Disputed Barclaycard Debt - Hoist Finance

Blondetotty

Hi Guys
A few weeks ago I asked for some advice on my partners disputed debt with Barclaycard after initially sending the provit letter.  He continued to get letters chasing paying the debt even though they acknowledged that it was unenforceable but we sent off the statute barred letter after receiving some advice from a really helpful forumite.  Today he has received another letter from Hoist  with the pertinent bits below:

"Further to blah blah.  My understanding of your complaint is that you dispute the above debt and have stated that is it Statute Barred under the Limitation Act 1980.  You feel that we are harassing you in trying to recover this debt and you want us to stop or you will report us to the FOS.  
Having reviewed your account I have considered Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 and I am not persuaded that this is applicable in this instance.  This is because we can see that there is a county court judgement on your account and therefore the account is not deemed statute barred"
They then go on to talk about the definition of harassment and then say "I can see this is the first time you have raised a valid dispute and as a result your account has been placed on hold whilst we look into this for you.  We intend to review the information we hold, including the creditor who lend you the money originally.  Based on the information I have made a decision to not upheld your complaint as I believe that we have managed the account accordingly and as there is a ccj on the account, the courts have deemed you liable for the outstanding balance.  However as documentation has been requested, I will place your account on hold until we receive this information and then upon receipt we will be in contact in due course".  They then talk about this being their final response if we wanted to go to the FOS etc. 

We're confused.  He's not got any CCJ's and we've just again today double checked all 3 main credit agencies.  No defaults, no judgements, etc.  The only "debts" that show are his mortgage and his current credit card which are up to date.  On check my file there is one person named as an alias which he has never gone by as it is first name and second middle name so we're requesting information on this but checking the Hoist letter they are writing to just his first name.  His ex wife is also shown as a financial associate with 3 of her various names (divorced twice and maiden name) so we've requested they be looked at as he has had no financial association with her since 2012.

Where do we go from now though?  Barclaycard had previously confirmed to Hoist that they cannot find the original paperwork so the debt is considered unenforceable and he's never received anything from the courts, Hoist or Barclaycard since Hoist apparently purchased the debt in 2014.  Hoist insist that payments must be made as they still have rights that exist under the agreement even though they say the debt is unenforceable. There is no CCJ in his name, he doesn't ever recall getting any court paperwork and he's lived at his current address since 1996.  We just seem to be going round in circles.  They say there is a debt but it's unenforceable, they chase for payments, we say no we don't know about the debt and we start all over again.  Do we just go down the Ombudsman route now? 

Blondetotty

I've typed their response verbatim.  The spelling and grammatical errors are theirs, not mine! :-)

fatbelly

'Please provide:

• court reference
• name of court
• date of judgement
• judgement balance'

According to them the only reason why LA1980 and the associated CONC rules do not apply is because there's a ccj. If they give the above details you can check whether that is true by contacting the court.

We can also maybe have a discussion about whether they are out of time to enforce the judgement.

sourcrates

Court papers could have gone to an old address, or somewhere else entirely, if this was more than 6 years ago, the judgement would have dropped off his credit file by now.

Once legal action has been taken, the limitation act no longer applies you see.

Right now its your word against theirs, again I`m with fatbelly on your next course of action here.

If, as they say, they have a CCJ, then to make you pay, they would have to go back to court and persuade a judge why it has taken them since 2014 to get to this stage, 8 years would in my view, be deemed more than enough time to enforce their rights, its not like he has been living on the moon, he`s had the same address since 1996, so has not been in hiding, he was easily contactable.

Of course Hoist know all this, and are hoping you will cave in and pay up, I actually think you are in a very good position here, its unlikely they will go back to court, my guess is the letters may continue, but get more sporadic, and eventually they will either concede defeat, or just give up and fade away.

Blondetotty

Thank you very much, we've just paid and checked the registry for court judgements that I found here and nothing was found under his name and address so we're going to wait and see if they come back and if they do, ask for the CCJ details and I guess we'll go from there.  He is, however, inclined to ignore them going forward as they just seem to send letters asking for payment but nothing more.  It's annoying but if it's just letters I guess he will simply file them in the bin. Thank you again. 

fatbelly

It'll be more than 6 years old so won't show in the register.

Of course it might not even exist.

Yes, your default position is to ignore this. See what they send next.

Blondetotty

Thanks Guys.  This morning we've just received paperwork saying that there is a charge on the property, from the CCJ we're assuming.  We've spent half the morning going over timelines and he thinks it was around the time that he was seriously ill and ended up in hospital for an extended stay.  After he got out, his marriage started disintegrating and he kind of checked out of things for a while. He's apologised to me for not having accurate information and said he didn't realise he had the CCJ or the charging order.  We've checked and yes there is a charging order on his property (owned solely by him) from Bradford Court dated 2010.  I've tried finding out information from the courts using the reference supplied on the charging order but no luck. 

He's happy to pay the debt back if he sells one of his motorcycles so I assume that's the route he's now going to have to go down or alternatively wait until he's going to sell the property (estimated in 2-3 years and downsize) but if you've got any other ideas I would be grateful.  
Thanks

fatbelly

You could just wait till the house is sold then.

But post again if they try anything

sourcrates

You don`t have to repay the debt in full, straight away.

He can arrange a payment plan, or, as fatbelly suggests, wait until the house is sold.

Theoretically they could try and force a sale, but orders for sale are quite rare these days, and its unlikely they will take this any further right now.

fatbelly

It's not even clear that they know they have a CO. They didn't mention it in their letter