Take note of the way lenders’ demands tend to say things like:
“If you do not pay we will have no option but to consider taking court action.”
“Consider taking court action” is very different to “take court action.” Your lender is writing to you because it wants your money. If writing to you cost more money than it could get from you, the lender wouldn’t write to you. It wouldn’t make financial sense (and one thing these guys have is financial sense).
Taking you to court costs a lot more money. If taking you to court cost more than your lender could get from you, it wouldn’t take you to court. It wouldn’t make financial sense either. And it often doesn’t.
But writing to you with threats of court action is cheap. It’s a cheap way terrifying you into paying up without questioning the lender’s claim.
Something the lender won’t tell you is that before a case can go to County Court (where you and the lender can try to land costs on each other – unlike the Small Claims Court, where you can’t) the defendant is allowed to make the lender produce all (though there are some exceptions) of its documentation relating to its claim. You can also make the lender answer any questions you have about the case. That includes all the questions (and any others you may have) that we set out in the section on what they did to sell the property properly and arrive at the figure they are now claiming.
This procedure is called Pleadings. Judges do not look kindly on lenders who refuse to answer the questions you put to them during Pleadings.
Also, go to the Court Service’s web site and download and read the claim forms and documentation there. It helps you react if you have looked at this stuff in advance and understood (and even practiced) what you may be faced with.
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