County Court Claim Form

antoquintos

Apologies for the length of this - this is something compeltely new to me so I would be extremely grateful for any assistance.

My partner has received a 'Claim Form' which has been issued in the 'Country Court Business Centre'. This is for an agreement that she previously had with MBNA. The letter has stated that a response must be issued within 14 days.

I have spoken to my partner, and they genuinely do not recall this agreement. They are not denying having had an agreement with MBNA, they just genuinely cannot remember (my partner was previously in serious financial difficulty and had all sorts of loans/credit cards at the time) but they genuinely do not specifically remember this.

Can somebody please therefore advise the next step to take? Obviously we do not want to fully acknowledge this as my partner cannot remember it. Similarly, however, we do not want to fully dispute this. My suggestion to my partner was that we write to both the Court concerned and to the Solicitor's concerned requested further details about the debt concerned and then - assuming they are able to provide this - we then prospose a monthly payment amount to clear the debt. The trouble is, the 'Reponse Pack' in the court letter only allows us to 'Defend all of this claim', 'Admit all of this claim' or 'Defend and Counterclaim'.

Based on the above, and what I have said as our propsed action, would I therefore need to return the response pack 'Defending the claim' and attaching a letter requesting further information?

Apologies for my naivety and limited knowledge on this matter - it is completely new to us both - but I would be grateful for any advice.

fatbelly

They are geared up for this on legalbeagles

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?105-Received-a-Court-Claim

There's a formal process for requesting information which you should follow and they have a template. But do post your details there using their form

For now, you can acknowledge the claim online (easier and more reliable than using the post) and tick 'defend the claim in full' - keeps your options open.

Did he not get a 'letter before court claim'?

seanavfc92

To be totally honest, defending the claim on the basis she "can't specifically remember the debt" isn't going to stand up in court. What would stand up is if the debt was statute barred.

You need to send the 'Acknowledgement of Service' form if you want time to prepare a defence. It should be the N9 form you have to send to the court. This will give you an extra 14 days in addition to the 19 days you have to respond.

antoquintos

Thank you both for your replies.

In terms of defending ourselves on the basis that my partner could not remember this, we don't really have an intention of doing this - apologies if it came across wrong. What I was trying to say was that we do not want to write back fully accepting the debt because we genuinely do not have any records of it that we can locate. So instead, we are intending on requesting further information on the debt concerned.

With this in mind, which box would we have to select when 'acknowledging the service?' The 3 options are:

I intend to defend all of this claim
I intend to defend part of this claim
I intend to contest justidiction

Apologies again for my lack of knowledge on this, just trying to get to the bottom of this as soon as we can

seanavfc92

antoquintos wrote: »

In terms of defending ourselves on the basis that my partner could not remember this, we don't really have an intention of doing this - apologies if it came across wrong. What I was trying to say was that we do not want to write back fully accepting the debt because we genuinely do not have any records of it that we can locate. So instead, we are intending on requesting further information on the debt concerned.

I might have read it out of context as well, so no harm done!

antoquintos wrote: »

With this in mind, which box would we have to select when 'acknowledging the service?' The 3 options are:

I intend to defend all of this claim
I intend to defend part of this claim
I intend to contest justidiction

Apologies again for my lack of knowledge on this, just trying to get to the bottom of this as soon as we can

It depends.

If you don't accept that the debt is valid you'll want to contest the ENTIRE balance, so option A.

If you're happy to accept the debt is valid, but contest SOME of the balance, option B.