urgent help needed

stemac123

Hello all

I have a credit card debt of £300 now £420 with court cost, i disputed the date and said it was statute barred and they have entirely disagreed with the claim of statute barred, they said Last payment to the account were on 07/06/2010 and started proceedings against me on 23/06/2016 they have sent a N9A form and its all filled out and being posted tomorrow, I wanted to Know is does Statute barred start on the day i last paid or a month later ? I've been to CAB for advice and they said they had taken me to court 2 weeks before state barred i am unemployed because of ill health, and worried how to pay I've offered £10 a month


thank you for any Advice :-)

[Deleted User]

stemac123 wrote: »

I wanted to Know is does Statute barred start on the day I last paid or a month later?

INAL, but I believe it's based on the day the money was received by the creditor.

So, for example, if I put a cheque in the pillar box today, it'll get collected tomorrow, be received by them on Tuesday morning, go into the banking system Tuesday afternoon, be presented to the clearing system around midnight Tuesday, and be cleared Friday-ish, at which point the payment is considered to have been received.

I think they'd struggle to claim the payment took over 2 weeks to clear.

fatbelly

stemac123 wrote: »

Hello all

I have a credit card debt of £300 now £420 with court cost, i disputed the date and said it was statute barred and they have entirely disagreed with the claim of statute barred, they said Last payment to the account were on 07/06/2010 and started proceedings against me on 23/06/2016 they have sent a N9A form and its all filled out and being posted tomorrow, I wanted to Know is does Statute barred start on the day i last paid or a month later ? I've been to CAB for advice and they said they had taken me to court 2 weeks before state barred i am unemployed because of ill health, and worried how to pay I've offered £10 a month


thank you for any Advice :-)

The n9a is the admission and offer of payment form. It seems odd that you are still asking about a possible defence at the same time that you agree that their claim is valid!

If you acknowledge service then you do not need to respond until 28days after service, which is 28 +5 days after issue date.

The relevant question is - at the time you made that last payment were you:

(1) still making contractual monthly payments to the account; or

(2) had previously defaulted on the agreement and were making sporadic payments that were not necessarily the contractual minimum.

In case (1) the 'cause of action' would be the first missed payment, probably sometime in late june/early july 2010. The claim on 23 June 2016 is probably not statute barred

In case (2) the cause of action was earlier and limitation had been extended by subsequent payment to 7/6/10. The claim on 23 June 2016 is statute barred.

Even if you had acknowledged service, the claim of 23 june should have been responded to by 26 July.

I suspect you will soon get a judgement in default, probably to pay in one lump.

sourcrates

Yes I suspect you are out of time to respond to this now, any particular reason why you have waited so long ?

If, as Fatbelly suspects, you get judgement by default, you would need to fill in and return, court form N245 in order to change the payment the court has ordered.

Don't panic, if all you can afford is £1 a month, then so be it.

stemac123

thank you for your responses :-)

no Judgement has been entered against me yet and i have 14 days to respond from the letter i received from the solicitors, what i was trying to say the debt is now statute Barred but they put in the claim just before now its statute barred does it make any difference as I have not admitted to any of the debt ?


cheers

sourcrates

stemac123 wrote: »

thank you for your responses :-)

no Judgement has been entered against me yet and i have 14 days to respond from the letter i received from the solicitors, what i was trying to say the debt is now statute Barred but they put in the claim just before now its statute barred does it make any difference as I have not admitted to any of the debt ?


cheers

It makes all the difference yes.

They have (allegedly) started there claim before the SB date.
However, they would need to prove to the court that it's not statute. Barred, if you defended it on that basis.

They may or may not be able to do this.

In the end it's up to you what you choose to do, if you lost, you could amend the judgement to pay £1 a month should you need to, as it's a small amount, it may be worth a shot in the dark, make them work for there blood money !!

stemac123

thank you sourcrates :-) could you please advise me how i would go about defending it ? i know i did make a payment of £3.00 on 07/06/2010 as i checked it out with my bank

sourcrates

stemac123 wrote: »

thank you sourcrates :-) could you please advise me how i would go about defending it ? i know i did make a payment of £3.00 on 07/06/2010 as i checked it out with my bank

You need to answer #post 3# from Fatbelly first.

As it's relevant to how you should proceed.

stemac123

i think i was making regularly payment up to 07/06/2010 but they were not contractual minimum.payments, i think i defaulted some time before that, and i am not understanding this legal jargon sorry :-(

fatbelly

Then from what you say it's case (2):

(2) had previously defaulted on the agreement and were making sporadic payments that were not necessarily the contractual minimum.

In case (2) the 'cause of action' (that's the date the limitation clock starts ticking) was earlier than 7/6/10 but your payments had re-set the clock each time, up to 7/6/10.

The claim on 23 June 2016 appears statute barred as it is more than six years from that date, but only a court can declare that and they will only do that if you bring it to their attention.

You are technically out of time to defend the claim but the court may accept a late claim as it seems their solicitor has not yet applied for judgement.

I'd prefer you to get advice from someone who is more specialist like legalbeagles

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

and if this succeeds you should complain to CAB and probably seek compensation from them for wrong advice (at the moment we can't be sure they weren't right but if the court rules in your favour they were!)

When was the solicitor expecting to receive your N9a?

stemac123

thank you fatbelly

the form has to be sent today as I only have till Wednesday, so I think I've left it to late now !:(