Statutory demand for credit card debt(bankruptcy)Help!

[tomterm8]

Personally, I would just hang tight. BTW, Connaught and 1st credit are the same company, just different names.

 

What did the stat demand say? Did it say it was issued by Connaught or 1st credit? If it says it was issued by 1st credit then I would still apply for a set aside but it is up to you.

[Lapos]

Hi Tom,

 

Thanks for coming back to me on this. The SD says: The demand is served on you by the creditor name: 1st Credit (finance) Ltd.

 

But it is signed(PP'd) on behalf of Mr D Silcock of Connaught and it states;

I am authorised to make this demand on the creditors behalf.

Connaught collections UK Ltd. Airport House, Purley Way, Croydon,

 

So I'm not sure how to read into that.

 

Also upon digging out some old Connaught letters I've noticed that the supposed sum due under this agreement seems to have changed from £3346 down to £2696, Why would they do this? On my credit file the default balance is £3346 but the outstanding balance is the £2696. Now i have not paid them a penny so why the change? Would this help my case to get the default removed on the basis that the value was wrong??

 

I'm getting confused!! What do you think?

 

Regards

 

Carl

[tomterm8]

Hi Tom,

 

Thanks for coming back to me on this. The SD says: The demand is served on you by the creditor name: 1st Credit (finance) Ltd.

 

But it is signed(PP'd) on behalf of Mr D Silcock of Connaught and it states;

I am authorised to make this demand on the creditors behalf.

Connaught collections UK Ltd. Airport House, Purley Way, Croydon,

 

So I'm not sure how to read into that.

 

Also upon digging out some old Connaught letters I've noticed that the supposed sum due under this agreement seems to have changed from £3346 down to £2696, Why would they do this? On my credit file the default balance is £3346 but the outstanding balance is the £2696. Now i have not paid them a penny so why the change? Would this help my case to get the default removed on the basis that the value was wrong??

 

I'm getting confused!! What do you think?

 

Regards

 

Carl

 

I would apply for the set aside, then.

 

Better to be safe than sorry.

 

No idea about the rest of the questions... sometimes DCA's don't appear to be able to find their thingie with their watchamacallit.

[denver]

Hi,

 

I don't want to take over this thread so can any knowledgable types please check my new thread...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/133908-statutory-demand-advice-please.html

 

Thanks

[Lapos]

Hi Tom,

 

Your right about DCA's and their thingies!! I will get on with my set aside 1st thing tomorrow, I've been reading some of your old(and wise!) post and found this;

tomterm8

"I apply for the statutory demand to be set aside as the creditor is aware the debt is in dispute, the creditor has failed to comply with its obligations under the Consumer Credit Act, and I believe that the creditor issued this statutory demand as an abuse of process intended to pressure me into paying the full amount of a debt when such pressure is contrary to the OFT Debt Collection Guidelines."

 

should i put this in my set aside request? or should i ad to it as well?

 

Oh, FYI I have also written a CCA to 1st credit which i will post special delivery tomorrow. Should i put in a request to 1st credit for a statement of account??

 

thanks as always

 

carl

 

P.S. Denver, i have posted you a link on your thread to a really useful thread that i found, hope it helps!

[Lapos]

Hi All,

 

Hope all of you are weathering the storms! I am in the process of writing my set aside order but need some help I'm afraid! I have as follows so far(which I've basically copied and pasted from other various threads:) )

 

"(1)I do not admit the debt as the creditor is aware the debt is in dispute, the creditor has failed to comply with its obligations under the Consumer Credit Act, and I believe that the creditor issued this statutory demand as an abuse of process intended to pressure me into paying the full amount of a debt when such pressure is contrary to the OFT Debt Collection Guidelines.

The creditor has defaulted under section 78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for failing to provide a copy of the alleged agreement on request within the prescribed period. The prescribed period as stated in SI 1983/1569 Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 is 12 working days. Under the provisions of s78 (6), the creditor is not entitled to enforce the alleged agreement while this default continues.

 

My request under s78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 was sent to MBNA Bank on 20th April 2007 by recorded delivery, and again to Connaught collections UK Ltd, the debt collection agency who claim to be dealing with the alleged agreement and have raised the statutory demand. The initial request was received and signed for on the 23rd April 2007 and the second request was signed for on 3rd March 2008. At this present date Connaught Collections UK Ltd have had working days to comply with the request made, and are therefore in default as stated above.

 

Further, I believe that the amount of £2696.30 referred to in the statutory demand includes a substantial sum of unlawful penalty charges. Connaught collections UK ltd nor ST Credit (finance) Ltd have not provided further information regarding the charges they have added to the account despite my requests by telephone, and still have not provided a statement of account (as requested under s78 CCA 1974)."

 

The help needed............

I'm a bit stuck when it comes to the dates for the CCA request etc.

The ST request i put in last year was to MBNA and i didn't know at the time the debt was sold to ST Credit so I'm afraid this request won't stand, the other requests(1 to Connaught, 1 to ST credit) have not had their 12 working days lapse yet but if i wait for them to lapse then my 18 days could have run out as the SD is dated 25th Feb 2008, what do i do????

 

Also, if the SD does get set aside where do i then stand with the debt? because ultimately i want the default removed.

 

Many Thanks

 

Carl

[Docman]

..

[Docman]

Carl

Just reading this cold, I think your CCA on MBNA would still be valid. What MBNA have done is to sell (assign) the debt to 1st Credit. However, you have not put anything in the application about this assignment. I would add something like

"I have never received any Notice of Assignment from MBNA but on xx/xx/xx Connaught wrote to me demanding payment of this alleged debt to them on behalf of 1st Credit.”

after your bit about the CCA on MBNA. That way you explain the 'link' between the original claim and the SD.

[Lapos]

Hi Docman,

 

Thanks for your reply. I will put in your suggestion as in my CCA request to MBNA in 2007 i did request a copy of the deed of assignment and they didn't reply at all. so it an only help my case.

 

Tom, if your about i would value your opinion.

 

Regards

 

Carl

[PI Guy]

We've argued this before and the Insolvency Rules are quite ambiguous about it. The thing is, the creditor would have to be able to PROVE that the SD was served on the debtor, just saying it was posted wouldn't wash if challenged.

I have heard that once on a set aside, the judge decide that as the defendant was in court asking for a set aside, it proved that he had in fact been served but gave him more time (7 days I think) on top of the 21 days.

[Santos L Helper]

Hi lapos

 

I have just come across your thread on another thread and and this bit

 

"Congratulations user56565! I am going through the same process at the moment against 1st Credit with the help of tomterm and some other helpful members(link below if anyone interested) i was just wondering how santos L helper got on with your SD? i also wanted to know what is the result if the SD is set aside? is the debt squashed or is it just that SD and the whole palaver starts again? "

 

I got my SD set aside thanks to the help from Tom, Rory and Sequenci, but I have just returned from working away for a few days and in the post is a letter from connaught giving me 7 days to arrange an appointment with them to receive a Statutory Demand . Different account by the way.

 

So off we go again

 

How are things going with your set aside? hope everything is ok, I will start a new thread about my new SD.

 

Reading through other threads it seems that connaught are issuing these left right and center, so I don't whether to wait for the SD or go on the attack now with complaints about abuses of process etc.

 

Good luck

 

Santos

[Lapos]

Hi Santos,

 

Cool name by the way and ironic as that's how Bart got into credit trouble! lol

 

Anyway as for my SD i received the paperwork through a couple of days ago to say i have a hearing on the Th May, not sure what to do to prepare though so i need to find some time to read through the threads.

 

Sorry to hear about your new SD, (on and on and on.......) I would at least put a CCA request in straight away as the longer they've had reply the worse it looks for them when you apply for the SD to be set aside.

 

Good luck and if you've got any tips for my hearing don't be shy!

 

Thanks

 

lapos

[Lapos]

Hi All,

 

Just to give you an update i received a letter from connaught saying they are willing to set aside the SD and they have also written to the courts to explain the same. i think I'm going to still appear at court just to be sure though.

 

Well, one battle won but a long war to go!!!

 

Regards

 

Lapos

[denver]

Hi Lapos

 

Just come accross your thread. I had a SD sent to me by a DCA. I went through the process to get it Set Aside. I've recently been to court for the SD hearing. The DCA didn't turn up. It was set aside.

Don't take Connaught's word for it. Go to court to be sure.

Also don't forget to ask for costs. I was awarded £50.

[Lapos]

Hi Denver,

 

Thanks for the advice, what costs should i say i occured as i don't want to push my luck??

[nicklea]

I was in a similar situation and only asked for costs at the actual hearing rahter than on my application. However, I had prepared my costs prior to this and it was just a case of handing the sheet of paper to the district judge.

 

This is what I requested and got:-

 

Costs For Set Aside Application Case No xxx

xx Court xxx April 2008

 

Rate Claimed Litigant in Person rate of £9.25 / hour

Travelling Costs HMRC Approved Mileage Rate of 40p / mile

 

1) Time spent identifying and understanding relevant legislation.

Time spent identifying and understanding relevant case law.

Time spent preparing affidavit and skeleton argument.

 

18 hours £166.50

 

2) Time spent communicating with Respondant and swearing affadavit

 

2 hours £ 18.50

 

3) Loss of day’s wages for attending court on xxx April 2008 £ 80.00

 

4) Travelling costs for return journey to court 2 x 20 miles £ 16.00

 

Total £281.00

 

Notes

 

Before undertaking this myself I approached a solicitor to handle this. I was given an estimate of 3 to 6 hours at £170/hour to prepare the Application (£510-£1020) plus extra for attending the court.

 

I respectfully request that the court give consideration to awarding these costs on the indemnity basis or, in the alternative, on the standard basis as I believe, in any case, that they have been proportionately and reasonably incurred and/or are of a proportionate and reasonable amount.

 

In support of this request, I would also like to refer the court’s attention to the authority of the High Court in the case of:-

 

Hammonds (a firm) v Pro-Fit USA Ltd [2007] EWHC 1998 (Ch)

 

In this case, Mr Justice Warren confirmed that it was usual for an indemnity award to be made:-

 

27 So far as disputed debts are concerned, the practice of the court is not to allow the insolvency regime to be used as a method of debt collection where there is a bona fide and substantial dispute as to the debt. Save in exceptional cases, the court will dismiss a petition based on such a debt (usually with an indemnity costs order against the petitioner).

[Lapos]

Hi Nicklea,

 

Thanks for your detailed response, unfortunately i didn't see it until i got back from court. The SD got set aside, no costs unfortunately as the letter they sent to the court stated they are only willing to set aside if both parties cover their own costs and they made up some cock and bull story that they didn't realise the debt was in dispute and if they had they wouldn't have sent the SD in the 1st place(they didn't provide me with a copy of this letter or any of this info prior to the hearing, they just said they were wetting aside!). I decided to just keep it simple as getting set aside is the most important thing to me. I have asked the judge to send me a copy of the letter, which he agreed. I am now going to get on with the long task of having this debt ruled un-enforcible!

 

Man thanks to all

 

Lapos

[Docman]

Hi Denver,

 

Thanks for the advice, what costs should i say i occured as i don't want to push my luck??

 

 

Lapos,

 

I agree with nicklea that you should prepare a schedule of costs and include the items outlined above. I've an on-going matter where the judge reserved the creds solicitor’s costs (they wanted them on each application). On that though, they could claim £150 per hour whereas you can claim only £9.25. But as one judge said to me, it takes a litigant in person a lot longer to understand and prepare a case.

If the other solicitors claim an hour's work, you should claim 3 or 4 hours, but you should try to keep a log of the hours spent on the case. If there is a dispute, you may find the judge tries to get an agreed amount between both parties. In such cases, it's helpful if you've sent a copy of your schedule to the other solicitors before if you can. Then they can't claim surprise.

[Docman]

Sorry, lapos, you posted whilst I was writing my post.

 

Well done though on getting the SD set aside.

[JonCris]

For the SD to be set aside can only be (assuming the debt is admitted) if the whole debt is disputed on grounds which appear to the court to have a very real prospect of success & the burden of that proof for that is with the debtor.

 

Are there any penalty charges included in the overall sum?? If there are this may be another valid reason to dispute the SD

[JonCris]

Me too congrats

[Lapos]

Hi Jon,

 

Sorry I've only just seen your post. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of charges n there but the figure for the debt has come down by about £1000 since it left MBNA(without me paying it) so I'm not sure whether these are taken into account or not. I'll fight this as a separate matter as i now intend to try and get the default removed which neatly brings me to my next question;

 

They still haven't responded to my CCA request so what is the best course of action to get the default removed guys?

 

Many thanks

 

Lapos

[bezzer1955]

:oHi there! I'm new to this too - just completed my first post and would you believe, I also received a Statutory Demand for Bankruptcy a couple of days ago! I am very worried about it (hardly slept a wink) but unlike you, I don't have a job to worry about. Also I would willingly pay them off if it was at all possible - after 19 years I'm now at the end of my rope! Anyway all the very best and I hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction.

[tomterm8]

I never actually said congratulations but... congratulations!

[Lapos]

Thanks Tom, and thanks for all your help too!

 

as they say, the battle is won but the war is far from over!