lifting a stay on a claim

[julian]

An account was defaulted almost 6 years ago and no payments have been made since. The default will soon be removed from CRA.

About 3 years ago it was assigned to Cabot who went straight to make a claim that was defended in its entirety based on lack of any documents. After submitting the defence the claim was stayed and since then there has been no contact from either side.

When will this disappear forever?

Is there a limit on lifting the stay?

Will the debt ever become Statute Barred if the stay is not lifted?

[PlanB]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

An account was defaulted almost 6 years ago and no payments have been made since. The default will soon be removed from CRA. About 3 years ago it was assigned to Cabot who went straight to make a claim that was defended in its entirety based on lack of any documents. After submitting the defence the claim was stayed and since then there has been no contact from either side.

When will this disappear forever?

Is there a limit on lifting the stay?

Will the debt ever become Statute Barred if the stay is not lifted?

Andrew is away this week and I'm no substitute for him but what I've been told is that once a claim has been issued and a Defence filed then the you will have "acknowledged" the debt and the SB clock stops ticking (due to the cause of action thing).

I've also been told that if the claim is struck out the SB clock is re-set.

Maybe you have the right to apply for a strike-out. On the other hand maybe that would re-activate the claim and provoke the Claimant to dig deep to find or 'reconstruct' the necessary documents since case law has updated in the last three years.

Wait till Andrew is back next week before doing anything.

When was your last payment?

[PlanB]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

Is there a limit on lifting the stay

PS as far as I'm aware there is no limit for the claimant to apply to the court to lift the stay but they'd need to have a jolly good reason after six years have passed since the initial claim.

Have you moved address/house since the claim? Just checking as to whether they may have already got a judgement behind your back.

[julian]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

Thanks PlanB.
There is much about SB, but I have found nothing specific to this. SB is after 6 years of no payment or acceptance of liability; clock restarts after any payment or offer; a ccj is never SB but rarely pursued after 6 years etc

Last token payment was june 2009 to the original creditor, who threatened all sorts for 3 years before selling on. Nothing has been paid since. No letters have been received since the court sent the stayed letter. There is nothing on CRA or CCJ register.
If they don't bother me, I won't bother them.

I just wondered if this a general ploy by Cabot to keep things open or a one off specially for me.

[PlanB]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

SB is after 6 years of no payment or acceptance of liability; clock restarts after any payment or offer.

As I said earlier when the claim was issued the SB clock stopped. The fact that you've not made any payments since the claim was issued and you filed your Defence, is not relevant.

(Someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

[Riz]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

The 6 year clock is the time limit for the claimant to take action, and the action for the purpose is the issuing of proceedings.

Hence once proceedings have been issued within the 6 years then the SB clock not longer runs. In fact it is no longer even relevant or applicable, as the event it is setting a time limit on occurring has already occurred within the limit.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pro...pd_part07a#5.1

Start of proceedings

5.1 Proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant (see rule 7.2) but where the claim form as issued was received in the court office on a date earlier than the date on which it was issued by the court, the claim is ‘brought’ for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980 and any other relevant statute on that earlier date.

[PlanB]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

once proceedings have been issued within the 6 years then the SB clock not longer runs. In fact it is no longer even relevant or applicable, as the event it is setting a time limit on occurring has already occurred within the limit.

I like your logic

The next question is whether the SB clock is re-set (to the original date of the last payment) if the court claim is struck out? We argued this endlessly (over 2 days) on dadmeisters' thread and I think we concluded that it did.

I'll go and have a look at that debate which began here in the Legal Section > http://forums.all-about-debt.co.uk/s...l=1#post315623

[julian]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

As a rider for that, what happens when a claim is withdrawn?

Logically, the claim has started, so SB is no longer applicable. However, the claimant has seen fit to abandon the claim, having had one bite of the cherry, has he set the clock back to the original date, or has he removed the possibility of SB?

I can see that the claim being stayed is in limbo. If there is no time limit on the case resumption, it can be used as a cheap tool to prevent SB. Will it not die when the case files are removed from the court files, eg after 6 years. Would not the judge strike out the claim after a certain time, or if reopened without good reason for delay?

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

Thread moved to General Legal Section

[PlanB]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

Logically, the claim has started, so SB is no longer applicable. However, the claimant has seen fit to abandon the claim, having had one bite of the cherry, has he set the clock back to the original date, or has he removed the possibility of SB?

I can see that the claim being stayed is in limbo. If there is no time limit on the case resumption, it can be used as a cheap tool to prevent SB. Will it not die when the case files are removed from the court files, eg after 6 years. Would not the judge strike out the claim after a certain time, or if reopened without good reason for delay?

This is what Andrew said on another thread :

They've already issued so it wil not become statute barred. As long as the claim form is issued within 6 years that is all they need to do to get it to court on time. It is the date that the claim form is issued that is important not the date of the trial as that can be 7 years or more after the SB clock started to tick as long as the claim form was issued within 6 years

I'm not aware of case files being removed from the court files after six years

I don't think a judge would strike out the claim automatically after a number of years unless an application is made to either lift the stay (by the Claimant) or to have the claim struck out (by the Defendant). I doubt there's a system in place to 'tidy up' the parked claims or send a *Last Orders* reminder. It would be good if there were

[julian]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

What I meant was that courts keep their paper records for about 2-6 years as they need the space. Electronic records are perhaps kept longer, although government records are stored off site as the computer servers have limited storage capacity, which would mean they are not instantly accessible.

Previously I read on here somewhere that the only way to raise an issue on a claim several years old is to provide a claim number. Let's hope Cabot lost all its files in a computer upgrade.

I can see why SB is suspended/removed in a large and difficult case. However when it concerns a case such as

Card from 1980s, changed from Access to Visa en route
Sold to Goldfish as supplier moved out of CCs default
Sold to Barclaycard en masse - started to chase
BC stops chasing after a year of using internal and external agents
After a couple of years with nothing else it is sold to Cabot
Cabot makes a claim but no CCA has ever been produced.
claim stayed after submitting complete defence
All quiet since then.

So I doubt there is an original application form or Ts&Cs.
Never signed anything else.

No more heard so what are they waiting for, a change in the law?

It seems unfair to keep the case open when they have no possibility of proceeding as they have no documents upon which to base their claim.

[julian]

Re: lifting a stay on a claim

Speaking to some excolleagues, there was once a plan to weed out old, festering claims as they make the court stats look bad, as well as taking up valuable space. On the premise that if it ain't broke don't fix it, and a few budget cuts, such admin issues were shelved.