PRA county court papers

DollyDingle

Hi
Long time lurker here. 
Have been battling the lovely (!) PRA  group for a while. This is for a debt with Barclays of £3,500. I was making regular repayments and my circumstances changed and I stupidly buried my head in the sand! 
Not in a position right now to pay this. 
I received a letter before action and responded by email with a CCA request. This was about 3 weeks ago. Anyway the calls kept coming but no agreement forthcoming. 
The email I sent is the only contact they have received from me. 
Today I have received paperwork for country court. I'm livid they completely ignored my request. 
What do I do now? I know I have to respond. I can prove I emailed them to ask.
Any help much appreciated. 

DisabledDan

I am not saying this will work without an application (filing a form and paying £200 odd for a Judge to dismiss it) but it has worked for me when the Court Staff understand the law.

When you got your Court papers there will have been an Acknowledgement of Service, you can find a digital one online with the same ref number if you prefer to do these things on a computer.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/form-n210-acknowledgment-of-service-cpr-part-8

Do NOT tick Section A  - I do not intend to contest this claim

DO tick Section B - I intend to contest this claim

You can try to tick Option C - I intend to dispute the court’s jurisdiction

This is really for cases where it is the wrong Court but I have used it myself to say you should not be entertaining this claim and stating why:

To pursue a claim the claimant must Consumer Credit Act request under sections 77, 78 and 79,  If a lender does not respond to a request for information under the Consumer Credit Act in 12 working days they cannot start or continue court action against a defendant to recover the debt until they do so. I wrote to them 21 days before they filed the claim and to this date they have failed to provide a true copy of the agreement or even to reply (see enclosed copy)

Therefore this case cannot be heard by the Court and should be dismissed.



The Important one to tick is Option D - I object to the claimant issuing under this procedure

My reasons for objecting are:

In this section you want to list the legislation and the CONC rules and print them off for your bundle, you ideally need to print the FCA page for all and any rules that apply, the legislation sections you are relying upon, plus anything else you refer to,e.g. Practice Direction.

Something along these lines 

I wrote to the claimant on [dd/mm/yy], A copy is attached.requesting a copy of the Consumer Credit Agreement with regard to the alleged debt.

They should be aware that if they do not stop collection activity whilst investigating my dispute, they would be breaking Financial Conduct Authority rules and guidance.as well as a breach of the Consumer Credit Act 1974

I also advised them that ignoring claims that accounts are in dispute and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment is harassment.

I asked that they provide evidence of my liability for the alleged debt or send me written confirmation that this matter is now closed.

The Claimant has failed to respond 

To pursue a claim the claimant must Consumer Credit Act request under sections 77, 78 and 79,  If a lender does not respond to a request for information under the Consumer Credit Act in 12 working days they cannot start or continue court action against a defendant to recover the debt until they do so. I wrote to them 21 days before they filed the claim and to this date they have failed to provide a true copy of the agreement or even to reply (see enclosed copy)

Therefore this case cannot be heard by the Court and should be dismissed.

FURTHERMORE, the Claimant is in breach of Civil Procedure Rules, specifically PRACTICE DIRECTION – PRE-ACTION CONDUCT AND PROTOCOLS. 

The obligation on the Claimant is to follow the Objectives of pre-action conduct and protocols which state

3. Before commencing proceedings, the court will expect the parties to have exchanged sufficient information to—

(a) understand each other’s position;

(b) make decisions about how to proceed;

(c) try to settle the issues without proceedings;

(d) consider a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement;

(e) support the efficient management of those proceedings; and

(f) reduce the costs of resolving the dispute.

The Claimant will not engage with me or address my statutory request, so I can't understand their position not can they understand mine. It is impossible to make decisions on how to proceed if the they will not engage with me and fully answer my lawful and legitimate queries, I suspect that they are doing this deliberately because they know the alleged debt is unenforceable.

The Claimant have made no attempt to settle the issues without proceedings, all it would take is for them to follow the Financial Conduct Authority rules and the Consumer Credit Act (1974) legislation.

The Claimant had failed to consider any form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement;

The Claimant is totalling failing to support the efficient management of those proceedings; it has failed to provide the required Consumer Credit Agreement.

All of the failures listed above have increased the costs of resolving and determining the dispute.

The Claimant is riding roughshot over the legislation, meanwhile it continues to harass and bully me,

I am asking this Court to dismiss this case and Order the Claimant to not bring any further claims for me or anyone else until it has complied with the legislation and the FCA Conc Rules.

The CONC Rules I am referring to are shown in the bundle I have attached to this Acknowledgement of Service

You need to print out anything you refer to 

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/pd_pre-action_conduct#3.1

Lookup all the rules they are breaching and print them off, for example

CONC 13.1.6 which says that:

“(1) Failure to comply with the provisions means that the agreement becomes unenforceable while the failure to comply persists, and the courts have no discretion to allow enforcement.
(2) In such cases, a firm should in no way, either by act or omission, mislead a customer as to the enforceability of the agreement.”

I believe that they are breaking the law by attempting to enforce a debt that is unenforceable under Financial Services Authority rules and the Consumer Credit Act 1974 therefore the Court should not even entertain the claim and dismiss it.


I am sure others may jump in with further rules and legislation to quote.

fatbelly

Lots of hep, guidance and templates here

https://legalbeagles.info/forums/forum/legal-forums/court-claims-and-issues/received-a-court-claim

DjangoUnchained

definately pursue the CCA agreement because they will very rarely have it. They rely on people not asking for it.

DollyDingle

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with it. 
If I go online and acknowledge it can I then complete and send evidence to defend by post rather than online? And does it give me extra time if I do this? 

sourcrates

Acknowledging service online extends the response time to 28 days I believe.

There should be instructions how to register your defence in the claim pack.

DollyDingle

Thanks, I have registered acknowledgement online so can now get my defense ready. 

fatbelly

When acting for others, I try to put the defence in online.

I understand that can be difficult if you want to submit a complex defence.

I would be reluctant to submit by post, but having said that, a client just did his aos by post and it was entered after 2 days.

The boys on the parking forum advise to submit the defence by email. You can read their advice on their newbies thread

DollyDingle

So I submitted my defense, had an acknowledgement from court yesterday then this from pra today . They can't proceed until they have the information and have sent it to me to check it's correct can they?
Funny how quickly they responded but couldn't even acknowledge my cca request! 

DollyDingle

letter from court and pra

DollyDingle

Sorry not sure what happened there!