GRACE & ANR – v– BLACK HORSE LIMITED [2014] EWCA Civ 1413 30/10/2014

[Riz]

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/1413.html

Click here to view or download the file directly.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: GRACE & ANR – v– BLACK HORSE LIMITED [2014] EWCA Civ 1413 30/10/2014

So in layman it appears that they won the part of the appeal that allows for recording a default against a debtor whom is fighting UE - in essence you need to pay attention to points 41-44 of the judgment.

41. I have not found the choice between these submissions at all easy. But in the end I have concluded that Mr Brennan is right. It was not accurate to describe Mr Grace as a defaulter under his hire purchase agreement once a competent court had decided that it was irremediably unenforceable against him. My reasons follow.

42. It is common ground that a default registration with a CCA is a stigma, with potentially serious consequences for the consumer's credit rating. Yet where Parliament has decided that a class of consumer should not have to pay a debt of that kind, and a court has decided (or the parties have recognised) that a particular consumer is within that class, I consider it very counter-intuitive to think that he can accurately be stigmatised as a defaulter in a semi-public register without, at least, the unenforceable nature of the debt being recorded in the same entry. For it is invariably the creditor's default in complying with the CCA that has led to the consumer being regarded by Parliament as not having to pay the debt, and a statutory liberty not to pay is so central to any continued non-payment that the registration of his non-payment as a default is generally inaccurate unless accompanied with a reference to that liberty.

43. I recognise that this conclusion may require a re-examination of remediable unenforceability, because I am by no means sure that the same analysis may not equally apply. Why should the exempt debtor be labelled a defaulter during any limited period during which Parliament had decided that he should not have to pay? But that question is for another day.

44. The outcome of this analysis is that this part of the appeal succeeds. To the limited extent that Mr Grace is not statute barred, the breach of the DPA constituted by the default registration did cause the alleged loss, because no other registration of him as a defaulter under his hire purchase agreement could then have been made, there having then been no facility for the simultaneous registration of the non-enforceability of his debt.

The points in red suggest that a creditor should not add a default entry against you unless there is an accompanying element stating that you are chasing UE and until a court deems it irredeemably UE there should be no such default marker without such a notice accompanying it. However that said, it appears they're not arguing any more on that - as stated "But that question is for another day"...

So lets see what happens a result of this case

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: GRACE & ANR – v– BLACK HORSE LIMITED [2014] EWCA Civ 1413 30/10/2014

I have embedded the .pdf into post 1 - it will propagate in a few minutes and be available to view in the browser....