Cabot Financial/Mortimer Clarke Solicitors County Court Claim Form

Babylon30

Hi All
I do hope someone can help me as I am in a situation that I have never been in before and do not have a clue how to proceed.
I have received a County Court Claim Form for County Court Business Centre Northamton. Claimant is Cabot Financial and solicitors Mortimer Clarke. The debt is for an orginal debt with JD Williams/Naturally Close for credit agreement from 05/04/2004. I did have an agreement with this company but due to financial hardship at that time was unable to keep up minimum payments due to escalating interest they added to the account. In all these years I have heard nothing until recently - letters from Cabot/Marlin/drydefairfax. I sent them a letter in April saying I was under the impression that this was now statute barred. This was then passed to Mortimer Clarke and I have now got the county court letter.
I really don't know what to do, without sounding ignorant I just don't understand this process. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

fatbelly

So when did you stop making the payments under your agreement with them?

When you wrote in April did you use the standard letter from this site?

As a first step you should go online using your claim number and password and 'acknowledge service', ticking 'I intend to defend the claim in full.'

That means you have 28 days from when the claim was served to submit a defence.

In 2004 JD Williams were pretty lax about getting their clients to sign a consumer credit act agreement. Do you recall signing one?

Babylon30

Many thanks for your reply. I don't ever recall signing anything. I just ordered some goods online. I don't remember exactly when I stopped paying - it was probably a year or so after 2004. I never paid any agencies, just paid naturally close then they stopped contacting me. I want defend in full but don't know how. What do I do after that?

Babylon30

Sorry, yes I used the standard letter from this site for the statute barred letter I sent.

happy_bunny_2

I would think your defence is statute barred with a backup of no valid agreement exists. Not sure how you would enter that on your defence though.

Send them a CCA request ASAP. They have 14 days to provide it.

Babylon30

what is a CCA? Who do I request it from? Cabot or Mortimer Clarke solicitors? Sorry I have never been in this situation before so totally clueless and I'm panicking as the date on this letter is 06 August.

osc51

I received a County Court letter on 6th August also it was Mortimer Clarke on behalf of cabot / shoe taylor except i owed 90 pounds and asked if they would accept a reduced amount which they refused so phoned a debt adviser who told me to pay 1pound a week which I did. They phoned me every day including boxing day refusing the pound then eventually my 90 pounds I owed went up to 400 pounds even though I was sending them money.. I never signed an agreement either.I asked for any contact to be made in writing which they never did and I wanted them to send me paperwork including the so called agreement to be sent to me which they never did. How do these vile people sleep at night . Shoe Taylor had a peace of mind policy on my account so they would have been secured

Lensman_2

Babylon. Fatbelly certainly knows his stuff but this is not a dedicated legal forum.

I would post up what you have so far on one (or both) of the following:
Financial Legal Issues on CAG
Legal Beagles

They will be able to take you through getting your defence together.

Further to your question on a CCA request, National Debtline's template letter for a CCA request will do the job. I personally would send that to Cabot but copy the solicitors. Make sure you include the £1 with the main request (not the copy).