Received a county court claim
for an old debt?

If the points below describe your situation, this is where we can help.

• A claim form has arrived from a name you barely recognise Lowell, Cabot, PRA Group, Link, Intrum — or a solicitor firm acting for them — claiming an old credit card, loan, catalogue, overdraft, or phone account. They bought the debt; they're not who you originally owed.
• The debt is old — possibly too old to enforce For most consumer debts, if six years have passed since you last paid or acknowledged the debt in writing, it may be statute-barred — too old for a court to enforce under the Limitation Act 1980. The date of your last payment can be the whole case.
• The amount looks wrong — or you don't recognise the debt at all Fees and interest stacked on top, no statements showing how the figure was reached, a debt that's been sold two or three times, or an account you genuinely don't remember opening.
• You want them to prove it For credit agreements, you can require the claimant to produce the signed agreement, the default notice, and the notice of assignment. If they can't produce the agreement, the debt may be unenforceable while they fail to do so. Debt purchasers often can't — and claims quietly get discontinued.
• The deadline is real 14 days to respond from when the claim was served — acknowledging service extends it to 28 days for your Defence. Miss it and a default judgment (CCJ) can be entered without anyone hearing your side: six years on your credit file, and bailiffs become possible.

A court claim is sometimes the tip of something bigger. Free, regulated debt advice exists for the whole picture — and for the claim itself. Try these first.

Every pack is built around the specific facts of your case — who's claiming, what they say you owe, when you last paid, and what paperwork they have or haven't produced. Here's what's in a typical pack.

• Defence Your formal written response to the claim, drafted to the grounds available to you — statute-barred under the Limitation Act, no agreement produced, wrong amount, debt already settled, or not your account. Filed using Form N9B or directly through Money Claim Online.
• "Prove it" request letters The letters that put the burden where it belongs. A CCA request — made under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 — requires the claimant to produce the credit agreement itself. A CPR 31.14 request requires them to show you the documents their claim relies on: the agreement, the default notice, the notice of assignment. What they can't produce shapes your Defence.
• Witness Statement Your signed, structured account — the history of the account, what you've paid and when, what correspondence you've had. Ready to sign with a Statement of Truth.
• Chronology A dated timeline from account opening to the claim — payments, defaults, sales of the debt, letters received. In a limitation defence, this timeline is the argument.
• Exhibit Index Every piece of evidence — bank statements, credit report entries, old correspondence, anything the claimant has sent — numbered, described, and easy for a judge to navigate.
• Evidence Gap note What's missing and where to find it. For example: your statutory credit reports from all three agencies showing the default date and last payment, a Subject Access Request (SAR) to the original lender — a written request under data protection law — for the full account history and payment records, or bank statements old enough to show when you actually last paid.
• Document Usage Guide A plain-English explanation of each document — what it does, when to send or file it, what to expect next. So you walk into the process knowing what every piece of paper is for.

The documents below appear most often when defending county court money claims. Not every case needs all of them — it depends on the grounds available and how far the claim progresses.

Each form below links directly to the official GOV.UK page. These descriptions explain what each form is for — not whether you should file it. If you are unsure which step to take next, seek independent advice — for debt it's free (see above).

Online portals — submit or respond directly:

These organisations and websites may provide useful guidance on debt claims. DocketWorks does not endorse any external site — these links are for information only.