Lowell: "The account is not statute barred".

FlickyFoot

Evening everyone. I recently made another post here regarding how Lowell sent me a demand for a debt from pre-2009. In that letter, they said I had made a £12 payment against that debt in recent years. I have not. So I wrote back to them asking them to prove the payment and said that the account should be statute-barred. They replied with the following:

"We have noted your letter and we advise that the account ****** is not statute-barred under the Limitation Act 1980.

There is a CCJ held in relation to this account dated **/**/2009, court number *****. As the CCJ is now over 6 years old this would now have expired. This means it will have been removed from any credit file reporting and the public registry."

They did not acknowledge or provide any evidence of the phantom payment made in 2020. Due to personal stressors, I was unaware of the CCJ at the time. I have no current CCJs on my credit file either.

Does this reply from Lowell make any sense? If the CCJ expired in 2015, and it's now 8 years later, is the debt not statute-barred?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

elsien

From national debtline:

County court judgments

Once a creditor has a county court judgment (CCJ) for a debt, the Limitation Act does not put any time limits on how long they have to enforce that judgment. 

If your CCJ is more than six years old, and the creditor wants to use enforcement action, they must first get permission of the court. Special rules apply if they apply for a third party debt order or you already have a charging order. Contact us for advice.

https://nationaldebtline.org/fact-sheet-library/statute-barred-debts-ew/#:~:text=us%20for%20advice.-,County%20court%20judgments,get%20permission%20of%20the%20court.

 Although I suspect they would need to make a very good case as to why they’ve left it this long to chase payment. Which seems unlikely.

So certainly not as straightforwards as they are trying to make it sound.

GrumpyDil

As above, technically the debt is not statute barred as the CCJ will prevent that but they would need to apply to the court to extend the enforcement action.

I suspect they are being judicious in their use of wording to encourage you to pay. 

FlickyFoot

Thank you both. So what would be the next course of action for me? They've said they will put my account on hold for 30 days, and then resume contact. The debt is currently around £1000. Is it worth them applying to the court to extend enforcement action for that amount?

I absolutely can not afford to be paying this amount right now as I'm on a low income. I believe a portion of the debt must have come from fees added at some point. I don't remember spending this amount. Not that it matters, but this is all very bad timing and is adding to the stress I'm under in general, as it would even in the best of times. But as we all know, this is not the best of times for most people.

elsien

These companies rely on harassment and misinformation to make people pay up.
I would write to them telling them they must only contact you by post, if they are currently contacting you by phone. There is a sample letter on here somewhere.

Then I would probably just wait and see if they do take it any further or not. Bottom line is if you can only afford a token amount, they can’t get any more than that from you. And they would still have to explain to the court why it has taken them so long to get to this point.

pushpull

FlickyFoot said:

Thank you both. So what would be the next course of action for me? They've said they will put my account on hold for 30 days, and then resume contact. The debt is currently around £1000. Is it worth them applying to the court to extend enforcement action for that amount?

I absolutely can not afford to be paying this amount right now as I'm on a low income. I believe a portion of the debt must have come from fees added at some point. I don't remember spending this amount. Not that it matters, but this is all very bad timing and is adding to the stress I'm under in general, as it would even in the best of times. But as we all know, this is not the best of times for most people.

Just send them a letter telling them to Foxtrot Oscar and then file any further correspondence in the round filing cabinet.

If anything actually comes from the Courts, you may want to read it. The rest can safely be ignored.

They need permission from the court to enforce a 6+ year old judgment so even if it exists it's unlikely they'd bother wasting more money chasing the debt and quite likely they'd not get permission to enforce it anyway.

FlickyFoot

Thanks again for the further info. So do you think I should contact them again asking them to prove the phantom payment they claim I made in 2020? Or is it pointless, especially given that they ignored my first request?

All contact so far has been done by post although they somehow have my phone and email too. But I've ignored those.

When it comes to ignoring them, what I'm afraid of is having bailiffs arrive at my door unannounced and forcefully taking my goods. Can this happen before a court gets involved? Or would I be informed first and given an opportunity to deal with the court myself?

FlickyFoot

pushpull said:

Just send them a letter telling them to Foxtrot Oscar and then file any further correspondence in the round filing cabinet.

This made me laugh

Rob5342

FlickyFoot said:

When it comes to ignoring them, what I'm afraid of is having bailiffs arrive at my door unannounced and forcefully taking my goods. Can this happen before a court gets involved? Or would I be informed first and given an opportunity to deal with the court myself?

They would have to go back to the court to extend the CCJ, and then back to the court again when you didn't pay it before bailiffs could  be sent.

It's cheap and easy for them to threaten you with letters, but it's a completely different story when they'd have to start paying for legal action, especially for a debt they might have only paid £50 for.

I'd just ignore them, they'll be sending the same letters to hundreds of thousands of people in the hope that they might get a few of them to pay them something.

sourcrates

The CCJ expired, so is now unenforceable, if they had wanted to extend it, that must be done before it expired, they didn`t, and an extension can only last up to another 12 months anyway, so again, a non starter.

The debt is dead in the water, it can`t be enforced, but they will hope you don`t realise that.

FlickyFoot

Thank you so much everyone for putting my mind at ease with this. You are all lifesavers. It's disgusting that they are legally allowed to chase old debts in this way. I feel for elderly people or those too overwhelmed with life to work out what's happening.