Ciifinance can't find agreement

loxley13 · 11 August 2017 at 9:34AM

Hi I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right forum as I'm new to this so apologies if it's the wrong area.

My husband and I are on a DMP and the largest debt is to Hillesden Securities (Ctifinanciall Europe/Associates) for a loan my husband took out in 1989, before we met.. I have managed to track some letters and know that the amount due in 1999 (10 years after he took it out) was |£38319.67. The initial amount was apparently around £1500. We have been paying this through DLC since 1999 at various amounts and the loan currently stands at £21439.84.

To cut a long story short we have twice asked them for a copy of the original agreement (letters sent to Canada Square as I believe this is Citifinance Europe's address for these matter) as my husband says he was definitely told he had to take out ppi in order to be granted the loan in the first place. Both times, and the last letter was a "requesting all and any details letter" we have received a reply that they are unable to locate an account held in my husbands name. I have supplied them with two reference numbers from the statements/letters from dlc who list Hillesden Securities/Associates as the creditor name, the date of the agreement and the initial address my husband lived at, as well as subsequent addresses.

I just wondered if anyone could help us with any advice on what to do next.

DLC did send us a letter in Mar 1999 on behalf of their clients , Hillesden Sec LTd/Assigned from Associates, saying they would accept £5000 in full settlement but we couldn't afford that at that time.

I do not have all statements so am not sure how much we have paid over the years but at one point it was £300 per month, when we were financially better off.

Thank you for any help you can give us.

sourcrates · 11 August 2017 at 10:52AM

Hi,

So citifinancial are unable to provide a copy of the credit agreement pertaining to a debt they say your husband owes, is that correct ?

I am assuming this loan was covered by the consumer credit act, in which case this puts you/him, in a very good position.

The law surrounding credit agreements can be extremely complex, and only a court can decide ultimately on enforcability, so this is just a basic assessment, but if a creditor cant produce a copy of the credit agreement when asked to do so, that account becomes unenforceable in court.

So what does this mean exactly, well, they can still ask you to pay it, i doubt this will still show on his credit file, so they cant report on it any more, but what they cant do is take you to court to recover the money, you could just stop paying, and there is nothing the creditor can do except spout a lot of hot air.

loxley13 · 11 August 2017 at 4:17PM

Hi

Thank you, no your right this doesn't show on his credit file.

This debt does however form the largest part of our DMP so do we advise Citifinance that if they cannot find the account we will not be paying?

The only other issue is one of the statements from 2014 states Balance purchased by Hillesden? Are they a different company? I have looked around and it is very confusing as in 2003 it stated Hillesden Secs Ltd (Citifinancial Europe/Associate). All these names seem to appear on various statements at different times and the last statement in June 2017 says Creditor Name: Associates!

It's so confusing.

Thank you so much for your help.

sourcrates · 11 August 2017 at 5:29PM

Its actually very simple, you/he signed the original agreement with citifinancial, that paperwork, gets filed, and it never leaves the original creditor no matter how many times the debt is sold.

Creditors are only obliged to keep this paperwork for 6 years, some keep it longer, but normally its 6 years.

As so much time has passed, its likely the paperwork will of been disposed off years ago, so if Citi cant produce it, the debt becomes unenforceable.

What you choose to do next is up to you, you are not obligated to pay any further sums, until, or if, they produce the agreement.

You dont need to worry about how many different owners the debt has had, simply deal with the current owner, the choice, really is yours.

sourcrates · 11 August 2017 at 6:12PM

Was this a secured or unsecured loan your husband took out ?

The reason i ask, is that you say the balance keeps rising, now that can only happen if they are still adding interest.

On an unsecured loan covered by the CCA, creditors are not allowed to add further interest and charges unless the original agreement allows them to do so, 99% do not allow this.

Either this loan is not covered by the consumer credit act, or it was a secured loan with variable interest, can you confirm which statement is correct ?

loxley13 · 11 August 2017 at 6:46PM

My husband can't remember whether it was secured or unsecured but if it was secured the flat he was in at the time was sold back in 1992-3. We definitely do not have a charge from them on our property now nor have ever had on a joint property we've owned and we have been married 20 years.

We have a statement for 2014/15 that states interest is no longer being charged and the duration of agreement says: original term no longer applicable. This is probably because since 2011 we have been on a DMP?

We initially wrote to Citifinancial in October 2016 and they replied saying that they had completed their investigation and could not locate the account. We wrote again in July this year as we had discovered old paperwork with the initial signature date and the address and the reply was still the same.

I have only just noticed on this year's statement dated 8 June 2017 that the Duration as provided in the agreement now says 0 months, the amount of credit says 0 and the contractual payment says 0?

In 2011 when we took out the DMP they initially reported to Stepchange that a balance of £38319 was due but I wrote to them and pointed out a that a previous letter from them stated it as being £23,391.31 and they duly reduced it to that amount (seemed to be able to locate an account presumably then)!

Hope that helps? Thank you so much.

sourcrates · 11 August 2017 at 6:52PM

Well in that case my original advice still stands.

No agreement equals no debt, in law, a loan without a credit agreement, is a gift, it's that simple.

You can write to whoever you are paying, telling them that as your request for a copy of your credit agreement has not been complied with, you will no longer be making payments to this account, as it is currently unenforceable, and not to contact you about the matter again.

It appears various debt collectors have known, or suspected no paperwork exists for some time which would explain the actions of some of them, and the lack of info on your statements.

Also the fact they reduced the balance by £10.000 without question, you could of piucked a figure out of thin air and they would of been non the wiser.

loxley13 · 11 August 2017 at 7:45PM

Thank you very much for your advice I will write to them today!

tealady · 12 August 2017 at 5:33AM

Hi
Hope you are not paying someone to manage your dmp, if you are get rid asap and go with a free one.

loxley13 · 17 April 2018 at 9:48AM

Thank you no we are with a free one.

loxley13 · 17 April 2018 at 12:49PM

Hi I wonder if you could advise us on the latest development please?

To cut a long story short we advised Citifinance and dlc that we would not be paying as there was no agreement and the debt was unenforceable but in the meantime they dlc sold it to Cabot who sent us “we are now dealing with your debt etc”

We had advised the charity who set up and run our DMP to remove that debt from the list so I sent Cabot a copy of the letters sent to Citifinance and dlc. This letter was dated 30 August 2017. They completely ignored this and when they did not get their payment they sent us a standard letter saying we haven’t received your last payment from your debt management company etc). This letter was dated 27 October 2017. We sent them a further letter enclosing copies of the previous letters and stated that we would no longer be making payments to this account after two requests for a copy of the credit agreement made to Citifinance had not been complied with and repeated again the account is unenforceable. This letter was dated 3 November 2017.

We then received a letter from Cabot dated 16 November saying thank you for or telephone call received in our office on 9 November 2017 (it was a letter!). The letter stated that “I can assure you that I will be conducting a thorough investigation into your concerns, which may include contacting the original lender etc”. I will keep you informed along the way, so if I am unable to resolve your dispute within 5 weeks I will contact you with an update and I will contact you again as soon as we have a resolution. Please be aware that the time frame for resolving our disputes is 16 weeks, however the account is currently on hold.” We didn’t reply to this.

Then we received a letter dated 21 December 2017 saying “Regrettably I have been unable to provide you with my full response as I am continueing to investigate your concerns in further detail. We requested information from the original lender and are still awaiting this, however we will continue to chase it for you. I apologise for any inconvenicence this delay may cause and can assure you I will contact to you again as soon as possible, no later than 16 weeks from the date we received your query.” Again we didn’t reply to this letter.

Finally we received a letter this morning dated 12 April 2018 from the consultant who has investigated this matter at Cabot. This letter says:

I am writing further to our letters dated 16 November 2017 and 21 December 2017

I understand that you believe the account in unenforceable as no one has been able to supply you with a copy of the credit agreement.

“In order to resolve your dispute I have thoroughly reviewed the account and the information we hold. I can confirm this wa a loan originally opened with CitiFinanial Europe (Associates) on 23 February 1989. The total balance payable was £38,524.67 You continued making payments to the account until 27 April 2017, a period of 28 years during which you acknowledged the account. By continuing to pay the account you are confirming that you’re aware a balance remains outstanding and that you have a liability to pay this in full. I have enclosed a copy of the Transaction List showing payments you made.”

“Due to the age of the account a copy of the credit agreeent is not available. It has been well established in English Law, that “enforcement” constitutes obtaining judgement at Court. Cabot requesting repayment of your account does not amount to enforcement therefore we can continue to collect on the account.”

“In light of the above, I can confirm you remain liable for this account. I will hold your account for 21 days in order for you to contact Customer Operatins department on .... to arrange a repayment plan. I want to assure you that we are keen to work with you to resolve this matter and we will only accept payments that are affordable to your. We may even be able to offer you a discounted settlement on your balance. If we do no hear from you within the 21 days we will have no option but to return this account to our collections process.

The information they state is totally provided by us when we wrote to Citifinance to help them find the account. The amount of £38524.67 was not the amount of the loan but the amount they tried to claim was due in 2011 when we set up the DMP, as detailed in my previous post which they then reduced to £23391.31 when we pointed out that was the most recent balance on our statement at the time.

As I previously stated the last statement we received when we were with dlc said Amount of credit 0.00. Duration as provided in the agreement: 0 months. Contractual Payments: 0.00.

Sorry for the length of this post I wanted to include all information.

Thank you

Ciifinance can't find agreement

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