After receiving SAR -DPA from B&B I find the diary text ended in May 2000. I have a letter from B&B's solicitors dated January 2001, that informs me that having asked for them to supply me with documents suggested on the HRP that "their client feels this to be an unreasonable request". That shows there has been contact between both parties, but this is not shown on the diary text. Does anybody know why this text would end in May 2000 and not include all contact between myself and the solicitors or between B&B and their agent? After reading diary text on HRP of another poor unfortunate B&B target I was surprised to see just how detailed the text was. The text held on me only shows a trace to another woman with the same name as mine at a totally different address. They had to send her a disclaimer to sign and she had a different DOB to mine. The amazing thing is that there is no mention on this text of actually tracing and finding me at all.

-- Debbie (debbie.beal@ntlworld.com), March 10, 2001

Answers

Debbie,

If you send details of this situation to the Information Commissioner (IC) (formerly the Data Protection Commissioner), and ask for an 'Assessment', you will get priority because of the suspicion that you have received an incomplete response (details of the IC below). Send copies of all relevant correspondence, if possible.

You might ask, why bother? Well, (a) it's free, (b) it's your right as a citizen living this democracy, and (c) it will be a formal record of your concerns, and, if the IC finds for you (which seems likely on the basis of what you say above), then it will be a record of the lender's non-cooperation. This in turn would indicate that the lender has not cooperated with Civil Rules Procedures. And this in its turn would, as this site so aptly suggests, 'help the lender stuff its own case against you'.

I would also hope that you would feel able to supply copies of these letters to this web site!

The lender's stance also seems to be a breach of the Mortgage Code. Please write and tell one of the MPs who is sponsoring a parliamentary debate about this: Mike Hancock CBE MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. (Also Bob Russell MP and Tony Benn MP are very interested in this stuff.) And tell your own MP. And ask him/her to sign EDM 62, which Mike Hancock tabled about lenders' lack of evidence of alleged claims (& their general behaviour). This campaign is really helping.

I know it seems tough at the moment, but you have to remember that every time the lender (or its agent) comes across as being unreasonable, things actually look better for you. If you can learn to live with it, it becomes a very interesting learning experience.

But support is crucial. So read the whole of the Home Repo Page's 'Repossession' section, especially 'why lenders refuse to supply documents and why it's good news for you'..... (again if necessary).

And please *do* use this support and information network. As often as you need.

DPA INFO: Information Commissioner, Dame Elizabeth France, The Office of the Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. Tel 01625 545700. Fax 01625 524510. Email: mail@dataprotection.gov.uk. Home page: www.dataprotection.gov.uk

all best,

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), March 10, 2001.

There's little I can add to that detailed response from Eleanor.

You should also be pleased that they said "their client feels this to be an unreasonable request". It's hard to stand a claim up in court if you have been sticky about letting the alleged debtor validate it. You should reply to this with a short letter saying "thank you for your letter of xx in which you said your Bradford & Bingley thought it unreasonable to be required to supply documents to validate its £xxxxx claim. I take this as an admission that the claim is a sham."

Keep it short, keep it focused on the point (which is the refusal to supply docs), then sit back and relax. You'll get threats but this is dealt with elsewhere on the site.

As for the absence of info, Bradford & Bingley is well aware that this site encourages people to:

a) abide by the Civil Procedure Rules to negotiated sensibly and b) use their separate Data Protection Act rights to try to help Bradford & Bingley act more responsibly in its dealing with those it alleges owe it money (ie, to prove the validity of its claims).

My personal opinion would be that it is not comfortable with the idea of you seeing how it handles a shortfall chase and so kept current data off its system.

Note that many debt recovery/lawyer companies now offer lenders a way of accessing the debt recovery company's records of its dealings with you over a network. This means the lender no longer "maintains" that information in a way that the Data Protection Act would cover. So they don't have to produce it.

This is just one of many reasons why you should also serve SARNs on the debt collector (Hammond Suddard Edge, I presume?) and indeed the skip tracer/debtor tracing company associated with your case.

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), March 10, 2001.