As part of my saga I have been sent letters that are supposed to mean that 'contact' was made in 1998 and not after 11/2/00. I have asked why they kept writing when it would have been obvious I did not live at the address and what happened to the letters (returned I presume).

Two of these letters were sent by a firm of solicitors in Manchester (Michael Taylor and Co) the last one saying that in 72 hours they were starting county court proceedings.

What I am thinking is that as they are out of the picture - another firm is now in contact - I will phone them to ask:

1) Did they take court action 2) What happened when the letters were returned 3) Why did they write again when letters were returned 4) What did they tell the Debt company about not being able to contact me 5) Can they please send me copies of all letters in the file as I need them for a court case - using discovery.

What I am hoping is that they can back up the story of 'contact' not being made by these old letters none of which I ever knew about. I am confident on the phone and have no worries about them trying to turn the tables on me.

What do people think and has anyone tried this before?

-- Matt (Mattyc@ntlworld.com), December 02, 2000

Answers

Trouble is, Matt, that the lenders are adhering to a voluntary code they have been allowed to come up with their own bizarre definition of something as (apparently) simple as 'contact'. I would be very interested to see someone challenge the lenders on their definition of contact, and if it were me I would put the *lender* to strict proof by asking them to *prove* that contact had been properly made. It may well be a voluntary code but under the new Civil Procedure Rules you might be able to get a court to take a dim view of a lender who had sent letters to a quite obviously wrong address but labelled this as 'contact'. This doesn't actually answer your question about making the phone call. I couldn't advise on that - I'm passing the buck!

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), December 02, 2000.

An update: I have just finished speaking to the firm of Solicitors who were dealing with my case in 1998. So far, touch wood, they have been very helpful indeed. They are going to contact me by post to update me on what happened re all my questions aove - I await the answers with interest. We discussed what they could tell me and I requested thatas much as possible was divulged to save me the bother of serving an SAR on them and/or using discovery when/if the case comes to court. Hopefully something interesting may appear.

The other thing I decided to discuss with them was whether they would consider acting on a no win no fee basis if the matter continued. They did not have a problem with this and, at the moment, depending on the contents of the file, they may be very useful as they should know more that the average solicitor about all the relevant laws!!

I will keep the you all updated.

-- Matt (mattyc@ntlworld.com), December 04, 2000.