Paragon secured loan, repossession action

[caro]

That's really helpful. Thanks Hillard.

 

You've obviously found out how important it is to stick strictly to the court order in terms of amount and date.

 

If you find your circumstances change and you really can't afford it, make sure you keep paragon informed, and if necessary apply to the court with a new I&E to get it varied.

 

Don't give them any excuses. As long as you can make the payment and something off the arrears, no judge will let them take your home.

[hillards]

Oh, I was quite prepared to blow things out of the water when I got their letter saying they were taking action, when I knew full well we had paid and they had sent that 'in error'. Rather than try and sort anything out with Paragon by phone, email, or even letter, I emailed their solicitor and told him what had happened - I think that had some effect as it went straight to a senior manager to be investigated

 

The document I have, drawn up by that solicitor and submitted by him to the court, clearly says first payment date of 31st October, not 'by' as they have implied in their letters. I have written to them again to ask for clarification, and making darned sure they know that I will be paying on the last day of the month so there is no further 'error' to be made on their part.

 

There is a strong possibility that we will lose part of our working tax credits in April. We've not had the final notification but it's possible that would be halved, we would be losing perhaps £80 a month through that. That would be the difference between having the central heating on, or not. Just how we will cope we don't know but I can't see Paragon agreeing to let us pay the monthly amount, with nothing off the arrears. We've already had to do a lot of belt tightening and my medical condition isn't good, without having more problems like this.

 

I really don't think it's fair that we are in this situation. At the time the loan was arranged I was in reasonably good health and we were both working full time. Since then the wife has been made redundant twice and is now in a very variable job, as far as income and hours go. I'm unemployable through disability and our joint income is perhaps half of what we had back then. The PPI was useless and has been claimed back, but has not helped really as it just got us out of a hole when it was finally paid out. We were soon back in the same hole. Paragon and companies like them are not interested, all they want is the money, or the house. I have no respect for them at all.

[hillards]

Well, they still want to play silly beggars it seems.

 

I have a court order that told me to pay them on October 31st, nothing about what dates to pay beyond that, but it had been agreed it would be monthly. Now they are whining that payments have been arriving later than the agreed date and are insisting on it arriving in their account on or before the last day of the month. That is despite a spurious letter I got from them saying to pay the on 31st of the month until further notice, guess I can't pay this month under those terms as there will not be a 31st.

 

Their letter has said it's their final response so I'm about to refer it up the complaints procedure, they give the FOS as the next step. I am sick of them moving goalposts and being stroppy. I have told them in previous correspondence that I do not see them as a fit company to handle my account. I will reiterate this to the FOS.

 

I also complained about their introduction of a 0845 number but they've just fobbed me off saying to call the 0121 number, without addressing the point that their people are telling callers that 0845 is local call rate, when it is not. That was my complaint, not that I wanted an alternative as I much prefer to keep things in writing of course. I just hate being lied to, which was then blamed on what they had been told to say.

 

If they can't deal with complaints properly then it diminishes my view about them handling my account even further...

[hillards]

Complaint went to FOS and I've had a letter from them to say it's been received, plus a short questionnaire to let them know what action is required. Sent that back later week.

 

Today, letter from paragon. They've looked back at the court order and they say they are confused about it. Seems they cannot figure out that the court saying 'payment to be made ON...' such a date does not mean that the funds must be in their bank account by that date ! I wouldn't kind, but they sent a letter to confirm that payments should be made ON the 31st of the month. No mention there for wanting it in their account by that date either, which I would have objected to.

 

Anyway, they have agreed to a 7 day grace period to allow for receipt of payments. Something so simple, yet caused all sorts of issues. Wasn't that nice of them

[sillygirl1]

What nasty lot they are - when I was originally dealing with them I had to phone up on a weekly basis at one point, as they were 'convinced' I was paid weekly and was withholding funds from them! This was long before I knew my 'rights' as a debtor and began to challenge the chasing creditors as heavily as they were chasing me.

 

I honestly don't think I need the hassle of chasing them for something as old as this, according to my records the loan was repaid in 2004 so it possibly will be fobbed off by them and the FSCS as being 'statute barred'.

 

Funny how they ALWAYS want the ball in their court and not in anyone elses isn't it?

[dx100uk]

PPI in most instances cannot be statute barred

the limitation act only plays a partfrom 'when you became aware'

 

dx

[hillards]

What nasty lot they are...

Got to agree with that observation...

I honestly don't think I need the hassle of chasing them for something as old as this, according to my records the loan was repaid in 2004 so it possibly will be fobbed off by them and the FSCS as being 'statute barred'.

No, it's not... Go for it ! I've just done a PPI reclaim on an account we started in 2003 and paid off in 2006 :- http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?415458-Welcome-PPI-claim-pre-2005&p=4480621

 

Go down to post #4 in that topic, to where dx100uk pops up to help me, follow the 'Read Here' link at "1. Single Premium PPI Q&A", that explains how to work it all out

[hillards]

Over a year has gone by since my last post about this naff company and the way they do business.

I've not heard anything back from the FOS in the last year either.

 

We've had another run-in with them late last year when my pension was not paid into the bank in time to meet the payment due to Paragon

so I called them an arranged to pay the bulk of the payment straight away and the remaining £50 the week after.

They agreed and sent me a letter to confirm this.

 

 

I also got a letter a few days later to show that we had agreed to pay our regular amount as of the month after.

I objected to this was we had rounded the figure up ourselves to the next £10 above and they had taken this as being the actual amount - wrong.

 

No sooner had I got that sorted than I got nasty calls from their litigation lot,

claiming that I had broken the agreement and they were instigating repossession !!!

 

They were not interested in the letters I had that agreed with the proposal I had made, so I wrote to the company as a complaint.

I also pointed out that I had previously told them not to telephone, I wanted everything in writing and that their litigation department had broken this agreement.

 

Happily they upheld my complaint and things have died down.

We've kept to the payments, despite our own concerns about needing the central heating on due to my illness.

It seems that their repossession order is a trump card and there is no point going back to the court to say we cannot afford the payments

as that's the very reason we were taken to court anyway.

 

 

A court would have no option but to uphold the repossession if we are unable to meet the repayments.

 

Now on to my current concerns. This seems quite serious and I need some input please.

 

Since the court case was started in early 2014 we've not had any statement of account for this loan unless we've demanded a full summary,

like we needed for the court case.

 

 

We are paying over £6,000 a year. Yes, it's under threat of a possession order but that is no reason for them to be so ignorant of us.

I was given to understand that all companies should issue at least an annual statement?

We have never had one of those from them since the loan started in 2006.

 

We have no idea if the solicitors fees were added to the account following the court case.

We have had no communication from anyone about that.

We have not agreed that they can do it anyway, it is an addition to the loan that must require some sort of signed agreement ?

Additional borrowing or whatever.

They can't just slap on an undefined about, and charge interest on it.

 

 

As I say, we've not had any sort of statement from them to know what our current situation is.

 

I have waited and waited to see what they would do about this

and consider that they have had ample time in which to advise us of any amount being added to the account,

even without our signed agreement.

 

 

In a way I've let them have enough rope...

 

Should I ask for a full statement, and perhaps query why they don't send an annual one?

If we then see that they've added anything on, can we challenge that ?

 

 

I was quite happy to pay off what we owed, and could have been debt free in the next year or two if it came down as anticipated.

 

I was aware there could be some extra interest due to a couple of times we missed payments in the past.

We missed a few more but borrowed money to pay it up to date to get it out of court the first time they tried repossession in 2013.

Back then we had a PPI claim going through, already detailed in this thread,

from which we paid the money back to the family member we had borrowed from.

 

That isn't the cause of my concern.

 

 

It's

1) why we never get a statement of account and

2) what to do if they have slapped extra on the account.

 

Comments welcome

[dx100uk]

sar time?

 

 

dx

[hillards]

sar time?

Logical thinking, agreed. Unsure if they are supposed to give a statement of account automatically though as we've never had one on this account. We should not have to be shelling out for a SAR to find out where we stand, especially with the amount of cash they take off us each month !

 

Will send a SAR this week, it's a pension day on Friday

[citizenB]

It is my understanding that it is a statutory obligation that statements are sent at least once a year. , Hillards

 

Do you have the original terms and conditions ?

[hillards]

It is my understanding that it is a statutory obligation that statements are sent at least once a year. , Hillards

 

Do you have the original terms and conditions ?

 

We did a SAR about 3 years ago when we first had problems paying, looking then at the CCA and how it applied the the loan as we thought the agreement was invalid. Still do, but can't afford to go through court on that score. We have a couple of copies of the agreement somewhere. An original and a copy they sent once.

 

We've never had a statement other than ones we've asked for. I thought they had to provide one each year as well, but they don't.

[citizenB]

If this were me, I would write and ask them to provide up to date statements. If they refuse, then it might be worth a formal complaint to their Head office and escalate it to the FOS if necessary.

[hillards]

If this were me, I would write and ask them to provide up to date statements. If they refuse, then it might be worth a formal complaint to their Head office and escalate it to the FOS if necessary.

 

Sick of complaining about these idiots. They never seem to resolve anything. Doing a SAR will show what the current state of account is and if they have added anything. Then we start escalating it further.

 

My main concern is if they did add anything in relation to legal fees for the court case. They've had no agreement from us to do so, or to charge interest etc on that. If they've not added anything then OK, we will find out where we stand on the account now, and have some hope it will be paid off soon.

 

As for statements, quite happy to make a formal complaint as long as I know what ground I'm standing on. At present I've no idea if they have a legal obligation to provide them, or not ?

 

 

 

AH - will this do ?

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/glos/con1item.cgi?file=*adv0011-1011.txt

Edited May 4, 2015 by hillards
found info

[caro]

Unfortunately it's down to the judge regarding legal fees for the court case and you get no say. You may be able to claim other charges back though.

[hillards]

There was no judgment made, so no legal fees were discussed. Certainly not by a judge. It was when we dropped the case and their solicitor suggested he would pass his fees on to be added to our account. No figure has been mentioned, we've not been told if they did or not...

 

Yeah, it sounds dodgy to me too That was a year and a half ago now, we've not had any info out of them in that time.

[Lea_HTH]

A judge has no jurisdiction over legal fees incurred by a mortgagee. They are a contractual term - so you've already signed up and agreed to them when you took out the loan. They can only be reclaimed if they are unreasonably high - for which you would need to have them assessed (which would cost you).