No CCA - what if I want to pay?

[willtheywontthey]

What if I want to pay (for now) the minimum or token payment whilst still sending them letters about non-compliance with CCA.. would I somehow be admitting ownership of debt? One of the letters to the credit card companies states somehting along the lines of 'I do not accept this debt leave me alone and do not process my info'??

 

What if I then want to (!!) pay them minimum payment? (don;t ask why... )

 

Can any legal bod type please advise?

[42man]

It is up to you and your ethics, you are quite entitled to not pay if they are over the CCA deadlines....

[creditcardmug]

My opinion for what it's worth, i'm assuming your talking about an old credit card debt.

If you have asked them to supply a copy of the agreement, in order to see what kind of case they might have against you, and up to now you have been paying token/pro-rata payments (and getting all the usual template threatening letters). And they have sent you nothing (as opposed to some dodgy looking "agreement", then i think i would stop paying, however, you always have to think that a some point this may become a court case that you have to defend, if it should come to this it could be in your favour to be able to say that you still made the payments even though the creditor failed to prove that an enforcible agreement exists.

 

I would be very interested to hear what other members have to say on this subject, as i have similar concerns myself. This it seems to me is a bit of a balancing act.

Good point and thankyou for raising it.

regards CCM

[sutherland]

Isn't the problem with making payments that a court could interpret that as an admission of the debt?

 

I have several DCAs and companies pursuing me, none of which have so far provided a valid CCA. None of the debts do I acknowledge 100% liability for, but I'd look at the debts in different ways:

 

- some bought by a DCA for say less than 10% of the value. I don't feel bad about not paying 100% (or anything like it) of those debts.

- some still with the companies, but made entirely or almost entirely of usury and charges. I don't feel bad about not rushing to pay those debts either.

- some still with the lenders and I really am responsible for the vast majority of the balance. I feel I should try to pay these if I can.

 

So the question is, how can I make sensible offers to those I feel morally obliged to settle without giving unscrupulous debt collection departments ammunition? Does "WITHOUT PREJUDICE" count for nothing? Is it not possible to say (as in all those proposed court defences on here):

 

'I neither acknowledge nor deny this debt...' or 'I do not acknowledge this debt, but as a goodwill gesture I am willing to offer £100 to bring this dispute to an end. This offer is made on the understanding that neither you nor any associated company will make any further attempt to pursue the above account.'

 

Is there no option to the all or nothing approach when there is no CCA forthcoming?

[Hopeful1]

The way i see it is that if a company cannot provide a CCA then the ball is in your court. No matter what, they cannot enforce anything without the agreement, so you set the rules for them to play by

[willtheywontthey]

Thanks for advice so far. Really still trying to get something a bit more concrete regarding whether this action would somehow be tantamount to admitting liability.

[nicklea]

Under the CCA, it doesn't matter if you acknowledge the debt or not (unless it's an issue of the debt being statute barred).

 

As you have been making payments then the issue of being statute barred is unlikely to be relevant.

 

The language of the CCA is very clear and this has been confirmed by the authorities of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.

 

If there is no document with all the prescribed terms or, if applicable, cancellation details weren't sent to you at the proper time then the debt is unenforceable in a court regardless of whether you have ever paid it or not.

 

However, just because they haven't replied to a s77/78 request doesn't mean that an agreement doesn't exist - it just means that they can't enforce the agreement until they do produce a copy. For example, I am currently involved in a case with Morgan Stanley/ Goldfish. Under s78 they just gave me a load of rubbish, but now it's gone to court they have supplied the actual agreement. Fortunately, it's not actually enforceable anyway - but that's another matter.

 

Don't rely on their non response to s77/78 request as meaning that they don't have the agreement.

 

If you have not been defualted then it's best to carry on paying as getting a default will really hurt your credit rating, but if yuo've been defaulted already then this doesn't matter.

 

 

Some comments from the court:-

 

1. In the case of Dimond v Lovell [2000] UKHL 27, Lord Hoffmann said , at page 1131:-

“Parliament intended that if a consumer credit agreement was improperly executed, then subject to the enforcement powers of the court, the debtor should not have to pay.”

2. Sir Andrew Morritt, Vice Chancellor in Wilson v First County Trust Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 633 said at para 26 that in the case of an unenforceable agreement:-

“The creditor must…be taken to have made a voluntary disposition, or gift, of the loan monies to the debtor. The creditor had chosen to part with the monies in circumstances in which it was never entitled to have them repaid;”

3. When this case was appealed to the House of Lords on a matter regarding the Human Rights Act (Wilson & Ors v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry [2003] UKHL 40), Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead said:-

49 The message to be gleaned from sections 65, 106, 113 and 127 of the Consumer Credit Act is that where a court dismisses an application for an enforcement order under section 65 the lender is intended by Parliament to be left without recourse against the borrower in respect of the loan… when legislation renders the entire agreement inoperative, to use a neutral word, for failure to comply with prescribed formalities the legislation itself is the primary source of guidance on what are the legal consequences. Here the intention of Parliament is clear.