am i being treated legally by restons solicitors

DABZY_2

my situation is as follows two years ago i got into trouble paying my debts,so i went into a debt management plan all of my creditors accepted except HFC bank the debt management company offered and paid £74 per month HFC rejected this the next thing i know i get a letter from restons solicitors taking me to court because they had already applied for a court hearing before the agreed payment was due (2 days) the agreed payment was the original full amount as they would not negotiate at all.we went to court all went well for us i think.we recieved a letter asking for us to go into a consent order for the full amount ie £247 every month,since i have been in this consent order i have been looking at these forums and there is alot of talk about loans not being enforceable due to breaches in the consumer credit act,i have recently sent off an application for missold ppi and they sent me an offer for the full amount but wanted to take it off my debt i refused and said i wanted it in the form of a cheque because i have literally paid the money out i haven't heard a thing since so i have taken my complaint to the FOS of which i am waiting for a reply,my question is this due Restons solicitors have the right to put me in a consent order ie there is no mention of them being FSA registered on their site or letters does that make them in breach of the consumer credit act and secondly how do i go about coming out of the consent order,Your response is greatly appreciated

foxwales

They are solicitors not a financial institution, therefore they are not governed by the FSA although if carrying out debt collection on behalf of clients, they have to comply with FSA debt collection guidelines.

A Consent order is merely that; you gave your consent to the amount to be repaid; if you are financially now not able to maintain the agreed repayments on the consent order then you need to contact Restons to re-negotiate the repayment amount, if they are unprepared to do so, then you could consider not paying and allow the matter to be placed back before a court in which case you can then put your financial situation before the court for consideration in terms of the repayment.

Should you not pay and Restons to proceed to enforce the Consent Order through the courts, yet you are financially able to maintain the current consent order repayment, then you will be worse off. So consider this carefully.

DABZY_2

i've just looked at the original agreement and the copies restons sent me and both are not dated,both are signed is this legally enforceable also the terms and conditiond are dated 8 months befoe the agreement,is this legally enforceable,also can i ask restons for the missold ppi in the way of a cheque as they are deealing on behalf of HFC.

foxwales

DABZY wrote: »

i've just looked at the original agreement and the copies restons sent me and both are not dated,both are signed is this legally enforceable also the terms and conditiond are dated 8 months befoe the agreement,is this legally enforceable,also can i ask restons for the missold ppi in the way of a cheque as they are deealing on behalf of HFC.

An agreement does not necessarily have to be dated to be legal, providing your signature is on there, that committs you to the terms and conditions of the agreement.

Again, terms and conditions are generally generic to the product and are for your reading and reference, if you signed the agreement, then you are deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions.

So based on the information you have provided, yes your agreement is enforceable.

Now with your complaint, if you have taken up this matter with the FOS, then you will need to await the FOS ruling in this complaint before you can take your matter further, did you tell the FOS that one of the outcomes you wanted from this complaint is that you receive the amount via cheque?

DABZY_2

yes i did,i have since sent a letter to restons demanding that they stop taking payments through the consent order until the investigation is complete,i am not cancelling the standing order i have asked them to as the account is now in dispute i have also asked for a breakdown of all payments made by me and the charges/fees that have been added if they dont reply i will send in a subject access request,there is still the issue with the missing default notice if HFC's £50 fee is not shown does that not prove that no default notice was sent,when we went to court they had not got a copy of the default notice but it shows up on their evidence listing

foxwales

Unfortunately you cannot stop paying Restons because you have a dispute over the PPI, the PPI is completely seperate form the loan, therefore you are required to maintain the payments under the consent order unless you ask for a review of repayments due to a change in financial circumstances.

Or alternatively, you can stop paying it in which case Restons will im sure enforce the consent order through the courts, in which case you can ask the courts for consideration of a lower payment.

It only became recent in law that a Default notice had to be issued before any enforcement action was carried out against a debtor, so am not sure what your getting at in terms of this?

Dabooka

DABZY wrote: »

yes i did,i have since sent a letter to restons demanding that they stop taking payments through the consent order until the investigation is complete,i am not cancelling the standing order i have asked them to as the account is now in dispute i have also asked for a breakdown of all payments made by me and the charges/fees that have been added if they dont reply i will send in a subject access request,there is still the issue with the missing default notice if HFC's £50 fee is not shown does that not prove that no default notice was sent,when we went to court they had not got a copy of the default notice but it shows up on their evidence listing

Dabzy your posts are so hard to read mate! Please try and break them down a bit, I lose track of what you are saying.

DABZY_2

sorry dabooka there as so much gone on with HFC & Restons,i thought i had done everything right by going to a dma,and i only missed one payment while the dma set the payment offerings up thats when all this started with restons,they would not accept a reduced payment at all so i accepted to pay the full amount on a certain day but while i was doing this restons had filed a court hearing before the due date and took me to court.What i am trying to get at is while under a debt management plan or applying for one haven't both HFC & restons breached the fsa guidelines,its only recemtly after looking on this site that i found out about the missold ppi which HFC want to take off their debt and not pay it to me in the form of a cheque and even though they offered me their ex gratia payment of £2100 they did not admit fault and i am still paying it through the consent order i know that this is all stalling tactics,i am grabbing at straws basically with everything i have read on this site but basically both companies have been underhand and unfair i myself want to do as much as i can to them

PNPSUKNET

no matter what you still have to pay the debt, let them take it off the debt and this means less amount left to pay allowing you to put it behind you.

If you had a cheque what were you going todo with it?

DABZY_2

I never had no intention of not paying them back,its just the way i have been treated by them both,the cheque would have paid two other debts off thus saving me another £175 per month.

never-in-doubt

foxwales wrote: »

An agreement does not necessarily have to be dated to be legal, providing your signature is on there, that committs you to the terms and conditions of the agreement.

Actually, an agreement should be both signed & dated in order to be enforceable, bear in mind enforceability would be by a court order and an un-dated agreement would make the court reconsider the issuance of such order for fear of reprisal (appeal). An undated agreement could, in fact, be deemed unenforceable if used correctly.....

See here for details of Unenforceability & the processes involved: Unenforceability & Template Letters