Drydensfairfax, Link and Cabot chasing old debt.

ToonDad

Hi everyone, would greatly appreciate some advice, pointers and opinions on my situation. 

My ex wife and myself got into some horrendous debt a number of years ago totaling some 85k, mainly credit cards and loans. Totally in over our heads. Massively stupid and I’ve honestly regretted it ever since. In desperation and with a lack of education as to our options we employed Compass Debt management to service the debt on our behalf. Not long after this we split and went our seperate ways. Compass then went into liquidation due to the manner it was being ran and took 5k of our money with it that we are unable to reclaim. 

After the Compass fall out some Compass clients were contacted by Abbey solicitors to try and assist with their debts being investigated and potentially written off. After this some of our creditors ceased chasing debt but some of them persisted. I would get the occasional letter reminding me of an outstanding balance but it was never anything more than that, until recently.

In the last few days I have received a County Court claim form from Drydensfairfax, as well as still receiving letters from Link and Cabot. Earlier this year I had sent a Statute Barred letter to Drydensfairfax and Link, to which Drydensfairfax replied that the debt does not become statute barred till December 2021 and Link replied that their debt isn’t barred till April 2022. 

The replies only state a date that they last received a payment on the accounts which would have been from compass. I haven’t personally made any payments on these debts for well over 15 years. 

Sorry if I’ve missed anything out. I’m quite worried as I had hoped to have put all this behind me. I’ve remarried and had 2 wonderful kids and was hoping to buy a house next year and have been saving but this could totally ruin everything. I have been reading some info on Joanna Connolly solicitors who specialize in this type of thing and also wondered if anyone else had used them? 

Any help at all would be massively appreciated. Thanks.

sourcrates

Hi,

You have already wasted money on debt management companies, and claims management companies, you do not need a solicitor to defend a county court claim, unless your last name is Rockefeller or you have just had a large lotto win, its just a massive further waste of your money.

When you signed up with Compass, you effectively signed them as "your agent", the limitation act specifically states "payment by you or your agent" so if they made a payment on your behalf, its regarded as though it came from you unfortunately.

Have you actually received court papers, or is it a letter before action ?

An LBA can be dealt with thus -

How to reply to a Letter Before Claim about a debt · Debt Camel

If its a claim form -

If you're being taken to court for debt - Citizens Advice


its imperative you respond to them within the time frame granted, usually if you acknowledge service online, you get 28 days.

fatbelly

Joanna Connolly is a solicitor who specialises in consumer credit act debt and I think Di Mayhew works or at least worked for them and has been active on these forums.

However it seems that you don't deny that a payment was made in Dec 2015 by Compass and they were acting as your agent. So that payment would count as an acknowledgement. It's section 30(2) of the Limitation Act

(2)For the purposes of section 29, any acknowledgment or payment—

(a)may be made by the agent of the person by whom it is required to be made under that section; and

(b)shall be made to the person, or to an agent of the person, whose title or claim is being acknowledged or, as the case may be, in respect of whose claim the payment is being made.

Of course if there ever was a period of six years when you didn't make a payment then you would still have a defence.

SusieT

fatbelly said:
Of course if there ever was a period of six years when you didn't make a payment then you would still have a defence.

This part is worth investigating since you said in your opening post that you would not have paid anything for 15 years. If that is true (and your ex wife did not pay anything either), then it is possible that the payment they received nearly 6 years ago could have been made to an account that was already statute barred.