No responser defence filed in april 2011

[Guest CHEVRA]

I filed a defence to a claim issued by Arrow Global in April 2011. Heard nothing until today. Recevied letter from Arrow asking for details of income and expenditure. I never acknowledged debt but send £1 in August 2008 for information which they used to reduce my balance. The court claim is for £10210 but todays letter says £9920. Any help please

[renegadeimp]

Who did you send the initial defence to?

[Guest CHEVRA]

Arrow Global issued claim dated 14th April 2011. I sent cpr request within 7 days. TODAY I received requested docs. Surley there is a time scale they have to abide by.

 

They have also asked for details of my income and expenditure

 

What do I do now

[Guest CHEVRA]

Who did you send the initial defence to?

 

Sent to court and to claimant

Edited October 6, 2013 by slick132

[gordies]

Arrow Global issued claim dated 14th April 2011. I sent cpr request within 7 days. TODAY I received requested docs. Surley there is a time scale they have to abide by.

 

They have also asked for details of my income and expenditure

 

What do I do now

 

Ignore the I&E request.

 

CPR's are only valid if served in conjunction with a 'live' court case, were they served during a 'live' case? i.e. was there a claim number on a Court Document?

[Guest CHEVRA]

Ignore the I&E request.

 

CPR's are only valid if served in conjunction with a 'live' court case, were they served during a 'live' case?

 

It was still at Northampton bulk centre

[renegadeimp]

Can you give more info surrounding the debt please.

 

Also, is there any chance of this being statute barred? Did you get a CCJ? Have you checked your credit files?

[Guest]

so whats the current status of the court claim? is it stayed?

[Guest]

see also http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?405061-Cpr-31.14-response-after-2.5-years-!!!!!!

[citizenB]

Ok both threads have now been merged.

 

Chevra, can you please let us know the full story on this claim.

 

Do you still have all the paperwork, the claim etc, from 2011 ?

 

I would suggest you telephone the court first thing in the morning and establish the status of the claim?

 

It is my understanding that the Claimant will now have to make an application to the court to proceed. You should be advised of this.

 

I will ask someone to look in on you to see what else you might need to do.

[Guest CHEVRA]

The debt refers to a Mint credit card debt. It will not become statute barred until July 2014. The amount is £9600. In 2008 I send a request for information with £1 fee which they credited to my account. I received no response. It was then passed to numerous different debt collections agencies, all of which I ignored. The debt was assigned to Arrow who issued proceedings April 2011 with Drydens solicitors. In my defence sent to sols and court I pointed out that at the time of making my defence statement my cpr request had not been complied with, proof of posting cpr request was attached It was signed for. I went to on to explain that I was therefore unable to complete a full defence due to lack of requested documents. I heard nothing since then until yesterday when I received a letter from Arrow attaching a copy of the original agreement, notice of assignment and a copy of one credit card statement from Dec 2010, together with I & e form.

[citizenB]

Was there a letter enclosed stating this was specifically in response to your CPR31.14 ?

 

As I have already advised - contact the court and establish the status of the claim....until you are advised by the court that the claim is proceeding, you can ignore.

[Guest CHEVRA]

their letter starts with: " further to your defence filed at court"

[renegadeimp]

Check witht he court and find out the status of the debt. I wouldnt put it past arrow to lie through their teeth and say that the CCJ has already been awarded.

[Guest CHEVRA]

will do in the morning

[littlebert8]

The claim should be stayed and the clamant would need to make an application to lift the stay. They could probabbly have this delt with ex parte though as I suspect Northampton will take no notice of the delay.

 

I have a very similar claim issued by Arrow in August 2010, that they have recently threatened to continue. I wrote to them saying the application form they sent me was unenforceable (no terms) and that they have still failed to provide copies of default notice and assignment. I have also e-mailed the court to asking them to refuse any ex parte application to lift the stay unless they provide an explanation for the delay. Not expecting much, but I do think that the court should take a dim view of a claimant who 'parks' a claim for nearly 3 years!

 

Arrow seem to have form here and I believe there is case-law on abuse of process due to either starting a claim without the intention to pursue it, or parking claims while attempting to settle others. I suspect there are many more of these cases and Im wondering of the court service would provide some figures, for example, of the number of Arrow Global claims currently stayed for over 6 months? CPR5.4 might apply.

 

If we could prove that Arrow are serial 'offenders' then this may help to get such claims struck out.

 

Otherwise, I guess each case stands on its own merits i.e. have they provided an enforceable agreement etc

Edited October 6, 2013 by littlebert8
remove mention of FOI as Court records are exempt

[Guest CHEVRA]

no they havnt but the enforceable agreement route doesn't work anymore

[littlebert8]

no they havnt but the enforceable agreement route doesn't work anymore

 

What do you mean by "enforceable agreement route doesn't work any more"?

 

What other grounds for defending the claim were you hoping to find with the CPR 31.14 request - default, assignment?

[Guest CHEVRA]

What do you mean by "enforceable agreement route doesn't work any more"?

 

What other grounds for defending the claim were you hoping to find with the CPR 31.14 request - default, assignment?

 

I lost a case last year. Judge rules in mbna favour. With this one they havr sent a small photo copy of an agreement which is so small I cant read it. Also attached are terms and conditions on a4 paper and different font.

[Guest CHEVRA]

Since I put my defence in 2.5 years ago I thought there was some ruling about unenforceable agreements. Can cases still be won going down this route

[Old Cogger]

sevtion 61 & 127 of the CCA act cases prior to 2007, but it is a judge lottery as a lot of us find out, certain judge s are wrong but cannot afford to appeal.

[littlebert8]

Agree that its a judge lottery, but an awful lot depends on how well you present and argue your case.

 

A lot has changed over the past few years but I believe that HFO v Wegmuller is one of the most recent reported successes at trial.

 

It is probably fair to say that its difficult to win at trial, especially if you are not represented, but the case law still shows a prospect of success - should be enough to avoid summary judgement at least. LiPs can still be successful in getting settlements or discontinuances if you can present a strong enough defence.

 

Personally, I would try to settle if the case looked like it were going to trial and I couldn't get representation on a CFA.

[Guest CHEVRA]

I have phoned the courts, status of claim is "stayed". I am tempted to ignore their letter however it appears to have been personally signed indicating that its not a standard letter.

[littlebert8]

The claim will remain stayed until either party applies to have it lifted. Arrow could make this application to be decided 'ex parte' i.e. without notice and without a hearing. The first you would know about is upon receiving the courts directions, but you will have the opportunity to have it set aside.

 

They may also apply to both lift the stay and to obtain summary judgement, this would probably require a hearing (unless your defence was particularly weak) so you would be served with the application notice and given a hearing date.

 

I'm in a similar position to yourself. I don't know whether to wait for Arrow's next move, or to make one myself. I could make an application to strike out the claim as an abuse of process, but this would require a very strong argument and could expose me to signifiant costs if it were unsuccessful.

 

But looking at it from Arrow's point of view, I don't see that they have a particularly strong position either. To apply for summary judgement after such a long delay and still having failed to provide all the documents would be equally risky for them. If you assume that they may have paid less than a penny in the pound for these accounts, it doesn't make any commercial sense to spend much pursuing defended claims - they would get a better return on investing in new receivables rather than litigating the problem cases. Hence their MO seems to be: farm accounts out to a panel of solicitors and get them to issue the claim and collect their fixed fees plus a success bonus if admitted; if defended, they 'park' the claim indefinitely and Arrow eventually bring it back in-house and have at least one crack at bullying you into setting up a payment plan. To me, this is clearly an abuse of the court process, but proving it is another matter.

 

I've yet to find any recent examples of what Arrow tend to do next, so I took the view that I write back to them making it clear that there is still a dispute and that I intend to robustly defend any action they try to take. I also e-mailed the court to try to stop them obtaining an ex parte order to lift the stay. My thought was that ignoring them may lead them to believe they could obtain summary judgement uncontested.

[Guest]

chevra

how come the balance has reduced? you mention 10.2k then 9.9 then 9.6? anyway, it won't be small claims (unless the new rules apply to lifted cases originally started before the new small claims limit?)

as they have now sent what they believe to be ok, it could be that they may now be looking to lift the stay?

any copy agreement should be legible, and any recon should be accurate. and if before 4/07 they would need to show that it was signed re execution. also, a compliant dn required if applicable.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Ford