Lowell CCBC claim form

Good evening Community Members    

I would be grateful for any help and advice on behalf of my friend and yours truly regarding Lowell and a CCBC claim form just received TODAY

The claim form was dated **Dec 2017!

The alleged debt was for an Argos card and the amount is just over £200.
The 3 letter process was completed to Estoppel some time ago.

Please see below the scan of the CCBC form:

Scan deleted owing to identification details


Funny enough he also received this letter from Lowells on the same day!:

Scan deleted owing to identification details


He intends to defend the claim and he has asked me to help. Fighting a claim is breaking new ground to me so any help/advice most welcome.

As the claim is dated **/12/07 I take it we are outside the 14 day acknowledgement timescale?

If so; what steps can we take?

I have also registered my friend on the Moneyclaim site and we were able to gleam the following bit of info on there:



Before you acknowledge service of the claim against you, which gives you time to seek advice to complete your defence, you must make sure the following apply in your case:

you are filing your acknowledgment within 14 days of service of the claim on you (a claim is considered served on the fifth day after it is issued)

or

you are filing your acknowledgement within 14 days of service of separate more detailed particulars

If you haven't filed an acknowledgment of service within the time specified above, the claimant can request judgment against you.

However, if the claimant has not already entered judgment against you, you may file an acknowledgment of service up to 28 days after service of the claim (or separate particulars) on you.

You don't have to pay a fee to acknowledge service of a claim. If you file an acknowledgment of service electronically through MCOL, you don't need to send a copy by post.

If you experience any difficulties, contact the help desk:

Regards,    janloot    

if the claim form is dated 13th december, then you deadline for acknowledging service WAS the 1st january.

if you have not already done so then acknowledge you are going to defend this claim in full NOW!! , and hope they have not applied for default judgement already.

You may get away with it, you may not, if you acknowledgement is accepted then come back for further advice as soon as possible as you have a very limited time in which to file a defence.

Thanks for the reply waylander62

I have just completed the online Acknowledgment of Service.

What happens next??

good that should be ok you could always plead that you didnt receive the claim form before xmas etc etc some allowance will most likely be given so close to the xmas period.

next you need to start to put together your defence of this claim.

a few important questions:
i) did they send you a letter before claim, with forms to be filled in and returned ?
ii) have you sent them a CCA request yet ?
iii) have you requested any other documents that you are entitled to see ?

i) he does not recall receiving a letter before claim, with forms to be filled in and returned
ii) no CCA request has been sent
iii) the 3 letter process was completed a while ago but no documents requested were ever received.


I hope the above helps in some way?

Hi
You need to get a CCA reqiest sent to Lowell tomorrow and a cpr 31.14 request asking for the agreement the termination notice and the notice and deed of assignment

I would also send a part 18 request asking the following questions
On what date was a default notice sent
What was the remedy date
What method of postage was used to send it

It would probably be worth while sending a SAR to argos

cheers warwick65


so just to make things clear:

Do I send the cca request to Lowells Solicitors? ............. who do I make the postal order out to?

Do I send the cpr 31.14 request to Lowells Solicitors?

Do I send the part 18 request to Lowells Solicitors All recorded delivery....


And finally. Argos get a SAR request

sorry if if I appear numb but I dont want to make any mistakes

janloot wrote:
cheers warwick65


so just to make things clear:

Do I send the cca request to Lowells Solicitors?      .............      who do I make the postal order out to?

Do I send the cpr 31.14 request to Lowells Solicitors?

Do I send the part 18 request to Lowells Solicitors                        All recorded delivery....


And finally. Argos get a SAR request

sorry if if I appear numb but I dont want to make any mistakes        

The CCA request, along with the £1 fee goes to Lowell, this is IMPORTANT, without the agreement the debt is unenforceable against you.

The CPR 18 goes to the Solicitors, if you send an 18 request there's no need to send a CPR31.14.

Why are you doing a SAR to Argos, the last thing you want is to put them under a legal obligation to get hold of all the information (including the agreement!) they hold on you and potentially pass it onto Lowells.

Also, the letters you've attached in your initial post have enough information for Lowell to easily see who you are, they troll these sites to identify people and use what you post as evidence against them in Court.

Thanks for the advice Tiggy

I will send the letters off tomorrow; I will cancel the SAR

I have also deleted the 2 scans of the letters owing to possible identification material

Tiggy
Cpr31. 14 and cpr 18 are completely different things to be used in different ways
CPR18 IS to ask questions not to ask for documents

By the way, In my recent win against Lowell it was the SAR that provided info that helped defeat their claim

warwick65 wrote:Tiggy
Cpr31. 14 and cpr 18 are completely different things to be used in different ways
CPR18 IS to ask questions not to ask for documents

Yes, I know they're different, I also know that under CPR 27 neither are applicable to the Small Claims Track (ie claims under £10k).  However, under CPR 27 the Judge has the discretion to order compliance with the CPR 18 (Request for Further Information) which isn't available for the CPR 31.14 request.

Also, under a CPR18 Request for Further Information, you are allowed to ask for documents.

Which is why for claims under £10k (which this is), that's we would always say use the18 Request over the 31.

We will have to agree to differ
I did not phrase my response well- cpr 18 is not designed just to ask for documents but you can ask for them as part of the request e.g please tell me x.y.z and provide a copy of the document to prove it.

As for getting a judge to order disclosure that can happen regardless of any requests because of the overriding principles

One final hair split for clarity - claims are not allocated to a track purely on value and claims under 10K can go fast track or even multitrack and claims above can go small claims

If you are sure that no letter before action was received then this wants to be raised in the defence along with the fact that the claim form itself is also in breach of cpr rules !!

the new rules are there to be followed, if they havent followed the correct procedure then they could be liable to sanctions

personally i am in favour of sending a SAR, but the choice is yours.

also i would send the CCA request to lowell solicitors, not lowell, the reason being that if you read the claim form it requests all correspondence be sent to the solicitors ( i am pretty sure of this )

keep things within the rules at all times, remain in honour, it will serve you well in the long run.

waylander62 wrote:also i would send the CCA request to lowell solicitors, not lowell, the reason being that if you read the claim form it requests all correspondence be sent to the solicitors ( i am pretty sure of this )

keep things within the rules at all times, remain in honour, it will serve you well in the long run.

No CCA requests got to the creditor although it may be a good idea to send a copy to the solicitor

waylander62 wrote:If you are sure that no letter before action was received then this wants to be raised in the defence along with the fact that the claim form itself is also in breach of cpr rules !!

the new rules are there to be followed, if they havent followed the correct procedure then they could be liable to sanctions

personally i am in favour of sending a SAR, but the choice is yours.

Will it be my friends word against lowells that no letter before action was received?

Just a quick update: sent cca to lowells and cpr to lowells solicitors both by registered post.

We really do appreciate all the advice received and will update when any replies etc are received

I do not believe the fact no letter before action was sent would be fatal to their case although it could be used by a Judge to assess their unreasonable conduct and should you win , sanction them by awarding costs.

I agree with waylander about the SAR- I have found it very useful. It will no doubt arrive after you have submitted your defence but you can use it to flesh out your Witness statement as I did- I was able to help prove the point they had no clue when or if a DN had been issued.

These are the consequences of non compliance with the PAC Protocol

Compliance with this Practice Direction and the Protocols
13. If a dispute proceeds to litigation, the court will expect the parties to have complied with a relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction. The court will take into account non-compliance when giving directions for the management of proceedings (see CPR 3.1(4) to (6)) and when making orders for costs (see CPR 44.3(5)(a)). The court will consider whether all parties have complied in substance with the terms of the relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction and is not likely to be concerned with minor or technical infringements, especially when the matter is urgent (for example an application for an injunction).

14. The court may decide that there has been a failure of compliance when a party has—

(a) not provided sufficient information to enable the objectives in paragraph 3 to be met;

(b) not acted within a time limit set out in a relevant protocol, or within a reasonable period; or

(c) unreasonably refused to use a form of ADR, or failed to respond at all to an invitation to do so.

15. Where there has been non-compliance with a pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction, the court may order that

(a) the parties are relieved of the obligation to comply or further comply with the pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction;

(b) the proceedings are stayed while particular steps are taken to comply with the pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction;

(c) sanctions are to be applied.

16. The court will consider the effect of any non-compliance when deciding whether to impose any sanctions which may include—
(a) an order that the party at fault pays the costs of the proceedings, or part of the costs of the other party or

(b) an order that the party at fault pay those costs on an indemnity basis;

(c) if the party at fault is a claimant who has been awarded a sum of money, an order depriving that party of interest on that sum for a specified period, and/or awarding interest at a lower rate than would otherwise have been awarded;

(d) if the party at fault is a defendant, and the claimant has been awarded a sum of money, an order awarding interest on that sum for a specified period at a higher rate, (not exceeding 10% above base rate), than the rate which would otherwise have been awarded.


I used 15b to apply for a stay to a claim where the claimant had blatantly ignored my Request for Further Information ( I had recorded delivery proof of the letter being sent and received).

The Judge ordered the claim be Stayed until they complied in Full with my request, they eventually discontinued and it's long since Statute Barred.  

Whilst I wouldn't recommend it in this case, their lack of compliance with the PAC Protocol can be used effectively against a claimant.

The PAPs should indeed be powerful although what I was saying is that non compliance is not generally something that will cause them to directly lose in court.

Something to remember is that many Judges see us as debt avoiders and will, if they are able, interpret the law the way that best suits them.

warwick65 wrote:The PAPs should indeed be powerful although what I was saying is that non compliance is not generally something that will cause them to directly lose in court.

Something to remember is that many Judges see us as debt avoiders and will, if they are able, interpret the law the way that best suits them.

i agree with you on this to a point, this has always been the way. However since october this year a new pre action conduct was introduced and has Tiggy has pointed out

it is unlikely to be fatal to their case , i agree, but will be frowned upon by the court ( or should be) as i said before the claim form itself is also in breach of CPR rules and along with no letter before action there would be no harm in requesting in the first paragraph of the defence that the court look at this behaviour as a preliminary issue and request the court consider striking out the claim for non compliance on two counts of breach of CPR rules, the claim form has been issued by a 'solicitor' !!!

Hi
Well I haven't actually seen the claim form but I will say that although my claim form was also signed by 'Lowell Solicitor' the DJ did appear to take little notice of it
Having said that we won on other points and were awarded substantial costs even though it was a small claim.

I think we have yet to really see how the new PAP will play out. I am not convinced they are there for any reason but to make life easier for the debt purchasers because
a) Many people will just say ok Guv I owe it
b) Those that do contest it will just give them a list of documents required so they can toddle off and 'reconstitute' them before issuing a claim

As I said, these only became active 1st Oct so I doubt many( if any) claims have reached the court stage yet when you consider the backlog in the court system. - My case took 10 months from start to finish.

I suspect in many cases the debt purchaser will just show a log saying a letter was posted and it will be deemed served

you have a fair point, most DJ's are biased towards the claimant anyway.

but no harm in trying, and always worth putting in the defence as it can then be referred to at any hearing.

Oh absolutely agree

A mistake many people seem to make is to just put in a SB defence or miss out important legal points meaning they then need to attempt to amend the defence

If I had a £ for every person I hear of who only entered a SB defence then find out it wasn't ....well I would be a rich man

Good evening all

Just a quick update;

Still no replies received from Lowell or their Solicitors.

Can we please have some advice on submitting a defense?

I do have 2 defense letters which I had saved from the GOODF website, but I am not sure how and when I need to submit them & would I be able to use the UNLESS ORDER:

"Unless the claimant complies with the request for further information made under CPR Part 18 on xx/xx/xxxx and the request for a copy of the agreement made under Section 78.1 of the Consumer Credit Act by 4pm 14 days from the date of this order, the claim will stand to be struck out and Judgment awarded in favour of the defendant."

Thanks in advance