Welcome/Cohens - case withdrawn ***WOO-HOO ***

[Prudence]

Hi All,

I would be grateful for any help on the following.

In 2005 we signed up to a 4 year HP agreement with Welcome Finance for a car. We also took out PPI We made the payments for 7 months when my husband became ill and also lost his job. There followed lengthy enquiries over several months by the PPI insurance company and in the end, they did not pay up.

In the meantime, Welcome had been harrassing us with intimdiating phone calls, visit etc. We made half payments when we could. In the end, we wrote to Welcome and insisted they correspond in writing only. We wrote to them several times asking for their help as we did want to pay. They never ever replied.

We made no payments for several months as we were in financial difficulty and could not afford the payments and Welcome seemed unwilling to come to any reduced payment arrangement.

We eventually heard from their Solicitors. We wrote to the Solicitors to say we disputed the amount and were waiting for a reply to our letters to Welcome. We had no reply from the Solicitors either. Then we received Court claim papers. My husband telephoned the Solicitors and explained the above. They seemed understanding and assured him that any action was on hold because of our dispute. Because of that telephone conversation, we assumed we would be receiving an answer at long last from Welcome or their Solicitors.

The next thing we knew was that we received papers from the Court telling us my husband had a judgment for £8000+. (We paid Welcome about £3300 in total).

We felt this to be so unfair as we had tried to negotiate with Welcome/their Solicitors but always came up against a wall of silence. Therefore after browsing the internet a couple of months ago, we read about applying to have judgement "Set Aside" and we made the application. Now the case is coming up and I wondered if there is any piece of advice anyone can give me in view of the above? Apologies for the long post but I have tried to keep it as brief as possible! Someone else has advised me that from the above description it does not look hopeful and we would prob end up with another £2k on the top. I am very worried. Many thanks, J

[pt2537]

Hi,

welcome to the CAG

 

the problem that we have is that we do not know what grounds you gave on the N244 for the application to set aside judgment

 

you need substantial grounds to get a judgment set aside and the wording of the application is important

 

if you can give a little more info on that side of things that would be great

 

also

 

have you asked for a copy of the credit agreement?

 

Regards

 

paul

[Prudence]

Thankyou so much for your reply Paul. We put on the form: "The amount claimed was/is in dispute. I attach my initial letter to Cohens (representing Welcome) dated 5/8/07 requesting a breakdown of the amount claimed. I did not receive a response. My letter was sent by Recorded Delivery.

I received the claim form dated 28/8/07, acknowledged it online and telephoned Cohens who informed me that they would put "everything on hold" as the amount was in dispute and they would let us have the breakdown they requested. We are still awaiting the breakdown of charges.

We did not make this application earlier as we were told by several people that there was nothing we could do until we ourselves discovered this available course of action."

We have a copy of the credit agreeement.

[adamski]

Hi

A point of interest and I hope Paul maybe able to help, is the PPI on the HP you say your husband became ill was it a pre exsiting illness? why did they not pay out if he became ill? and unintentionally becoming unemployed?

 

I would imagine a large part of this money you owe is PPI, can Paul give advice as I am having a similar problem with Black Horse.

 

Paul if you could could you have a look at my thread and spare me some advice sorry to hijack but I also think that this case and PPi is very important and I would value some sound advice.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/155623-court-claim-received-black.html

[Prudence]

Thankyou adamski! We so need any advice you can offer! Yes, PPI people said it was a "pre-existing condition". My husband did not become unemployed intentionally, his contract was not renewed. He had been under the doctor for back problems before but this pain (which was severe) was in a different area and our doctor wrote to them something like "Mr --- has had back problems in the past but he informs me that this problem affects a different part of his back". The enquiries etc went on for over six months... we were distraught. Then followed a very bad financial period and we are only just now getting things sorted out but this Welcome thing is hanging over us like a big black cloud. Court is today and I just wish we could get it sorted out amicably, but how can you when all you get is silence?

[pt2537]

there are a number of issues which could fall into a mis-selling situation

 

did welcome carry out a check of you husbands medical history with you to ensure that there were no exsisting medical conditions?

 

if they didnt then they have failed in their duty of care to ensure that the policy was suitable

 

Many of Welcome finance agreements which ive seen are unenforceable and it would have been good to get a look at the agreement to check if it was deficient or not

 

i too am in court this morning representing a client so my time is limited

 

but i would try to show that you have a reasonable prospect of successfully defending this claim (if you do not the judge will not set it aside i can guarantee) so what is a reasonable prospect? the company failed to carry out the required checks before selling the PPI to you for starters,

 

 

It is important to ask, what was the agreement? was it definatley a HP agreement? does the agreement say at the heading " Hire Purchase Agreemnt Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act"? if it doesnt, then you may be able to argue that the PPI which would be included in the total credit was mis sold and as a result, the amount of credit is incorrect and the agreement would (basically) be unenforceable

 

the problem is im trying to advise with my eyes closed im afraid as the agreement is the key here

[Prudence]

Thankyou. Had a quick look at the agreement it just says "Credit Agreement Regulated by the Consumer Credit ACt 1974".

[tinkerbell20]

there are a number of issues which could fall into a mis-selling situation

 

did welcome carry out a check of you husbands medical history with you to ensure that there were no exsisting medical conditions?

 

if they didnt then they have failed in their duty of care to ensure that the policy was suitable

 

Many of Welcome finance agreements which ive seen are unenforceable and it would have been good to get a look at the agreement to check if it was deficient or not

 

i too am in court this morning representing a client so my time is limited

 

but i would try to show that you have a reasonable prospect of successfully defending this claim (if you do not the judge will not set it aside i can guarantee) so what is a reasonable prospect? the company failed to carry out the required checks before selling the PPI to you for starters,

 

 

It is important to ask, what was the agreement? was it definatley a HP agreement? does the agreement say at the heading " Hire Purchase Agreemnt Regulated by the Consumer Credit Act"? if it doesnt, then you may be able to argue that the PPI which would be included in the total credit was mis sold and as a result, the amount of credit is incorrect and the agreement would (basically) be unenforceable

 

the problem is im trying to advise with my eyes closed im afraid as the agreement is the key here

 

 

It could have been a conditional sale agreement. Would that make a difference?

[Prudence]

Thanks Tinkerbell. Just noticed at the bottom of the agreement it says "Hire Purchase and Credit Agreement on Trade Premises" and in later correspondence they refer to "Hire Purchase Agreement Number -----"

[pt2537]

then the agreement is not headed as required by Schedule 1 Consumer Credit Agreements Regulations 1983

 

this agreement may be defective by the sounds of it but i cannot tell for sure without sight of it

 

but it would appear to be the case that you were not given the statutory rights and protections afforded by the Consumer Credit Act 1974

[Prudence]

Thankyou, so would it be a good idea to show the agreement to the judge and suggest that it may not be headed as required by Schedule 1 etc? And I shall also mention the PPI aspect. We were going there to say that we have had not reply whatsoever from either Welcome or their Solicitors and so it has been impossible to negotiate with them. How do you think our chances are? I do appreciate your assistance with this. There seem to be a lot of charging orders being talked by others in relation to debt at the moment and I'm really worried.

[pt2537]

oh how i wish we had more time with this, we could put together a killer case,

 

im afraid i am up in court at 11am so im not able to offer any more help sorry,

 

have a read of this thread http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/108467-basic-introduction-consumer-credit.html

 

also have a look at this one http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/103383-agreement-enforceability.html

 

they may be able to help

[Prudence]

Thankyou, you've been so kind and helpful. Good luck in Court to you.

[Prudence]

pt2537 Adamski - thankyou thankyou THANKYOU!!! It worked! If I had focussed on the lack of communication from Welcome/solicitors we would have got nowhere. I started off with that and the judge just kept asking me "but what is your defence?" so I quoted what you suggested (it did feel good!) and we were so happy when he said that he had set judgment aside. We have until 16 Sept to get our defence together. I am going to need some advice on that and maybe if you have time you can help me when I get stuck! I just can't thank you enough, we are on Cloud 9 today!!!

[pt2537]

so we all had a good day in court, GAME ON,

 

now you have a set time frame to play with so its important that you adhere to these times

 

 

if you need anything, just Shout and i will see what i can do

[robcag]

Congratulations Prudence!

 

Cheers

Rob

[Prudence]

Thankyou very much for your support robcag! Yes, it did feel good to actually climb up a rung instead of going down as we usually do!

 

PAUL - not sure if you will get this as I see you are going to be offline! I have 3 weeks to deliver a full defence to the Court and I am not sure how you even prepare it. Is there a special form? How can I be sure that the things I quoted to the judge (to get the judgment set aside) will definitely hold upon examination by the judge (as he didn't check them out when setting aside)? I do hope you get this message as I am starting to get very worried again. Many thanks, P

[pt2537]

Prudence

 

Firstly, to file a defence we need to know what the claim was in the first place,

 

can you provide us with the Particulars of Claim off of the Claim From that they sent

 

then i will see what i can offer by way of help

[Prudence]

Thanks so much for getting back to me Paul. Yes, got the claim form here and the Particulars of Claim state:

 

The Claimant's claim is for the sum of £8---.-- being monies due from the Defendant to the Claimant under a regulated Credit Agreement made in writing between the Defendant and Claimant under a reference -------

 

The Defendant has failed to make payment in accordance with the terms of the agreement and a default notice has been served upon the Defendant pursuant to Section 87(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

 

The Claimant claims the sum of £8---.--.

[pt2537]

Hi Prudence

 

not exactley the most informative set of particulars of claim but very typical of this kind of organisation

 

is there anyway you can get a copy of the agreement posted up on here? removing the personal details first?

 

I know that welcome are very sloppy with their documents and its highly likely that we will find something to crucify them with

[UnitedFront]

Subscribing;)

[Prudence]

OK, thanks Paul. Here goes, I'm posting the Agreement letter and the Credit Agreement. Hope they come through ok.

 

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/silvery888/Agreementletter05p1.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/silvery888/Agreementletter05p2.jpg

 

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/silvery888/CreditAgreement05p1.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/silvery888/CreditAgreement05p2.jpg

 

The letter wasn't signed. Please let me know what you think. Kind regards, P

[Prudence]

Subscribing ? (United Front)

[tendogs]

evening Pru

 

I too am subscribing, when you subscribe to a thread you get an email when ever there is a new posting, that way a subscriber gets to follow the thread.

 

Best wishes,

 

Dogs

[Prudence]

Oh, I see... thankyou for explaining it to me Tendogs!