Hello, This is my first post so be gentle with me! If my understanding is correct, CPR 31.14 provides the right to inspect the class(es) of documents specified in 31.14. In the event the party wishes to exercise that right, he is required to serve a notice under CPR 31.15 and the party in possession of the document is required to permit that inspection within 7 days of that notice being served on him. Following inspection, if the inspecting party wishes to have a copy of the document he has inspected and providing he gives an undertaking to pay the reasonable costs of that, the party in possession of the document must furnish that copy within 7 days of the request for a copy. Have I got this right? To put some flesh on the bone: I received the following letter from a solicitor firm --------------------- We are instructed to prepare a defence on behalf of our client. For the purposes of that defence and understanding the case our client is required to meet, we require copies of the documents referred to in your Particulars of Claim (”POC”). We are entitled to disclosure of those documents at this stage pursuant to CPR part 31.14. Please provide us with copies of the following within the next7 days There then followed a list of the documents mentioned in the POC. And the final paragraph was: We look forward to receiving the documents within the next 7 days. in default, we reserve the right to make an application to the Court for an Order against you. In the event of such an application becoming necessary a request for an order for costs in favour of our client will be made. -------------------------------- My contention - and I may be wrong about that, which is why I am here, is that a notice to inspect is the first step, I must allow that inspection within 7 days of receiving that notice. Following inspection, I must be told what documents the inspector requires a copy of, and provided the inspector furnishes me with a an undertaking to pay my reasonable costs of copying (which includes my time doing it), I must furnish those copies within 7 days of receiving the request for the copy and the undertaking. The above solicitor's letter seems to have short circuited all of that. I would be very happyy for any comments!

Hi everyone I need help with completing my defence against a claim from a well known DCA that needs to go in 5 days from now. The particulars of claim are .... The Claimant claims the sum of xxxxxxx being monies due from the Defendant(s) to xxxxxx bank Plc under a bank account facility regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and assigned to the Claimant on 8/12/2011. The Defendant(s)'s account number was xxxxxxx. It was a term of the bank account that any debt balance would be payable in full on demand. The Defendant(s) has failed to make payment as required by the statutory default notice served by xxxx bank. The Claimant claims the sum of xxxx and costs. The Claimant has complied, as far as is necessary, with the Pre-Action Conduct Practice Direction. Thanks to the fantastic help offered to people on this forum I think I have the main elements of my defence sorted out but ..... I believe the particulars of claim (above) are faulty as they refer to a default notice and If I understand correctly, default notices do not apply to bank account debts? Unfortunately I have only just discovered this. I have spent months chasing the Claimant for this default notice with a CPR 31.14 request for that document. The Claimant never responds to any CPR requests so I have applied for and obtained a court order for them to produce. This order has not been complied with. Not knowing what to do and not knowing there was in fact no such thing as a default notice I kept applying to the court for more orders to produce in the hope that they would take some action to force the claimant to produce or issue some sanction against the claimant. Long story short .... My last application to the court was again for the document with an unless order that the case be stayed until the Claimant complies and produces the document. This order wasn't granted. Instead the case was transferred to my local court for a 'strike-out' hearing??? The Judge didn't treat it as a 'strike out' hearing but rather what I think was an allocation hearing. Dates were set for my defence to be submitted, a date for the Claimant to reply to the defence and a date for the hearing. I think I'm being stitched up by the court as it attempts to avoid it's responsibility to enforce it's own orders?? The bank seems to be playing with delaying tactics responding to my SAR application so I won't have the information from them before the deadline for my defence I feel I am being forced into submitting a partial defence and that the courts are heavily biased towards the DCA in these cases. Any help or advice would really be appreciated.:!: I want to fight the "£$% DCA parasites but I'm not sure what to do next???? Do I submit a partial defence? Make another application to extend the time to submit my defence? Make a complaint to the court(s)? All of the above??? Many thanks digiguide

Hello, I have send Lloyds TSB a letter requesting a true copy of the original credit agreement under Consumer Credit Act, they responded with a reconstructed agreement. I then went on to make a further request under CPR 31.16 to obtain a true copy of the signed agreement. TSB responded saying: "At present, we are unable to locate your original signed agreement and cannot, therefore, provide you with a copy of the signed agreement at the moment" "Please treat this letter as our final response" To date they have failed to meet my request under the Pre-Action Protocols. Where do I stand now and what should I do next. If they are unable to supply the signed agreement what can the courts do about it? Thanks, Kaarejen

Received wisdom has it that one should send a claimant’s solicitor a CCA as well as CPR 31.14 request when seeking to elucidate / elaborate upon particulars of claim for a debt. The reasoning is that they are under a statutory obligation to comply with the CCA but not the CPR request. However, given that the defendant can request the court to force disclosure, and that the court will most likely accede to this request, what are the added benefits of the CCA? I ask because certain debt purchasers and solicitors of note have taken to playing silly burgers when sent CCA requests (eg Carter claiming that their ‘client’ is not the creditor). I do not quite see the reason to request something, disclosure of which the court can compel anyway. I know there must be a reason, but I’m afraid it has eluded me. (doh) Enlightenment sought and graciously received. ps Sorry I didn't know there was a separate Legal forum where I maybe should have posted this.

Advice would be greatly appreciated. I have a credit card debt with Lloyds TSB, which I defaulted on in 2008. I have not made a payment since that date. My personal survival budget is ambitious but I have fought off two repossessions and managed to maintain payments for the last four years. I was hoping that Lloyds TSB would eventually write this debt off, however they sold it to Hillesden Securities and they have now commenced legal action and issued a claim through Northampton CC. Im 2 years off having a clear credit file and a CCJ would devastate me. On saying that I only have £4 disposable income. I have just received support from CCCS who have confirmed my budget. My elderly father, who is not wealthy, has offered to lend me some money to pay this debt. I want to negotiate the debt. I dont know how to do this correcty and legally. I want to offer 50% inf full and final settlement plus I will meet the costs of the court fee and solicitor? The alternative if they take me to court is that they receive a token payment per month of £4.00 for the foreseable future - at least two years before I can remortgage. Therefore this seems like a better deal for them! Am I being naive and ambitious here and if not what is the best way to approach this? Netty

I wonder if you could help with the following or pass it to someone that can? Thanks a lot. I have run my own IT business for nearly 8 years and unfortunately due to the financial shock of the last 2.5 years it has struggled to make ends meet for myself and the family. I have recently transferred the lease of the premises to a new person and will be free of all business commitments very soon. We have had all sorts of mortgage and personal unsecured debt problems in the past 2 years, but I managed to agree terms with all the unsecured creditors/DCAs. We have had family and friends help us with the mortgage payments until a few months ago when our monthly payments dropped by more than 50% (as we were on a really bad fixed rate until this February with a huge Redemption Penalty of nearly £25k), so we have managed to pay it ourselves again, since my poor wife is back in full time work and I'm going to be a house-husband for a while until I get myself a job in IT again. I have had a personal bank account with NatWest since 1981 in MY name, which unfortunately became a 'Joint' account in our married name in 1995 in order to deposit a few cheques as wedding presents made to us in our married name! The account then became Advantage Gold, then Advantage Premier and finally Private Banking. All along there has been a Gold MasterCard ChargeCard with me as the Primary Account holder and ALL statements sent to our home address in MY name only (where the balance HAS to be cleared on a monthly basis - just like an Amex chargecard) linked to this account (actually part of the Terms & Conditions of having the various account types mentioned, the latest being Private Banking). The other very important condition listed in the current T&Cs for this type of account is that the account holder(s) must have an annual salary of at least £100k which is paid into the account or £50k in savings with NatWest. I haven't had this sort of money since I left my IT contracting job in 2003 to start my business. My wife has NEVER used the bank account (no funds or salries deposited or withdrawn in her married or maiden name), as she has always had her own HSBC account in her maiden name since the age of 17. I used the MasterCard ChargeCard balance availability for cash flow reasons to juggle our monthly financial problems, but got unstuck in August 2010 after nearly 20 years of using the card without ANY problems. I wasn't able to clear the monthly balance (nearly £10k) on time. I tried to get the Private Banking team to ask MasterCard for more time to clear the balance, but neither party wanted to listen or help. What has amazed me is that they're behaving as if I'm a 'criminal' or effectively accusing me of never intending to re-pay my debt to them, even after nearly 30 years of having an account with them and all the interest and charges already paid to them! They then cleared the outstanding balance, which is really MY debt and in MY name as the Primary Card Holder on the MasterCard account, by adding it to the 'joint' bank account, thus increasing the Overdraft substantially overnight. NatWest then started complaining about the level of the Overdraft and passed my account internally to their Risk team who in turn passed it onto their Collections dept. All along I was 'jointly' offering to pay a monthly amount until my financial situation improved, but NONE of the NatWest brigade wanted to know. They then passed my file to Triton and my wife's to Evershed's. Both of us have tried every effort to agree some sort of payment arrangement with these outfits, like the ones I have in place with my other creditors/DCAs, but to no avail (considering that one of my big creditors that has agreed to a small monthly payment is actually NatWest's parent - RBS!!). Triton finally passed my file to Evershed's too, who have shown no mediation skills either! My wife and I have been issued separate Court Claims for the total Overdraft amount by Eversheds/NatWest Bank (more than £25K) for our 'joint' bank account. My wife has sent the Acknowledgment of Service back giving her case another 14 days from tomorrow and I'll be doing the same shortly. I have considerable personal unsecured debt that has been paid in monthly installments for nearly 2 years by agreeing with DCAs and original Creditors - various credit cards and loans totaling over £120k. All this debt is in my name, which I may put into an IVA. The only debt in 'joint' names is the Bank Overdraft, which consists of the original Overdraft (more than £12k) and the NatWest Private Banking MaterCard ChargeCard balance (more than £10k), which has been added to the Overdraft. Can anyone suggest if we have any legs to stand on regarding my wife using the T&C of the account to 'wriggle' out of having anything to do with this account, as she's never earned £100k or paid ANY salaries into this 'joint' account (two of the most important conditions of having this account)? Can we use the fact that the ChargeCard account is in my name and has nothing to do with my wife, so even if she has a 'joint' debt, it is only just over £12k of the Overdraft only? Do NatWest have to physically possess and be able to produce the original Joint Account Mandate (signed by us both) to prove my wife's liability? Thanks again for your time and any help you can provide. Please ask away if you need to know anymore than I've given above. Rgds. radmm0

Hi guys, I need some urgent guidance if poss please. My OH received a Claim Form from LINK Financial 2nd week of Feb (Issued on the 9th) for a £12k MBNA Card debt. I have Acknowledged online as Defending but I'm coming up to the 28 days in just over a week and am not sure what defence to put in or if I should hit them with any requests/letters etc. Having read up on the site I'm still unsure what may be relevant, every thread I have read is always subtly different, so apologies for asking the same questions everyone else is - I just want to be sure. Is the agreement unenforceable? - Before the debt was assigned to Link I CCA'd MBNA (2yrs ago) and they sent us a barely legible photocopy copy of a signed application form from 1999. Link printed the two sides of a min application form on both sides of an A4 sheet in an attempt to imitate a real application form and 'connect' the two parts. However the terms are still a separate photocopy image with much of the fine text faint/illegible and no guarantee any physical original remains. - (btw the PPI box is ticked NO but was charged anyway for a few months in 99 - worth mentioning?) CPR/extension? If the best option is to issue a CPR 31.14 data request Link would get 7 days + 2 days to be answer so I need to send the letter tomorrow/Saturday latest or the 28 days will be up before the CPR deadline. Should I send CPR 31.14 (?) or request an extension?? have I run out of time? Can anyone help please?? I can scan docs tonight or type in more info. Thanks. GF2k