Statute Bar comment on Step Change

Bronvahl

BACKGROUND
I had some Credit Card debt, I lost ability to service it properly around the financial crisis 2007 to 2008, I then started to pay £10 for each of 7 cards for about a year, then £5 each for another year then £1 a month perhaps until 2011/2012, then I was advised to stop paying and to not communicate with any of the companies.  At this point they started selling the debt and I started getting letters from a plethora of debt recovery companies, which I duly ignored.  

Then it seems that the debt recovery companies would lend the debt to other companies to have a go at recovering it.  After 6 months or a year it seemed to go back, I honestly can't remember who owned it because there were so many.
Around 2018 one of the companies took what must have been the smallest debt of under £3k and did a back door CCJ, they sent the Court paperwork to the address I was at in 2007/8, got their CCJ and started writing to be at my then current address, again I ignored them.

So I figured that most of my debt has gone off statute, just this last CCJ which will I gather will not expire but will need extending after six years in 2024, but Court unlikely to grant such an extension or so I am told.

QUESTION
So I was looking at Stepchange site and I saw the following statements:

"If the creditor has already started action to obtain a court judgment or order before the limitation period passed the debt can never become statute-barred."

"If a creditor has already started court action before the end of the limitation period, this doesn’t apply – the debt will never become statute-barred or prescribed."

This got me to wondering,

What does started mean?

Could they have started a claim in 2018 but left it hanging somehow only to try to complete it if and when they find me?

Or Could they they have also got backdoor CCJ's but not be seeking to enforce them until they get some reason to believe my circumstances have changed?

I would have thought that they would have had to get Judgement for it to "never become statute barred" or there to be a limit in CPR that prevented a case being "started" but not completed for an unreasonable length of time.

I have never checked my credit record since as I know these companies put alerts on people and a search sends up a flare.

It was a credit check that made one of them feel bold enough to seek the CCJ, that was just me resisting the reduction of my overdraft and getting it reduced over a longer period.

Is there a way for me to check for CCJ's without the Credit Reference Databases being informed and thus sending up more flares?

fatbelly

You can check at the Registry Trust

https://www.trustonline.org.uk/

Stepchange's interpretation is correct. The Limitation Act gives a creditor 6 years to commence a claim from the date of the cause of action. 

Under cpr rules a creditor is expected to enforce a judgement within six years.