Welcome Finance - Put in a defence, dont know what to write??

teaqueen

Hello,

Not sure if im in the right place, I have received a court letter regarding some £6000 worth of debt from welcome finance. To cut a short story long, we had a car on HP, paid over the half way settlement figure, and wanted to hand the car back, voluntary hand the car back, and be left with no debt. Welcome said no they didnt want the car back, but eventually they said that we could sell the car and give them the money - they lifted the finance on the car so we could sell it. They are now still chasing us the the remainder of the agreement, which we should not have to pay. We had defaulted on payments under the agreement, but still paid more than what we had to to voluntary hand the car back. I now have acknowledged to the court that i intend to defend the claim, and court jurisdication, but i cant afford a solicitor and need to write a defence and get it back to them asap. Can anyone help please., thank you lots

davek1

I put in a defence against welcome and finally got them to accept less than half what they had originally asked for. Ok i still got a CCJ but i still felt morally triumphant!!

Have you checked if there is a valid CCA? also check any unlawful charges. Send this letter now.

In the XXXX County Court
Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME)
Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER)


Dear XXX

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below.

The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought.

1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened.
2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to:

a. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations by your company, or by any previous creditor
b. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.(AMEND TO THE COMPANY NAME)
c. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.
d.Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).
e. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.
f. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.
g. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998
h. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.
i. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.

3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court.


I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim.

Yours sincerely,

standupguy

I am assuming that the agreement is Hire Purchase rather than a loan?
Under the regulations you are entitled to return the car and your liability other than any damage to the car is limited to one half the hire purchase price and this amount is shown on your copy document.
This included any deposit you paid and all of the payments made.

Perhaps the defence should be that Welcome Finance breached the contract by its refusal to allow you your rights under the agreement to voluntary terminate the agreement.

Welcome cannot choose whether or not they have the car back - it is their property under the Hire Purchase agreement until it is fully paid. If you wanted to terminate they should have accepted this at the time.

What they can do is come back to you for any unreasonable damage to the car subject to fair wear and tear after they have taken the car back.

I would also contact Welcome and ask for a full statement of account and a copy of all of the computer notes on your account - you have a right to obtain these under data protection rules but a small fee may be payable. It would be interesting to see what they say?

Perhaps your counter claim should include all payments made since their refusal to let you terminate plus all of their fees and costs put against your account since that date re-imbursed?

teaqueen

Thanks for your very kind reply. I havent got 14 days thow to send this letter to welcome, although i will still send it, becuase it will be useful to have at a later stage. I have to send a defence back by weds 14th may to the court. The car is now sold, gone, and i give welcome the money for the sale as well towards the debt. It was a hire purchase agreement rather than a loan, and I have paid more than i needed to to hand the car back, i cant believe they are chasing me for the rest of the debt. im unsure as what to actually write on the defence form, i need to come accross professional and not some dimwit, please help;

teaqueen

thanks for the reply. im gonna have to write this defence over the weekend and post it monday, trouble is im still not sure what to write. it was a hire purchase agreement, i have a copy of the signed original, luckily. ive got statements of accounts, but they are all over the place, so i need to go through them, for bounced direct debits etc, but i am quite sure i have paid more than what we needed to to hand the car back. they just flatly refused to accept the car back, and told me to sell it, and give them the money towards the debt which I did. im really paniking cos i dont want a ccj. the car is gone now, as agreed with them. they are totally unreasonable and when i dealt with the staff at the local branch, they were treating me like some kind of crap on your shoe. fair enough, we did default on the payments, we struggled so much, and did agree to reduce the montlly payments, but we still paid more than the legal limit to give the car back, and settle with no bill to pay!

RAS

TEaqueen

It might be a good idea to ring NDL and talk through what you need to say with them http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan#help for contact details,

tc6472

teaqueen wrote: »

thanks for the reply. im gonna have to write this defence over the weekend and post it monday, trouble is im still not sure what to write. it was a hire purchase agreement, i have a copy of the signed original, luckily. ive got statements of accounts, but they are all over the place, so i need to go through them, for bounced direct debits etc, but i am quite sure i have paid more than what we needed to to hand the car back. they just flatly refused to accept the car back, and told me to sell it, and give them the money towards the debt which I did. im really paniking cos i dont want a ccj. the car is gone now, as agreed with them. they are totally unreasonable and when i dealt with the staff at the local branch, they were treating me like some kind of crap on your shoe. fair enough, we did default on the payments, we struggled so much, and did agree to reduce the montlly payments, but we still paid more than the legal limit to give the car back, and settle with no bill to pay!

hi there i know this was posted a while ago but we are in a similar situation at the mo !! just wondered how you got on ????