Lowell CCJ Papers - Statute Barred

dizco

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I would welcome some advice, and links to templates if possible.

Around 2007 I opened a Halifax Current Account. I disputed some charges on the account, and it all escalated and ended in me closing the account with a balance outstanding of over £300. I can't remember exactly when I defaulted on payments, but it would have been in 2009. I'm assuming this is now statute barred, but I have no paperwork to back this up.

A default was never registered against my credit file, and the debt has been passed to a number of collection agencies, and now rests with Lowell Portfolio.

I have just received a County Court Claim Form from Northampton, and have completed the Acknowledgedment of Service online, indicating that I wish to fully defend and dispute the claim.

At this point, I'm now getting nervous, as I don't really know what steps I should take in terms of contacting Lowell re: CCA requests, Statute barred requests, and indeed whether I have a strong enough case to defend.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

sourcrates

Hi,

My, my, Lowell have been very busy of late, the forum is full of posts about them at the moment!!
Looks like they've bought up a job lot of SB. accounts and are now trying to collect on them.

With a bank account, you can't make a CCA request, as different legislation applies, you can ask for proof of the debt though.
It's also a problem determining when the "cause of action" date was, as you are not required to make any fixed repayments to a bank account.

Best advice I can give you is to post on legal beagles forum, they love Lowell on there, and can advise on how best to deal with them :

http://legalbeagles.info

dizco

Funny you should mention. Just joined and posted on there too.

Thank you for the tips.

Best, Chris

fatbelly

I can't see you on that site but as long as you've posted on

http://legalbeagles.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?378-Bringing-a-Court-Claim

you'll be OK. A couple of points:

CCA requests do not apply to overdrafts.

The statute barred date on an overdraft may not be 6 years after the last payment. If you imagine walking away from an account with a small overdraft but say a £200 limit and a small monthly charge, you will still be within the terms and conditions for many months before you exceeded the limit. The bank would eventually call the debt in, and they would have 6 years from that date to start court action.