Sent SAR but today received Court Claim form

[libbyb]

Dweeble, they have in an email today said that the car was sold for £1900. They say this was deducted from the balance, but from the date they last wrote (04/05/05) til 01/11/06, there was no further correspondence, and their calculation of the debt shows that £1380 in interest has accrued since that date. so not much to show for the car sale now then.

[lookinforinfo]

Libby, you will have to ask for the case to be delayed I think. They are

giving you so much new information so late to be able to come up with your best defence and strongest arguments. To be on the safe side, if you can, it

might be better to deliver the papers by hand as the post may not be back to normal, and its vital that your son has as much info as he can get before he

goes to Court.

 

If Online have sold it, who is Shoosmith acting on behalf of? It should be

on the summons from Court. Also, when a contract is assigned, the new owner should inform you, since they need your permission to continue the

contract at the same terms as under the oriinal creditor. And you can

refuse [ok your son can.] Is the interest rate the same as before? When you

issue a CA request, interest charges on the account should cease. If

you don't know who owns the debt, you can't CCA them. They took a long

time to take away the car and advise you of the oustanding yet-so why should your son be liable for that inrerest when they gave him no opportunity

to repay?

Why was it not explained when the car repossessed that he would still have to pay for the car? Now he has the worst of both worlds-paying for a car he hasn't got-indeed paying more than if he still had the car.

Why is he being charged insurance for 60 months when the car has been sold

Why were £700 of charges refunded. Have they been deducted from the

outstanding balance?

[libbyb]

Hi, Lookinforinfo - I know I am getting disjointed with all of this. Shoosmith's are solicitors, one of their services is debt collection (I went on their website when my son received their letter). In all correspondence they refer to On Line Finance as 'their client'. The problem with delivering papers by hand is that the claim has been filed with MCOL Northampton. We are located in Surrey! I have written to the court recording the delay in Shoosmith conforming with the SAR and Request for Further information, plus a copy of the letter faxed/posted to the Information Commissioner. I appreciate your list of questions - I would like to pose them or rather my son would, but if Shoosmith say that quote "that if they "do not receive the sum of £6.908.67 by 4pm on the 28th December 2006 we will proceed to enter Judgement against you without further notice." what chance of asking questions or listing them in a defence? They write as though this case is alread closed and won - by them.

[lookinforinfo]

Libby, there was no mention of the £1900 reduction on your bill on the first

page of this thread-the total came to £5230. Difficult to know yet, but they

should have already included the sale of the car in your S.A.R - (Subject Access Request), but the £1900

may be a gross figure before they pay commission to the auctioneer-assuming

it was sold by auction [you should be told that too]. But even if they only

cleared £1600, that would bring the debt down to £3630, If that is the

case, then interest for a year should only be around £500 at 14% odd.

 

To get the Court to delay the case, you write to The Court asking for more time because the solicitors etc have been too slow in supplying you with the

details necessary to mount your defence. Show them the papers they have sent, plus detail some of the others they haven't yet sent-eg sale price of

the car and its final price after deductions. Also there appears to be no

final total bill that includes the reduction from the sale of the car, and that

the interest charges are all wrong therefore. Nor is it clear who owns the debt. And any other reason why it should be delayed that you can think of.

[libbyb]

Hi lookinforinfo! I wrote a list earlier of what to do next.

What to do:

1 Add up charges from the On Line Statements – and include the balance of the 60 months insurance, gap and cover-all, and deduct from the total balance. The balance is the admitted amount.

2. Copy this to the courts and include the filled out statement of means and post with a covering letter.

I believe that the pdf file attached to the email from shoosmith today was actually sent to them directly from On Line, as this is the first showing of the sale of the car plus agents fees etc. I will print the files off an attach them to a letter to the court asking for more time in view of the documented delay by Shoosmith in supplying the information requested. Will the case then be held locally to us? The problem is my son needs to fill out the income and expenditure forms etc and he is working til late right upto Christmas Eve (every little helps!) and he is not living at home - it will be difficult to sit him down tomorrow to fill out this stuff, with his xmas targets buzzing - but i will text him and pin him down to a time allowing me to post everything off to the court tomorrow.

[lookinforinfo]

Working out time scales Libby, I realise that you will be better going to Coourt

on the 28th and asking then for the case to be put back. If the Judge says

no, at least you will be there in person to argue your case. if you do get a deferment, ask if you could have it transferred to your local Court please.

 

PS I wouldn't worry about the income/expenditure form too much. The Court will supply one there and he will have time to fill it up-it

shouldn't take long. He knows how much he earns and probably most of

the bills that he has to pay.

In other words don't waste your time writing, just go there on the 28th.

[libbyb]

Is there anyway I can look up this case number on the MCOL website to see if there are notes etc? I have read in other threads that the Northampton court is just where the dc's dump cases for quick clearance but that if it results in a hearing then it will be transferred to a court local to the defendant? am I mixing various bits of information up now?

[lookinforinfo]

Libby, I am sorry. I have misread the letters from Shoosmiths as that the

Court case will be heard on the 28th, not that they will commence proceedings at the end of the day.

You have not received a summons yet have you? There will be nothing online yet as Shoosmiths still haven't applied. And when they do, it will probably be about sometime mid January at the earliest before thae case can be heard.

Once again, sorry about the panic.

 

Might be worthwhile asking Shoosmiths for details of the Court Order that

they needed to repossess the car.

Have you received the T&Cs from anyone yet, so that you can see what

happens when things go wrong/

[JonCris]

A debtor can only arrested for refusing to comply with a judges order & I dont mean a CCJ

[libbyb]

Thanks lookinforinfo - the only thing from the court was the Court Claim Form issued on the 16th which my son acknowledged. I didn't think this was set as a heaing date - but it did advise that there was 28 days in which to submit a defence - of course all the information was witheld for 28 days and we wrote to the court to keep them informed of the situation. A very poor copy of the Agreement was submitted, obviously v.small print but will pore over that and extract any of the T&C's that are relevant - i.e. letter charges or late payment penalties. Had to go off to get some sleep but woke up with all this in my head! Thanks for reading through all this and taking time to advise!:o

[libbyb]

Does that mean he will be home for Christmas then, Joncris?

[JonCris]

It does & you'll have to feed & water him not the tax payer

 

He has 14 days in which to acknowledge service followed by another 14 days to submit his defence.

[libbyb]

Well now that the request for information has been replied to, there is a bit of work to be done, but the main thing is the charges etc so at least there is a definite amount to contest. The T&C's need a thorough read through to - but I have just had to go and get the Christmas Dinner! Thanks so much for all the advice, I really do need and appreciate it!:o

[lookinforinfo]

If you can scan the agreement on to your computer, copy and paste it to Notepad, you can then go to Format, and increase the font size making it

much easier to read.

What I hope you find is info on your sons' situation-ie -ie having paid more than half the amount.

[libbyb]

Ok - that's a big help, I shall scan in in the morning, ready for son's arrival and he can do the reading through of the agreement's t&c's. thanks again will be back to update! Merry Christmas to you - all!

[djweeble]

Libbyb....

 

Excuse me for not reading everything fully, I've got a thick head at the moment full of flu, and I'm even finding it difficult to look at a screen :-|

 

Is there actually a date set yet for a hearing, or have they not applied to MCOL yet ?

 

If there's a date, I can't find any reference in this topic to you applying to get the case moved to your local court, you should do this immediately, it'll give you a bit of breathing space to sort out the other details.

[SHERLOCK]

Hi Libby,

 

Did your son have the payments taken from a bank account?

it so get your son's statements from the bank showing the payments to online, this should tally with their data (when u get it) and your son may well have a charges claim to make on the bank, a double whammy.

 

SHERLOCK

[libbyb]

Hi again - son here now, we have printed of all the emails from shoosmiths and we ae going to send an email to shoosmiths and a letter to the court with all of the disagreements to the calculations that they have listed - (like interest on the insurance for whole cover and gap insurance that should have been cancelled upon termination of the agreement, surely?) I will cover all of this and will report back - we will also ensure that Northampton court are updated and ask that further proceedings be moved to the local court. thanks - Libby

[libbyb]

thanks sherlock - we are looking at that aspect too

[lookinforinfo]

Libby, I have asked before, but I now realise that it was a more important question that I thought at the time-did they get a Court Order?

 

Under the Consumer Credit Act -this is what section 90 says-

90.—(1) At any time when—

(a) the debtor is in breach of a regulated hire-purchase or a regulated conditional

sale agreement relating to goods, and

(b) the debtor has paid to the creditor one-third or more of the total price of the

goods, and

© the property in the goods remains in the creditor,

the creditor is not entitled to recover possession of the goods from the debtor except on an order of the court.

 

If they did not get a Court Order, and while it may be dependent on whether

your son did agree to them repossessing the car then section 91 says this-

 

91. If goods are recovered by the creditor in contravention of section 90 (a) the

regulated agreement, if not previous terminated, shall terminate, and (b) the debtor

shall be released from all liability under the agreement, and shall be entitled to recover

from the creditor all sums paid by the debtor under the agreement.

 

PS Before they can apply for a Court Order, they would have had to send your son a default notice.

[lookinforinfo]

Also found this on this url-http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/debt/credit.htm#Cancellingacreditagreement and the relevant part for you is this-

 

" If you have bought goods under a hire purchase or a conditional sale agreement (see under heading Types of credit) and have already made some payments, you can end the agreement by returning the goods. However, you may still have to pay any arrears and an amount of money which, when added to the amount of money paid already, comes to half the total price of the goods, if the agreement is regulated under the Consumer Credit Act (see under heading Regulated credit agreements).

 

So it does look as if your son has no need to pay them any more money. In

fact, they may well be trying it on to get more money out of him using scare

tactics, and do not intend to take him to Court at all.

 

If they are doing that, then maybe you should consider a visit to Trading

Standards............

[fairclaire]

With all due respect, if your local Trading Standards are like mine, I wouldn't bother.

 

My situation is not dissimilar to this one. (fairclaire V British credit Trust.)My car was reposessed without my consent or a court order after making three quarters of the payments and BCT still want another £2000 from me. Please read the thread for the whole story.

 

I initially contacted TS for help, before I knew this site existed unfortunately. They were lovely people but sadly very little help. Their advice in the end was not to take the illegal reposession any further in the hope that they would drop what I 'owe' them (even though legally I don't owe anything!). All this has done really is hold up any action I could take against them.

 

By all means try TS. Your local office may be of much more help than mine. Just thought I'd share my experience with you.

 

I am currently waiting patiently on a SAR from BCT which they have willingly took the payment for but so far sent me nothing.

 

Good luck with your situation. I will continue to read with interest as the advice so far has been veryinteresting and useful.

 

Anyway, forget about it all for one day and have yourself a lovely christmas.

[gillytilly]

My B/f and I have been spent an hour and a half looking for your page, how are things going? Sorry don't mean to pry! Wish you well and hope you resolve your son's situation soon.

 

Gilly xx

[libbyb]

Hi everyone, been away from my son's problems for a while, the reason is that there is absolutely no news whatsoever! Following my last post above we sent everything off to both the courts and Shoosmiths and up to today we have had absolutely nothing from anybody??? My son has gone through CCCS and has commenced a debt management programme, and they are making payments on his behalf - they have made one to Shoosmiths as the advisor has told my son that he doubts if there will be any reduction on the total amount even after court. I can't believe that it has all gone quiet but this is exactly how they conduct their business - they wrote one year saying they were taking back car and it took almost a full year to come after him for this money! I did contact the Information commissioner re the SAR and they sent a letter to us a month later saying it was now allocated to a manager - that was 18th January. Seems its only the baillifs that move fast in their 'industry'!

[libbyb]

Hi again - got a letter today from CCCS advising that Shoosmiths are 'unable to accept the reduced payment proposal we have recently offered because a larger offer is required'. Shoosmith have written nothing other than an email just before close of business for Christmas - where are the court proceedings - we don't know what to expect - the longer it goes on the worse it feels. Should we write to them or let it take it's course through CCCS now??? Thanks for your kind message gillytilly..