Solicitors Acting Underhandedly

[missbling]

Hi thank you for reading my post. I have been on here for many months this is the first time I have posted I have tried to read all the rules and hope I've complied if I have made any mistakes I am sorry.

 

Can anyone help please. My husband took out a car loan about 4 years ago with Blackhorse Finance. He says he was never given a copy of the agreement. I don't know if this is correct although we don't have one.

 

Blackhorse have been a nightmare varying payments etc. 3 months ago I asked for a redemption figure and got no where. I then asked for a copy of the agreement I have been pushing them for a copy of the agreement for months now and all I have had is a man shouting down the phone at me telling me he is going to take the car. Although we are not in arrears but he says we are not entitled to a copy of the agreement and you don't just have to be in arrears to have your contract terminated. I must say the man is very aggressive. We have had a man come and try and take the car but I threatened to call the police as I had proof that we had paid and he went away and never came back. We then got a call from this man saying that we had to continue paying and would have too meet one of his representatives in the local car park and pay cash each month. Both me and my husband refused and said no way. We had always paid by Direct Debit. No way was we doing something like that.

 

To cut a long story short I have sent numerous requests in writing for the agreement and have not got it. We don't know what type of agreement we have is it HP or something else we dont know.

 

Today I got a letter from a firm of solicitors called Sechiari Clark & Mitchell telling us that they are instructed to act to recover the car from Blackhorse for non compliance. I rang them up and the telephone number is that of Blackhorse Finance as is the fax number. I asked to speak directly to the solicitors and was informed that I could not. I spoke to the law society and got a number from them for Sechiari Clark Solicitors only to find that they were not instructed at all. They do work for Blackhorse and blackhorse use their headed paper but put their own phone number on it.

 

I think this is very underhanded. Am I right. Is it not against the law for a creditor to hold themselves out to be a solicitor and to try and pretend that they are and use another firms headed paper. The solicitors had no knowledge of our case and confirmed that the letter had not come from them. I would welcome your comments. Some 3 months have passed since my first request for a copy of the signed agreement. My husband is disabled and quite ill. I am trying to get too the bottom of it and getting no where can you please help anyone.

 

 

Thank you for your kind help.

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, sounds as if you are having a terrible time with this. To be honest I would make an appointment with your local Trading Standards officer and take all your paperwork with you. A complaint to the Office of Fair Trading wouldn't come amiss either.

 

Kind Regards

 

Ell-enn

[missbling]

I have spoken to Consumer Direct who have spoken to Trading Standards on our behalf but to be honest both don't seem to have that indepth a knowledge on the law surrounding agreements. They say without an agreement its unlawful but they have admitted that they dont know about solicitors acting underhandedly.

[fredbassett]

Not my area of expertise but have you tried the following websites to see if they give you any advice: FLA, Financial Services Authority and dti.gov.uk/consumers .

[onlynameleft]

Have you raised the issue of a creditor using a solicitors' notepaper with the Solicitors' Regulation Authority? All solicitors' firms must be regulated by the SRA and this sounds very odd indeed, particularly as the firm itself seems to condone it. Solicitors Regulation Authority - Protecting consumers of legal services