The summons will have given you a time limit within which to respond so you must do the following quickly:

1. Get a recorded delivery letter off to the lender and/or their lawyer/debt collector requesting a copy of the mortgage deed, mortgage terms and conditions, MIG agreement if you had a MIG, copies of two independent valuations prior to the property's sale and documentary evidence that they marketed it properly and a copy of the money judgement.

2. Go see a solicitor and tell him or her that you want to:

a) file a defence on the grounds that the debt is unproven (if you have already been asking the lender for documentary proof of its claims plus the various MIG and mortgage documents you should be able to add its refusal to supply these as a subsection of your defence)
b) put the lender to "strict proof" of their claim
c) begin Discovery (and tell the solicitor that you want to ensure that the lender doesn't use any "it got lost in the post"-style tricks to wriggle out of Discovery)
d) file a counterclaim if any of the following apply:

i. there was a MIG that you thought would protect you - counterclaim mis-selling, misrepresentation
ii. you think they sold the property too cheaply - counterclaim negligence
iii. you think they sold it to a neighbour or landlord if it was a long-leasehold property (Skipton v Stott taught lenders all about the issues involved in doing this) - counterclaim negligence
iv. you think they didn't take account of bills for repairs that you may have already paid for a long-leasehold property - counterclaim negligence
v. you have previously asked them to prove the claim and they haven't - counterclaim negligence
vi. summons is out of time if the repossession was more than six years ago (yes... we know... lenders claim they have 12 years, but do it anyway because Abbey allegedly backed off rather than see the Holmans test this issue in the Court of Appeal)
vii. If their letter asking you to fill in an Income & Expenditure form threatened you with court action or higher penalties if you didn't fill it in and if it also sought details of your partner's income and you have a partner, counterclaim damages for harrassment and add that you have issued a complaint to the Data protection Commission over this breach of the Data Protection Act

3. If their letter asking you to fill in an Income & Expenditure form threatened you with court action or higher penalties if you didn't fill it in and if it also sought details of your partner's income and expenditure and you have a partner... complain in writing, enclosing copies of the I&E, its accompanying letter and the summons to the Data Protection Commissioner (recorded delivery - do everything recorded delivery) at:

Office of the Data Protection Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Your solicitor probably won't understand most of what this is about because few understand repossession law. But they do understand civil court procedure so you need them to keep you on track as you go through defence, counterclaim and discovery.

A lot of this is about acting fast and preparing beforehand - see the following email, where the reader has only received Halifax's threat of a claim:

I received a letter this morning (why do they always arrive on Saturday morning?) from Halifax's solicitors saying that a county court claim form is in the process of being raised and I will receive it from the court soon.

I'm a bit confused. Is this a statutory demand that they are talking about? I've read about statutory demands but what is a claim form?

Can they actually do this even though they haven't got a money judgement order and there are still questions and documents outstanding?

What can I do while I am waiting for the claim form?

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

So what they must do now is:
Get out copies of their correspondence to you and yours to them and: