Letter from solicitor re accident in 2017

[Greenpanda]

Hi

 

I am not really sure where to post this , hopefully it’s appropriate here 

 

At the end of 2017 my partner was involved in a rtc when a car pulled round a bus and hit my car that my partner was driving.

 

on the advice of family I instructed a car accident management company to deal with the repairs/make necessary arrangements.  The car was fixed and the accident management company paid us a couple of thousand pounds to pay the garage .  The bill never came from the garage and we were told that it had been settled by the insurance company. 

 

when I sold the car a few months ago I struggled to sell to the garage as it was registered by my insurance as a write off.  I was offered significantly less for it because of this. 
 

today I received a letter from a solicitors instructed by my insurance company to recover the money they paid for the repairs back in 2017.    I guess logically/morally my car was fixed and the money from the accident company is extra- although the car was marked by my insurance  as written off yet fixed!

 

do I need to pay them the sum they are asking or due to the time elapsed etc do I not.  The letter has made me so worried as threats of court action /costs 

 

Thank you 

[BankFodder]

I'm afraid lapse of time has got nothing to do with it in this case. At the very minimum, though there is is six years within which to recover a debt – and when the money is paid by way of a mistake, it is six years from the date that the mistake was discovered or could reasonably have been discovered.

I understand that your vehicle was damaged in an accident and the repair bill was paid by the insurer. Somehow or other, you were also paid about £2000 ostensibly to pay the garage for the repairs.

As the car was already repaired, you didn't pay the money over or query it – but you used the money.

I'm afraid that if that is a correct summary of what has happened then I would say that you are obliged to repay the money.

If my understanding is correct – then you had probably better contact the solicitors and start dealing with them because I'm sure that they will have no hesitation issuing a claim against you and you will then be liable for the money, plus interest at 8% – plus a measure of costs – if the judgement sum is not paid 30 days of the date of judgement.

 

[Greenpanda]

Thank you for your reply.  No I haven’t spent the money  on anything else I do have it to pay to them if necessary. 

 

The car was repaired but marked as written off by the insurance company, so can’t understand why they marked it with dvla as cat 3 write off yet fixed. The other driver was contesting liability even though the bus witnesses gave statements confirming his liability.  So assumed the payment/insurance repairs were contested

[BankFodder]

Well maybe you could stall the action by the insurers by writing to them and asking them what is going on and why they have logged it as a write-off. However I think that the prudent thing to do would be to repay the money and then deal with the insurer on the outstanding issue separately.

I would suggest that you sent the insurer an SAR can with.

I'm sure that my site team colleague @unclebulgaria67 will be along with some more observations about the insurance position

[dx100uk]

just to cross the I's and T's

could you scan the letter upto PDF 

read our upload guide carefully please.

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Don't have much to add to what has already been said.

 

I would acknowledge receipt of the letter and advise them that as the matter they raise occurred 3 years ago, that you will need to look into this further.  Ask them to give you at least one month, as due to Covid-19, it is likely that it will take you longer to get hold of information.  While writing to them, mention the issue of the Insurers not updating the write off information with DVLA, as following the repair, the Insurers still had it registered as a write off.   This caused you to suffer a loss, as when you sold the car to a garage two months ago, they only offered £xxxx, when the car had a trade in value of £xxxx, if it were not classed as a write off. 

 

In the meantime, send a GDPR subject access request to the Insurers claims department and also a similar request to the accident management company.  Ask them for all information held on file to be provided including any DVLA updates in regard to the status of the car.

 

 

[Greenpanda]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.  I’ll draft a letter to send in response.  I’ll certainly ok with sending most the money back as it’s not mine -I would think if we agreed to send back the payment minus the money lost on trade in would be a good outcome 

[Manxman in exile]

Greenpanda - as suggested by dx100 at post #5 can you post up a scan of the letter from the solicitors?  (Carefully read the upload guide they refer to and remove all identifying information).

 

I would be reluctant to pay anything until I know how this has happened and why, so I'd agree you need to send a SAR to both your insurer and the accident management company.  I agree with the idea of sending a non-committal acknowledgement letter to the solicitors saying you need time to investigate the matter as you've given no thought to it for three years.  You could also try asking them to explain to you how this debt has arisen.

 

You have my sympathy.  My wife and I had our insurers(!) involve an accident management company "on our behalf" a few years ago and they were completely ******* useless

[Greenpanda]

 

 

Not sure if this worked.  I don’t have access to a computer to scan so tried my best with phone

 

it mentions Bacs payment ( the payment I received was via cheque on 5/3/18) 

J&P letter.pdf

[dx100uk]

J&P eh..not heard of them for a while they used to send all kinds of scamming letters out just like that on consumer credit debts years ago.

 

it states its a letter of claim under the pre action protocol... but them goes on to give a time limit before further action of 14 days, which is WRONG, under PAPLOC rules, it must be 30days atleast, and event more should you respond.

 

notice carefully that it doesn't say WILL anything, only instruct, and my dog doesn't sit when i tell it too either.

 

i'm in 2 minds whether to reply to it or to directly contact quote me happy or neither to be honest.

 

 

[Greenpanda]

I didn’t sleep much last night and it’s making me feel pretty sick. 
 

there is a line that says if I ignore the letter they have issues to issue and serve proceedings without further notice.

It also says if I do not consider the amount correct I should respond on 14 days but if I don’t pay within 14 days they’ll issue legal proceedings 

 

would it be acceptable to reply and say due to the time elapsed I would need further time to address this matter.  

Ask if they could confirm the account the BACS was transferred too.

 

Also saying that when selling the car we were told by the dealer it was registered as a cat 3 write off and it reduce the cars value by half.  

Can I ask them to confirm why the car was registered as a write off when they state it was repaired 

 

sorry if this doesn’t make sense,  a letter from a solicitor has scared me

[dx100uk]

doesn't say WILL anything anywhere...

nothing to panic about at all.

read it properly.

 

stop believing and inserting imaginary things from your mind that they don't say at all .

it's a std threat-o-gram we've seen here 10'000 of times before on all manner of debt issues.

 

pers i'd be contacting your insurance company directly , i bet as with most of these threat-o-grams they have no knowledge at all that J&P have sent that letter.

 

typically these companies offer a sum of money to them to be given details in a one line spreadsheet of sums that are outstanding or though possibly owed. they then send out letters hoping people will wet themselves and blindly cough up without reading the letter carefully and dealing only with whomever is their stated client.

 

read the red bits below too.

 

[Greenpanda]

I can’t find a postal address for quote me happy.  I can find a registered company address which I suspect isn’t where I need to write to. I’m even struggling to find an email address - but there is a online form on their page to raise a complaint- would it be best emailing on this?    Laid wide awake at 4am with what to do going around in my head 

 

says this on the form 

We're an online only insurer and we only use call centres when dealing with claims. This helps us keep our costs - and your premiums - low.

However, please rest assured this doesn't mean that we will not handle your complaint any less urgently and we will be in touch with you as soon as we can.

Please fill in the below form and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible to resolve your issue.

 

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Just start off using their online form. Ask them for a postal address and email address, so you can contact them to make requests under GDPR etc