Withdrawal of Statutory Demand

[DollyDagger]

Hi,

Please also report the claimant to the OFT for using the SD as a debt collecting tool, and for generally running their business in a shambolic manner.

You probably won't get any feed back from the OFT but it may count against them when their consumer credit license comes up for renewal.

Martin g

 

This is their LinkedIn Profile. Does the illiteracy level (possibly working towards adult basic skills level 2) give a clue as to the likely level of competence in other spheres?

 

Full stops and capital letters, spelling, proof reading and the apostrophe all appear to provide something of a challenge to this firm.

 

We at Final Demand Ltd have over 50 years experience in the debt recovery industry, we have a fully qualified litigation department ready to handle any debt that comes our way. Pro-active and cost effective are the methods we employ when persuing our clients overdue accounts, so please do not hesitate to contact us on XXX XXXXXX XXXX qouting refference FDLI001.

 

 

Also, from their web site, these gems, which might show why some self-styled and genuine creditors choose them:

 

Are you chasing your own debts? The law changed on April 6th 2008! The Office of Fair Trading published it's latest amendment of debt and debt collection guidance. You must conduct yourself responsibly, lawfully and comply with all relevant UK legislation.

 

Let us help you with the late payment of commercial debts (interest) act 1998.

 

With our principle of working on a 'NO WIN-NO FEE' basis, our clients benefit from an extremely cost effective, full legal service.

 

Supported by specialist debt recovery solicitors, who are actively selected for their direct and legally aggressive approach to debt collection.

 

Following County Court or High Court routes of litigation can prove to be arduous, costly and largely ineffective. Debtors will use the system to their advantage. Frustration becomes a key issue following this route. Our legal teams prefer insolvency procedures. Fast, cost effective and legally aggressive to provide protection for our clients, these principles have become the ethos of our service.

 

Legal action is issued on non-contested matters exclusively on a 'NO WIN-NO FEE' basis.

 

Contentious matters are of course part of the make-up of many companies. Where matters of this nature exist, legal opinion is obtained without recourse to expensive litigation.

[DollyDagger]

Where did you find this information about a licence? What sort of a licence is this, please. Does this mean if your debt is not related to consumer credit they have no right to collect it?

[martin g]

Businesses requiring a licence

 

The types of businesses that are likely to require a consumer credit licence.

You are likely to need a licence if you want to:

• sell on credit
  
• hire or lease out goods for more than three months
  
• lend money
  
• issue credit cards or trading checks
  
• arrange credit for others
  
• offer hire purchase terms
  
• collect debts
  
• help people with debt problems
  
• advise on people's credit standing
  
• administer agreements (but do not collect debts) for creditors or assignees
  
• help individuals to locate and correct records about their financial standing.
  

You are not likely to need a licence if:

• you only deal with limited companies (or,in the case of credit reference agencies, you only furnish information about limited companies)
  
• you are just accepting credit cards or trading checks issued by someone else (and you didn't introduce the borrower to them)
  
• you are just allowing customers to pay their bills in four or fewer instalments within a year beginning on the date of the arrangement.
  

Your licence must cover all the categories of credit activities that you plan to carry out. It is a criminal offence to carry out any activities that are not covered by your licence.

All professions or trades are 'businesses' for licensing purposes. Even if you make no charge for services or are non profit-making, you may still need a licence.

If your licence is due for renewal or if you are applying for a new licence or to vary an existing licence you might want to refer to Do you need a credit licence? (pdf 166 kb).

Consumer Credit Directive

The Consumer Credit Act and regulations are changing as a result of implementation of the Consumer Credit Directive (CCD). Regulations were laid on 30 March 2010 and are due to come into force on 1 February 2011. It will however be open to firms to comply before then if they choose. Details can be found on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) website.

Relevant OFT guidance will be updated in due course in the light of the CCD changes.

 

Taken from the OFT website

 

Martin g

 

[DollyDagger]

Thanks this helps.

[ArtisanUK]

I have just received the following email from Final Demand Ltd

'We are in receipt of an Order of Court dated 23.2.11 and write to advise that we are not the Respondent in this matter. Also we have a recorded telephone call wherein we advised the Statutory Demand was withdrawn and as such you would then withdraw the Application in regards to same.'

 

Can anyone please advise? I know it's not a huge amount of money, but it is more the principle of the matter! Help!

 

So what happened next? Did you recover your costs and, if so, were they from Final Demand Ltd?

 

If Final Demand Ltd has been ordered to pay your costs, why not try a winding up petition on them?

[Assist123]

Just like ArtisanUK I would be very interested to know what happened on this particular matter.?

 

Also, was the statutory demand just issued by Final Demand or was it signed by someone in particular on behalf of FD.?

[DollyDagger]

FD had sent me letters attempting to collect the debt, plus statutory interest under the late payments act, which does not apply though i only realised that after a lot of internet research. I informed that it was a disupted debt and that the late payments act did not apply. In this they were acting as the agent of a building firm. there was a long pause, then I got yet another letter and then they came and issued an SD but on behalf of the builder.

 

I spent ages putting together bundles of photos, invoices, witness statements and so on for the court but on the day the builder did not turn up so the judge said on that basis he made his mind up before he even came into the court on the basis that the other party was not serious and the courts did not like debt collection agencies using insolvency procedures to try to collect debts.

 

I had not thought about costs, but was asked whether I had any, so all I could think of was the printing (20 p a sheet for about a hundred sheets, this is a set court rate,) and my bus fare, though hours on the Internet researching insolvency law and so on ought to have been added if possible.

 

If I get the costs they ought to come from the builder. I don't suppose FD wanted anything to do with it once they realised I was serious when I said it was a disputed debt.

[ArtisanUK]

Why not invoice the builder and then, when he refuses to pay, serve him with an SD?

[42man]

Statutory demands: ensure that they are accurate to avoid additional costs

Summary and implications of Agilo Ltd v William Henry [2010] EWHC 2717

 

The High Court determined that it was correct to set aside a statutory demand (under rule 6.5(4) of the Insolvency Rules 1986) because it had the wrong creditor's name on it.

This judgment emphasises that creditors must make sure that statutory demands are accurate before serving them on debtors, otherwise they may be exposed to additional costs.

A court will set aside a statutory demand which:

• Contains incomplete, misleading or inaccurate details of the debt claimed.
  
• Is issued by or on behalf of a party that was not a creditor at the date of the demand.
  

[Citou]

Hopefully this forum will help us in a similar situation in that we dispute we owe our builders £1,300 from a project that ended last year. I firstly recieved a phonecall from Final Demand Ltd (luckily i had the previous evening googled the company and read various reports about them and their intimidating approach) when i recieved the phonecall i felt empowered with this prior knowledge and asked them to put everything in writing and that our position remained the same and that we would not be settling the alleged debt. We have since recieved various inpersonal intimidating missives from Final Demand Ltd to which we have replied by recorded post - they have not acknowledged any of the first three in whihc we repeated that stated our position remained the same in that "we disputed that we owed this money but would welcome mediation through the builders professional body" i.e NHBC - proudly printed on their glossy brochure in which our quotation was presented. When we started experiencing problems (huge extras not quoted for and not agreed to in writing - but settled nonetheless following detailed and painfull negotiations) I contacted NHBC only to be told that our builders were not members and had no right to use their logo. This misrepresented their professional standing and as we now are experiencing there is no peace of mind regarding an expected level of workmanship or guarantee.

 

My last reply to Final Demand Ltd was endorsing our earlier position of a dispute and the wish for mediation through their professional body to have closure on the episode. I also mentioned that this would present an opportunity to present costs that we have incurred to put right defects as a result of the poor workmanship. (no bonding coat to ensure plaster adhered to walls - wrong specification plaster within a fireplace. We have subsequently paid one of their earlier subcontractors to remove cracked and popped plaster and put right) We now have damp reappearing on a wall that we paid a lot of money to have damp-proofed - still no sign of our damp proof certificate (despite asking) so we cannot find out who did the work to ask them to re-visit or seek their advice.

 

Our builders are in liquidation - i have sent a recorded delivery letter to the liquidator to establish the present position and to establish how we stand in relation to the missives being recieved by Final Demand Ltd and to the defects now being experienced. This was signed for on the 11th October but we have not recieved any reply or acknowledgement. We have however recieved a letter from Final Demand Ltd that states that we did not present his client with a snagging list to enable him to re-visit within 28 days to assess and put right. He also states the need for a QS to visit to assess the situation with us paying 50% of the cost for doing so. This is deviating from the issue at hand - the alleged debt that we dispute and our highlighting that the late payments act does not relate to a disputed debt (forum advice given to an earlier posting). Can we simply reply stating our position that we dispute the debt and again ask for mediation in line with pre action protocol? Your excellent advice would be so much appreciated - this has been playing on our minds and has truly taken away any joy that we hoped we would feel once the work had been completed.

 

Kind regards

 

citou:-(

[DonkeyB]

If the company is in liquidation, it should not be trading in any way – if Final Demand Ltd still claim to be representing the company rather than the liquidators, then there is potentially something very dodgy going on here. Not a word I’d like to use on an open forum...

 

Is he asking for payment to someone other than the company’s liquidator? If so, time for Mr Plod to get involved.

[Citou]

Thank you so much for your posting:- I am getting totally distracted by the frustration of this situation - not to mention my dear husbands heart!

 

Final Demand Limited letter dated 11/10/2011 clearly displays their client details (our builders) and refers to their client.

I have researched the London Gazette and there is a Notice No on 3rd June 2011 - Appointment of Liquidators - company status - in liquidation.

Further followed up with an advertisement on June 27th referring to Corporate Insolvency of the Company with a Notice Number.

 

Final Demand Limited are asking for payment for the alleged debt with late payment of interest on the money owed to be made payable to them at Final Demand Limited.

 

Very interesting - the sooner we can achieve closure the better - with everybodies help - hopefully we can!

 

Many thanks

 

citou

[DonkeyB]

In which case, report this to the liquidator urgently.

 

Suggest a call if you can. The liquidator will be interested in three aspects:

 

1. Whether this 'debt' has been declared on the insolvent company's books

2. Who would be the ultimate recipient of monies paid to Final Demand Ltd

3. Why the company appears to be trading while insolvent, which can be a criminal offence.

 

Go get 'em!

[DollyDagger]

Check this late interest. In my case FD cited the Late Payments Act. If you read this it is an Act which applies ONLY when one business deals with another. It does not apply when you deal with a business as a consumer. I pointed this out to FD Ltd who ignored it. So it was one thing I mentioned on my application to set aside their statutory demand. If they are citing this Act and you were a consumer, as opposed to a business man getting business premises damp proofed, this is another thing to mention.

 

You ought to contact your local trading standards about FD Ltd. They benefit from the fact that they are in Liverpool and Liverpool trading standards will not investigate for people living elsewhere. But the more TS depts who hear about them the more chance that they will lose their licence, so contact the national body too.

 

You are under no obligation to reply to any letters from FD Ltd. This is not a 'debt' of the sort they are licenced to collect. It does not arise from a credit agreement or from a court judgement.

 

They are acting merely as agents of the builder. So complain to Trading Standards about the builder too. I should write directly to the builder, setting out your concerns and copy that to Trading Standards, FD Ltd and to the liquidator.

[DonkeyB]

The builder’s company is in liquidation – the liquidator is the ONLY person to speak to or write to.

[Citou]

Thank you for this - having established through your kind advice that FD Ltd have no rights to contact us and as such we can therefore ignore them - why therefore is it in our interest to contact the liquidator at all when it would appear that the ball is in their court not ours to pursue us for this disputed debt?

 

We vehemently stand by our position and dispute that there is any debt at all owing and can support our position totally.

 

We have not had an acknowledgement from the liquidator to our letter sent recorded last week which attached all copy missives from FD Ltd.

 

I would happily pursue a course of action against FD Ltd if it was to prevent other members of the public receiving the bullying letters such as those that we have recieved.

 

So should I contact PC Plod - the OFT and/or Trading Standards?

 

Thanks so much again.

 

citou:?:

[DonkeyB]

OFT and TS certainly.

 

The likelihood of the liquidator/official receiver going after a clearly disputed debt is low.

 

However, your letters and contact would certainly cause a lot of aggro for FD Ltd and, if the builder is aware of their activities, him too as a director of a company in receivership which should NOT be attempting to trade. You could open a whole can of worms.

 

As for Mr Plod, if you can show the company is no longer trading, then the F word comes to mind.

[S.Jackson2011]

Dear All

With reference to all of the posts on this thread, I am a paralegal at Final Demand Ltd and given the amount of conjecture, I feel it only to be fair to provide the facts surrounding this case.

Final Demand Ltd act purely as the agent for the client and no more, before the issue of a Statutory Demand, the defendant will have received 3 letters and at least two phone calls in an attempt to resolve the account amicably. If the debt is over £750 and there is no dispute, we advise our clients that the issue of a Statutory Demand is the way forward. Clients are expected to sign and return an authority form confirming that there was no dispute prior to instruction and all documents are served via personal service with the relevant witness statements being signed by the process server.

There is however still an element of good faith involved and in this particular case, the client provided misinformation and failed to tell us there was a formal dispute lodged by the debtor thus making the issue of the demand incorrect. We advised the client to withdraw the demand forthwith which we duly did.

Final Demand Ltd have over 50yrs in house experience and look after county councils, premiership football clubs and other household names. According to the plimsoll report, out of approx 700 DCA’s in the UK, we are already in the top 30 after 3yrs trading.

We do not take the service of Statutory Demands lightly and perform all the necessary due diligence prior to doing so however if a client blatantly provides false information, as the agents, we cannot be held liable for this.

[DonkeyB]

The other point, sunshine, is that you blatantly ignored letters from this victim stating that there was a dispute, and proceeded with the issue of an SD anyway. Why? Are you going to blame your client for that? What happened to your due diligence in that situation? I do hope the victim sends details of his case to Trading Standards and the OFT, because you are clearly not fit to hold a licence.

[DonkeyB]

Oh, and I forgot to mention your frequent practice of adding your own costs to a debt, which you are not allowed to do.

 

Not looking good for you, is it? That reputation you claim can only be a bad one.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Dear All

With reference to all of the posts on this thread, I am a paralegal at Final Demand Ltd and given the amount of conjecture, I feel it only to be fair to provide the facts surrounding this case.

Final Demand Ltd act purely as the agent for the client and no more, before the issue of a Statutory Demand, the defendant will have received 3 letters and at least two phone calls in an attempt to resolve the account amicably. If the debt is over £750 and there is no dispute, we advise our clients that the issue of a Statutory Demand is the way forward. Clients are expected to sign and return an authority form confirming that there was no dispute prior to instruction and all documents are served via personal service with the relevant witness statements being signed by the process server.

There is however still an element of good faith involved and in this particular case, the client provided misinformation and failed to tell us there was a formal dispute lodged by the debtor thus making the issue of the demand incorrect. We advised the client to withdraw the demand forthwith which we duly did.

Final Demand Ltd have over 50yrs in house experience and look after county councils, premiership football clubs and other household names. According to the plimsoll report, out of approx 700 DCA’s in the UK, we are already in the top 30 after 3yrs trading.

We do not take the service of Statutory Demands lightly and perform all the necessary due diligence prior to doing so however if a client blatantly provides false information, as the agents, we cannot be held liable for this.

 

Company rep not contacting site admin to establish bona fides - FAIL

 

Attempting to use commercial debt legislation on consumer debts - FAIL

 

Breaching OFT Guidance - FAIL

 

If this is one of the top 30 DCAs in the country, then one can only speculate at how bad the rest are...

[cricketmad666]

Dear JMF - thanks for sharing your experiences about Final Demand and the court decision of Feb 2011. Are you able to say the court / judge / case number? Was there a court report of the judgment? I would like to use the decision as a precedent as we're going through a similar process with a court appearance scheduled for very soon.

[DollyDagger]

Company rep not contacting site admin to establish bona fides - FAIL

 

Attempting to use commercial debt legislation on consumer debts - FAIL

 

Breaching OFT Guidance - FAIL

 

If this is one of the top 30 DCAs in the country, then one can only speculate at how bad the rest are...

 

I echo this entirely.

 

I have experience of having written formally to FD Ltd to inform them that the bill was disputed. At first they disappeared and then, lo and behold, they were back again.

 

Despite this being a dispute between a contractor and a consumer dealing as a customer, they threatened me with costs which only apply business to business. This links to a method for dealing with "debtors" on their web site. So it would appear that attempting to use commercial debt legislation when the consumer has informed them in writing that it was a disputed bill is also part of their tactics.

 

If you phone them they are abusive, threatening and insulting. One has to suppose that this is what their clients pay them for. I wrote to the authorities because I was told that notes are made of complaints as this may affect the licence.

 

They come to visit you wearing fancy dress grey striped trousers.

 

I wonder whether their 'paralegal' - whatever what of those is - understands the laws in question.

 

When I asked them not to knock at my door they said that I could not stop them as they were collecting a debt and that is their job. They were not collecting a debt. They were harassing a victim of cowboy builders who had already been through the first part of the county court pre-court small claims procedures with a counter claim and so on, upon which their client appeared to abandon his claim. You can imagine how pleased the judge who set aside the statutory demand was to see the formal court form which the tradesman had completed and sent to me with a threat that unless I paid up it would be issued.

 

To be honest, they struck me as incompetent and unprofessional, and the semi-literate state of their web site confirms this.

 

Their client has not even paid the court costs which he incurred when I got the demand set aside. Neither FD nor their customers turned up.

 

The judge said that they get fed up of the misuse of insolvency procedures to collect disputed debts.

 

They have been written to by trading standards officers for various faults in their processes, including unreasonably frequent contact and misleading letters.

 

If they are claiming that a client misinformed them or lied to them, then I suggest that you ask them to provide you with documentary evidence of this. It is potentially an offence on the part of the client especially if they intended to distress you into paying a bill which they knew quite well was disputed on well founded and evidenced grounds.

 

FD may demand that you provide them with evidence in support of your disputing the bill. I would not advise anybody to provide this firm with any private or personal documents.

[DollyDagger]

On costs when you get an SD set aside; I did not put these on my application, but the judge asked me if there were any so I got some. It was only bus fare and photocopying stuff for the bundles but it was better than nothing.

[DollyDagger]

And on paralegals and semi literacy: who drafted this, quoted from SD earlier on in this thread?

 

I have just received the following email from Final Demand Ltd

'We are in receipt of an Order of Court dated 23.2.11 and write to advise that we are not the Respondent in this matter. Also we have a recorded telephone callwherein we advised the Statutory Demand was withdrawn and as such you would then withdraw the Application in regards to same.'

 

Trying to sound like a lawyer. More like paralytic than paralegal.