the CCA 1974. On consulting Payplan, they said I owed roughly £8.5k but that this figure also included charges applied by GE Capital Woodchester. I provided this figure to Asset Link's solicitors and they then claimed that their records reflected this and that the figure was correct. Shortly afterwards I decided that I would not be held responsible for fees and charges illegally placed on the account by GE Capital Woodchester. I informed Asset Link's solicitors of this and requested a copy of the deed of assignment. They sent me back a generic Deed of Assignment that doesn't contain my name or any other details, it doesn't include the amount owed and there are a couple of sentences blacked out with a marker pen. They also said that the Deed of Assignment bearing my details would not be sent to me as it contained the details of other debtors. They now claim that the Deed of Assignment is for a total of £7150. I'm starting to believe that Asset Link were attempting to profit by deception, ie. they said I owed almost £2000 more than their Deed of Assignment (if they actually have one) is for and have given me 3 different total debt owing figures inside of a month. I have paid them token amounts of £1 per month since the initial contact with their solicitors. They have so far been unable to provide me with a statement of the account. What action should I take next? Any help is appreciated.

A bit of a complicated situation here but I'll try to explain as best I can. I had a loan with GE Capital Woodchester on which I had made payments up until I took out a Debt Management Plan with Payplan over a year ago. Payments were made to all of my creditors on time every month but GE Capital Woodchester decided to sell their debt to a company called Asset Link Capital (No. 1) Limited. GE claim they sent me a letter to that effect but I did not receive any letters from GE or Asset Link. A few months ago I received a letter from McClure Naismith solicitors claiming that I owed their client (Asset Link) a total of just over £9000. This figure could not have been possible as I had made payments totalling £2250 to the account over a period of 14 months and the initial amount borrowed was only £8450, £550 less than what they claimed I owed them. I initially disputed the amount owing and requested a true copy of the credit agreement which they provided inside the timescale set out in the CCA 1974. On consulting Payplan, they said I owed roughly £8.5k but that this figure also included charges applied by GE Capital Woodchester. I provided this figure to Asset Link's solicitors and they then claimed that their records reflected this and that the figure was correct. Shortly afterwards I decided that I would not be held responsible for fees and charges illegally placed on the account by GE Capital Woodchester. I informed Asset Link's solicitors of this and requested a copy of the deed of assignment. They sent me back a generic Deed of Assignment that doesn't contain my name or any other details, it doesn't include the amount owed and there are a couple of sentences blacked out with a marker pen. They also said that the Deed of Assignment bearing my details would not be sent to me as it contained the details of other debtors. They now claim that the Deed of Assignment is for a total of £7150. I'm starting to believe that Asset Link were attempting to profit by deception, ie. they said I owed almost £2000 more than their Deed of Assignment (if they actually have one) is for and have given me 3 different total debt owing figures inside of a month. I have paid them token amounts of £1 per month since the initial contact with their solicitors. They have so far been unable to provide me with a statement of the account. What action should I take next? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks, will do that now.

A bit of a complicated situation here but I'll try to explain as best I can. I had a loan with GE Capital Woodchester on which I had made payments up until I took out a Debt Management Plan with Payplan over a year ago. Payments were made to all of my creditors on time every month but GE Capital Woodchester decided to sell their debt to a company called Asset Link Capital (No. 1) Limited. GE claim they sent me a letter to that effect but I did not receive any letters from GE or Asset Link. A few months ago I received a letter from McClure Naismith solicitors claiming that I owed their client (Asset Link) a total of just over £9000. This figure could not have been possible as I had made payments totalling £2250 to the account over a period of 14 months and the initial amount borrowed was only £8450, £550 less than what they claimed I owed them. I initially disputed the amount owing and requested a true copy of the credit agreement which they provided inside the timescale set out in the CCA 1974. On consulting Payplan, they said I owed roughly £8.5k but that this figure also included charges applied by GE Capital Woodchester. I provided this figure to Asset Link's solicitors and they then claimed that their records reflected this and that the figure was correct. Shortly afterwards I decided that I would not be held responsible for fees and charges illegally placed on the account by GE Capital Woodchester. I informed Asset Link's solicitors of this and requested a copy of the deed of assignment. They sent me back a generic Deed of Assignment that doesn't contain my name or any other details, it doesn't include the amount owed and there are a couple of sentences blacked out with a marker pen. They also said that the Deed of Assignment bearing my details would not be sent to me as it contained the details of other debtors. They claim that the Deed of Assignment is for a total of £7150. I'm starting to believe that Asset Link were attempting to profit by deception, ie. they said I owed almost £2000 more than their Deed of Assignment (if they actually have one) is for and have given me 3 different total debt owing figures inside of a month. I have paid them token amounts of £1 per month since the initial contact with their solicitors. They have so far been unable to provide me with a statement of the account. What action should I take next?

I didn't think it'd be retrospectively applicable but its good to see confirmation. Thanks Peter.

I have to disagree with you here Peter. If a creditor alleges that a debtor signed an agreement in 2004, that agreement is surely governed by the CCA in its 2004 state In my opinion the removal of section 127-3 does no such thing. Section 127, subsection 3: (3) The court shall not make an enforcement order under section 65(1) if section 61(1)(a) (signing of agreements) was not complied with unless a document (whether or not in the prescribed form and complying with regulations under section 60(1)) itself containing all the prescribed terms of the agreement was signed by the debtor or hirer (whether or not in the prescribed manner). Its removal doesn't enable creditors to do anything, it merely removes the current restriction that forbids the court to make an enforcement when no agreement is produced by the creditor. To date, has any creditor had the b*lls to pitch up in court trying to enforce something they themselves have no legally acceptable record of ? I wouldn't have thought so. It does after a 1 month wait for its production. If they possessed it, they would produce it. Going into default and committing an offence is not in the creditor's best interests. They should be very reluctant to approach a court in these circumstances. Of course failing to produce a signed copy of an agreement puts the creditor in default. The only verifiably true copy of an agreement is a signed copy, otherwise you could be looking at a generic agreement . Any judge in the land would agree with this. The removal of 127-3 has no effect on creditors entering into default through non production. It won't legally stop a judge from enforcing an agreement but I would think it unlikely in the extreme that any judge is going to make an enforcement based on nothing more than the word of one party. No hostility on my part. I just have a different interpretation of the consequences of 127: 3-5's removal. A very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and yours sir.

One more thing. A creditor who does not possess a properly executed (signed) credit agreement is in default of said agreement. While they remain in default of the agreement, they have no right to enforce anything agreed to in that agreement. They can't go to court (this is a method of enforcement) without a signed agreement, its as simple as that.

In my view: Courts, creditors, owners, debtors and hirers will have to comply with the CCA in the form it was in at the commencement of an alleged agreement as these are the guidelines covering the agreement at the date of its inception and the guidelines both parties sign the agreement to. Jast as a creditor can not apply terms and conditions introduced in 2006 on a debtor who's agreement was executed in 2004, the courts are also bound by the law as it stood on the date of signing the agreement. Agreements executed after April 2007 will be covered by the 2006 ammendment to the CCA but not those executed before. This is how I see it. More to the point. The exclusion of Section 127 sub-sections 3-5 does not absolve the creditor of responsibility for keeping a correctly executed (ie signed) agreement. It does not give them any right to ignore or otherwise fail to comply with a Subject Access Request for a true copy of an executed agreement. If they do not produce it within 1 month they are still in criminal default. It merely removes the restriction of the court not being allowed to make an enforcement order unless there is a properly executed credit agreement. Creditors/DCAs will still be committing an offence if they do not produce a true copy of a properly executed agreement within 30 days of receiving a request from a debtor or alleged debtor. Creditors are still going to be the party who turns up in court having to admit before anything else is said that they are in direct contravention of section 77/78 of the Consumer Credit Act and as such have committed an offence. There are no ifs or buts about that. I for one would not like to be in court when the first point of law raised is that I have undeniably and inexcuseably commited an offence. The Creditors/DCAs are not going to put themselves in this position. Doing so would be risking their license to provide credit.

An outstanding plan Tamadus. I will do the same if they don't comply with my SAR. Looks like you know exactly what you're doing. I'm almost certain they were still applying interest to my account after they defaulted it. They haven't sent me a statement in 15 months and haven't been in contact for roughly 12. It was an unsecured GE motor loan and even though not secured on the car, they registered a finance agreement linked to the vehicle with the Credit Reference Agencies. I insisted that this was removed and they had no choice but to comply. After I fell on hard times, they threatened repossession of the vehicle to which I replied "you have no legal claim to the vehicle". Their attitude was more or less "We're calling the shots and we'll do what we want". Collections agents who are intimidative and ill-mannered are just one of their hallmarks. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for this lot to have their Consumer Credit License revoked.

GE are without doubt the biggest load of cowboys in the industry mate. I seriously doubt they'd have the brass neck to take you to court after their behaviour which can only be described as a flagrant and willful display of disregard for the CCA 1974 by which they are bound. Write to them pointing out all of their acts of non-compliance with the act and then don't pay them a penny more. If they have any sense whatsoever, they'll write it off before a judge throws it out of court. They can't just make up their own rules and apply them willy nilly.

Definitely my friend.

Surely to goodness that default is illegal and they are duty bound to remove it? Reasons like this are exactly why these pondlife should be taken to the cleaners. If they step outwith the remit of the CCA by as much as a millimetre, we should take them for all they're worth. GE Capital Woodchester/GE Money made my home life pretty unbearable for months. They were never off the phone, early in the morning and quite late at night. The quietened down after receiving a few payments from my informal arrangement and a few weeks ago without any warning and after over a year of fairly substantial informal arrangement payments totalling almost £1.5k, they passed the debt to a DCA (Asset Link Capital (no 1) Ltd) who didn't even have the courtesy to contact me by letter. Straight to the solicitors. I asked the solicitors for the contact details of this company so that I could S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) them for a copy of the alleged agreement. Solicitors reply that they are dealing with the case and any such request can be made directly to them. So I did. I'm not sure if they have a copy of a signed agreement or not but this thread was inspiration enough for me to make an SAR. If they do have a signed agreement I'll comply but if they don't, I'll take tremendous pleasure in telling them where to stick it. I may even think about going after all payments made to date.