Thanks again - and yes I agree. I will wait and see what transpires. Looking through my correspondence I can see that they (3rd party) tried it on again late 2014 and early in 2015 and I made it EXTREMELY clear that no contract exists and denied all claims they made and explained that all future correspondence will be RTS. Nada since in over 2 years. Do you happen to know the timeline for provision of NoA? I would like to know to satisfy my own curiosity.

Thanks Andy - sorry my two previous posts weren't the clearest!! They (NatWest) received an ex gratia without prejudice payment (settlement) from me. Not the other way around.

Thanks dx100uk. BTW I never received a Notice of Assignment, which I assume should have come from the 3rd party upon when they claim it was assigned to them by the original lender. Is there a time limit for the provision of a NoA? I suppose I could carry out a SAR but why stir up a hornets nest when the Default will drop off very soon. So therefore I assume the only outstanding point then is as to whether they 3rd party feels they have a claim to the alleged debt and if so will have approx 8 months to do something about it before it becomes statute barred.

Notice of Discontinuance by the Claimant (NatWest) - after receiving settlement of course.

Thanks for your input Uncle B. I just want to clarify a few points on what you have said. Is it 6 clear years from last payment to 3rd party or to original lender? Do you have a reference to such information i.e. is it in the statute you refer to (Limitations Act 1980)? As to the following: That is a bit of a contradiction there. If they didn't reject the settlement offer (and bear in mind they had 5 opportunities to do so but in each case physically removed a stapled cheque) then they must have accepted it. Actions speak louder than words, and as far as I am aware, the acceptance of an offer and formation of a contract does not need to be written. This of course would be down to a judge to decide upon if necessary. Personally, I don't really care how much correspondence a bank deals with, just how they act upon my correspondence. I recall hearing or reading something in the past whereby a financial institution can deal with payments received slightly differently when an account is in default, however I would like to see some case law on this if it exists. Does anyone know of any that may be relevant here? Many thanks again - TWTT

Just for completeness I can confirm that this was settled out of court in the end.

Hello All - I hope you can offer some thoughts on the below please. I had a reasonably large CC debt with a large organisation and challenged the validity of their paperwork etc approximately 7 years ago. There was lots of correspondence between us but eventually the marked it as defaulted (soon to be 6 year anniversary of default). I made an offer to settle with original lender via 5 equal monthly payments for approx 12% of original alleged debt. This took the form of an offer in writing and with a cheque for the first payment stapled to the offer. They removed the cheque and cashed it and subsequently did the same for the next 4 cheques all attached to covering letters referring to the offer. Once all 5 payments were made I wrote to the CC organisation and confirmed that the account was settled and asked for them to stop reporting derogatory information with CRAs and mark account as settled. Instead they attempted to wash their hands of the account and sold it to a 3rd party. I have made it very clear to the 3rd party that I do not recognise them and have no contract with them. I have heard nothing from them in approx 5 years but they continue to report a Default against me with all CRAs and are severely limiting my chances of gaining a remortgage at a competitive rate or at all and as you can imagine my credit rating has been badly affected. So on to my questions at last! 1) when must the 3rd party stop reporting the Default, is it 6 years from the Default date or 6 years from any payment last received by the original lender? NB the 6 years from Default will end within 2 months and 6years from last payment within 8 months from now. 2) when the Default is over 6 years and they must stop reporting do all entries of it disappear or do they get removed one at a time month by month (I.e. Will there still be more recent Default entries present on credit file)? 3) in light of the above could the original lender get in hot water for selling a settled alleged debt and/or the 3rd party for attempting to collect on the same whilst reporting Default? If so what route would be best, FOS or court or both? If you need further details please ask. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks in advance

BTW I now have this as written evidence, following a SAR from the Bank. Copy of written transcript that supports what I said and what is in the recording I have. The mis-selling of the account in the first place is now in the hands of the FOS.

Both parties agreed to the CCJ being set aside and struck from the register without the need for a hearing and an officially stamped copy of the order was received from the court today. I now have a month to submit my defence. Happy days

Cheers. I agree that they will argue this, I will argue the other and the Judge will make his/her decision. I am hopeful that they will agree to set aside the Judgment without a hearing as it is the right thing to do. But is that likely...

Well in that case I will need to write the conversation down into an affidavit and submit it as evidence I guess.

Well I have it in two recorded conversations. Good enough? I kind of take people on their word. How foolish of me hey?

Are you referring to time frame to submit a defence?

They promised that they would offer me a chance to defend before applying for Judgment. As a LIP I assumed that would be an actual offer to defend. Silly me. What they in fact did was send me a threatening letter about paying the debt or otherwise they would apply for a Charging Order (which is not even possible without a CCJ or other order, which there wasn't at the time). Hardly an offer to submit a defence. Lovely bunch. This was after they had accepted a payment to bring matters to a conclusion and mark the account as settled with all CRAs. Oh, and then lying in a Witness Statement by saying they received no response from me, despite being in written communication with me at my new address. And I nearly forgot, they served papers at the incorrect old address, despite being aware that I had moved and whilst communicating to me at the new address. So all in all, rather sly and underhanded business!! Of course the Judge will be made aware of all of this, but whether he/she will care is another matter. I have lost all faith in the integrity of people. And before anyone says, you borrowed the money and therefore should pay it back: 1) according to the BoE Quarterly Bulletin Q1 2014, banks don't physically lend their own money (but hey that argument would get you nowhere despite being true); and 2) I offered to pay the bank money under a monthly agreement that they accepted, but they then started to send back the cheques, before then taking legal action against me. So I can show that a delay in filing a defence was as a result of me expecting an offer to submit a defence before they would apply for a Judgment, and I can also show that a copy of the application notice to lift stay and enter Judgment was never received by me because they were sending it to the old address, whether that was deliberate or just stupidity I cannot tell.

The first page of the thread you linked appears to suggest it would be a contract and therefore a payment under the terms of the contract rather than the payment being a gift.

OK, then allow me to add some meat to the bones... dx100uk, hypothetically speaking of course, imagine that you loaned me £10,000.00 (you were feeling generous) and I agreed to pay you the money back in instalments of £1,000.00 a month, we would have an unregulated agreement and of course, assuming we met all the other criteria for the formation of a contract, a bi-lateral contract would exist. Now, unfortunately after a few months of paying you this money both I and my wife were made redundant, and after reviewing our financial situation we were forced to reassess our existing obligations. This resulted in us only be able to afford to pay you back £500.00 per month. We sent you an offer in the post that said: And attached (via staple) to that offer was a cheque made payable to you for £500.00 from TWTT. If you removed that cheque and cashed it, do you not agree that your action of doing so would be deemed as an acceptance to the new terms and therefore an amendment to the contract has occurred? If not, what was to stop you from sending back the offer (rejecting it) or sending it back with a letter stating that you had taken the £500.00 as part payment towards the monthly obligation of £1,000.00 and are happy with the contract as it stands? Or in other words, you had options and were under no obligation to accept the £500.00 that formed part of an offer with new terms to be applied.

Although the information here may in some way apply to my circumstances, I am hopeful that the discussion will prove useful to others. I am attempting to ascertain the rules/law regarding the receipt of offers by a bank (or other financial institution) both before and after a default is registered on an account. So some questions that will hopefully help with the discussion: If a bank is sent an offer from the debtor for monthly payments on a debt that is not in default, with the first payment attached via a stapled cheque made payable to the bank, and the bank removes and cashes the cheque, does the bank agree to the offer? Is there any written rule or law that enables the bank to accept the money provided in an offer of payment (as in 1 above) as a token payment towards the debt but WITHOUT communicating in writing to the bank that it does not accept the terms of the offer? In relation to 2 above, does it make a difference as to whether the account is in default, or to put it another way, does an account in default afford the bank further rights with regards to what it can choose to do with an payment received regardless of what the offeror's intention was? I am intrigued to hear peoples' thoughts on this as I have received various opinions on this from both lay people and qualified solicitors. And finally, I wonder if the same applies in relation to offers of settlement, again with stapled cheque attached, whereby the bank may take the payment for another purpose (e.g. token payment towards debt) rather than as settlement, and in the meantime not communicate refusal of offer.

I had a further chat with my legal friend, who is also confident that I should be able to deal with this without her assistance, besides it wouldn't be her representing me so I would have to pay a colleague! Regardless of the 'already paid in full' argument, which the Bank could attempt to argue, she made me aware that my strongest argument for set aside is that the Claimant never made me aware of the application for lifting of the stay and judgment in default. In other words, I only received notice of the Judgment following me contacting the court and informing them of my address change; however the Bank and their Solicitors (despite lying in their WS) were aware of the address change long before making their application (as they had been communicating with me at the new address)!!! She didn't go into detail about the particular CPR rule, but I assume this is covered under CPR rule 23.10, see below: Out of interest, do people know whether there should have been a hearing (that I could have attended), or whether the court can make the Judgment without a hearing (I assume under rule 23.8 ©)? In my case, as explained, I didn't receive a copy of the application for lifting of the stay and Judgment to be entered in default, and certainly had no invite to a hearing, which I presume as it was given by a Judge in Northampton there was no hearing.

Thanks Andy. I am sure it is simple stuff for her, but I have already taken up a lot of her time discussing the ins and outs of the history. I assumed I could handle the set-aside myself and she said get back to her if I couldn't! Hopefully I can from what you guys are saying. The reason I asked about the claim being satisfied is because I wasn't sure if that part of the CPR meant that both parties had to agree in writing or something similar to it being satisfied. I am satisfied that it is settled as the Bank physically had to remove a cheque stapled to a letter containing an offer that said in writing that the ex gratia offer was made as a gesture of goodwill to draw matters to a conclusion, and that the Bank should refrain from registering derogatory remarks with CRAs, remove existing derogatory remarks, and mark the account as settled in full. The cheque was cashed by the Bank and on the reverse it stated that the cheque shall only be accepted and cashed by the payee overleaf if they accept all of the terms contained in the letter and shall not be used for any other purposes. However, I am sure the Bank will attempt to deny that at the hearing, or is that not the place for them to do so? Do I need to take a copy of the letter as described above to the hearing or get it submitted prior to the hearing? I am not sure of the process with regards to the hearing. I know for the strike out hearing I attended previously for another situation both parties prepared and exchanged WS etc prior to it. Should I expect to receive something from the Bank prior to this one? Thanks

Just checking, but do you mean the WS I have already submitted with the application? Reading the link you gave, where it states How is the satisfied part determined?

That is reassuring. The last time I had a hearing as LIP (strike out of defence (mine)) I got firmly shafted on the day and don't want the same again!!! Is there somewhere either on CAG or elsewhere where I can gain a good understanding of what I need to prepare document wise prior to and on the day of the hearing please? Are there requirements for Witness Statements to be served on the other party etc? Many thanks! A WS setting out that the claim had been stayed for a LONG time, that the bank (in recorded conversations) had assured me I would be afforded an opportunity to defend and that an application for default judgment would not be made, that the bank's right to collect on the debt was extinguished following refusal of payments under an accepted payment plan and following their acceptance of an offer (ex gratia and without prejudice) to draw the matter to a conclusion, which they accepted by cashing the stapled cheque attached to the offer.

I have received a date for a hearing in my local county court for my application for the judgment in default to be set aside. Now although I appreciate the kind and free advice my friend's wife has provided me, I would be keen to hear on this site whether others have been to such a hearing, what is involved, and whether it is something I should attempt to tackle on the day as litigant in person, or hire a solicitor to represent me. Your comments are highly appreciated! Cheers TWTT

Correct, to stop malpractice completely requires a large effort from many. However reporting individual cases of malpractice to the regulating authorities is a good and relatively cheap step to ensure that these people are held to account. I had some great news earlier as I spoke at length with my friend's wife who is a solicitor and explained all and shared some of the documentation. She agrees with me on my assessment that there is no debt outstanding and is shocked at what the bank and its solicitors have done to me and more importantly, has agreed to assist me :-D:whoo:

I've had varying success with these types including DCA writing off 6000+ as gesture of goodwill I don't like liars though!!

That's not the spirit I expect from Consumer Action Group, I thought you would encourage me to let them have it!