Can They Take Me To Court? Please Help Me!

KINGOFLONDON

Hello

A company that I had borrowed money from 5 years ago (which I have been making payment too every month for the past 5 years) had gone into adminstration, and the debt had been passed on to a debt collection agency.
The agency is asking for the money now, but I have come to realsie that I dont have a copy of the contract and I never did!!!!!!
I said to Marlin I want a copy of my agreement or contract so I can confirm the payments until then I am not making any payments, they sent a letter saying that they do not have a copy of the agreement/contract and that "I MUST" have a copy, but I told them that I did not and I dont ever remember one.
I have refused to pay saying to them if they do not send me one it is not binding, they have replied with a letter saying that if I do not make a payment they will take me to court and make me bankrupt! can they do this?
(money is 39000, there was a caution on my property for it, but i had the caution removed becuase the previous lender did not respond and Marlin had not put their details on it)
Am I right not to pay because there is no contract?

iolanthe07

I suppose if you borrowed the money, then you have a moral obligation to pay it back, but don't let these people bully you. I'm not sure about the legalities, but it would not be in their interest to make you bankrupt as it will cost them. Give your local CAB a ring and have a word with them.

petermb_2

Reality time. No agreement, no payments, simple as that.
Request a copy of the agreement under section 77 of the Consumer Credit Act1974.
There is an obligation on them to provide you a copy of the agreement within 12 days.Enclose with your letter a postal order or cheque for £1.

Failure to provide a copy of the agreement will render the loan unenforceable until it is provided.

Please make sure that you insert the previous line in your letter.

annieadvisor

i agree mostly with what petermb says however i would quote section 77 and 78 as these cover fixed sums as well as revolving credit agreements and is not clear from what you said which type of credit it was originally.

the law is different for agreements signed after April 07. if it was signed before this date then it is not enforceable however you can still be asked to make payments.

please also bear in mind this legislation only relates to CCA regulated agreements and if you have over 25K loan it will not apply.

KINGOFLONDON

I will tell you ehat this company (FLEX Investment ) actually does!

The owner of rthe company(Graham) owns alot of property, what he does is he sells his own property to buyers (for example me) and pretends to the mortgage company that we have paid the deposit.
For example, our flat (which we bought from him was £195000) his mortgage broker filled up the application form for us to say that we paid the deposit(we signed) of £27000, so they can give us the mortgage of £168000 (obviously Graham is selling his property for more then it is actually worth)So he gets the £168000 to his bank account.
In regards to the £27000 that was supposedly paid, he is making us pay that in monthly instalments.We have been making payments to this company for the past 5 years (since 2003) but have come to realise that we have never signed a contract or agreement with them in regards to this £27000 (which has now escalted to £39000). Since then the company has gone into administration, it has been passed on to a debt recovery agency and we have told them we are not paying a penny till we have a copy of our agreement/contract. They replied with a letter saying that they dont have it , and they sent another letter saying unless we make payments they will make us bankrupt!

anniecave

so what was the agreement as you remember it on the 27K? How many payments were you to make, and of how much? Has the value gone up to £39K because you didn't pay as agreed, or are they charging interest when it wasn't agreed as such, or what?
Has the debt been sold to the debt collectors, or are they collecting on behalf of the receivers?
It sounds like the whole thing was slightly dodgy if you don't have anything in writing. Or was there something in writing and you may have misplaced it?

iolanthe07

This sounds like a fraudulent arrangement; illegal so unenforceable. You could be in trouble yourself if you signed for something knowing it to be to be untrue. I really think you need to take professional advice from someone you trust.

KINGOFLONDON

they had asked us to pay £275 but we couldny afford that so they allowed us to pay £75, which we paid for about 2 years, hence the reason it went up so much, then we started paying £227, Flex investment has since gone into administration and the debt has been taken over by a debt collection agency MAR*IN.
The good thing is that Flex had put a caution on our property ,but we have had it removed last month because we made an application for them to remove it, but they never replied to it, so the land registery removed their caution :beer:
But we honestly dont have a copy of the contract becuase we never had one, we just paid because they told us to make this payment, its only a friend who advised us if there is no contract and they cant provide one then it is not enforceable

anniecave

so how long were you supposed to pay the £275 per month for?

I'm working out that you've already paid maybe £10K to these people? Just trying to get a feel for what they were expecting you to repay in total?

KINGOFLONDON

Thats why we asked this new debt collection company Marl*n for a copy of our contract (because Flex had gone into administration) and the could not provide it,they sent a letter saying the following

We refer to the above matter and in particular your telephone conversation with one of our agents.
Further to your request for a copy of your agreement, we unfortunately have been unable to obtain one to provide you;you should have recieved a copy of this when you signed your mortgage agreement.
we hope this is not an inconvenience to you

Our mortgage was with a completely different company, nothing to do with this £27000, I even called my mortgage company and asked if they recieved that amount and they said they had not! and all we owe them is the mortgage the gave us!!
If they cannot provide the contract, does this make it unenforceable? because MARL*N has sent a threatening letter saying that they will make me bankrupt, can they do that?

minimike2

This is crazy. I highly doubt that any court in the land would enforce this mystical debt that never really existed. Even if an agreement was signed I doubt it would be enforceable as it was part of a fraudulent transaction. I would be more worried about the ramifications of being involved of such a transaction rather than the "debt".

I would seek legal advice - straight to a solicitor rather than CAB...this is way above what they can really advise on. Some solicitors will offer the first 30 mins free....should be enough to give you an idea of your chances.

I would call thier bluff in the mean time. Do not let thier bully tactics get you down.