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Hi LegalBeagles Community!
I am new on this forum and this is my first post.
I am in need of some advice, whether legal or otherwise regarding a CCJ. Here is the back story where the dates become quite important:
I own a council property, and have done so for many years. SO set up to pay service charges to council every month of £88.96. This was setup in March 2011. Any under payments were always taken care of by a cheque at the end of the year to bring account back in line.
Fast forwarding to 2017, the council have found that there was non-payment of SC between the period Jul 2017 to Dec 2017. And in light of this period of non-payment, the council also found that there was non-payment between Aug 2016 and Dec 2016. The council have said several letters were sent to my correspondence address (different to my rental property), but I never received any of the letters. If I had, I would have made payment as the funds were there. Anyway, as a result, council took action in the form of legal proceedings to recover these payments. And subsequently, a CCJ was issued in June 2017. However, the court paperwork/summons were being sent to my rental property by the councils' solicitors, despite council providing my correspondence address (I have email confirmation council even admitting to this). So I had no knowledge of the CCJ in the first instance.
Only last month, my family and I were trying to buy a house and upon doing credit checks, I found this CCJ to be in existence, 6 months after it had been issued.
I contacted the council, who have said that they investigate and found payments were being made - by my bank as a SO ( bank statements also show this) but there was no payment reference attached to the SO's in order to correctly attribute any SC payments to my SC account. So moneys were being held in a suspense account. All those 10 payments for the 2 periods above, were to have been received just without a reference to payment.
I immediately, contacted the bank and asked what on earth happened and opened a complaint and told them I have received a CCJ. They investigated, and advised me that:
Both the council and bank were not helping in the documents I wanted. There I did the following:
And any arrears outstanding were paid immediately by cheque to bring SC account bank in line.
However, my main question is, who can I claim for compensation - either parties or both? And for how much? This has left me in such a pickle because I lost a house in the process to purchase and to buy a car on finance for my business. And my insurance will be soon come for renewal which will undoubtedly be affected.
Council have admitted the blunder, but not apologized, and have got in touch with their solicitor who admitted liability and will be bearing costs to take CCJ off. Do I have a claim directly against solicitor or do I have to go through council as ultimately, its their client...?
As a side note, I have started a complaint through council complaints procedure, which is at stage 1 - decision of first investigation to be made by March 19th 2018. I have also opened a complaint with bank which recently closed because they were offering a mere £350 then £500 as compensation, to which I declined. Only because it felt like they were trying to close the complaint as quickly as possible in order to just satisfy my problem. I am not done with them.
Sorry for the long winded post but wanted to cover everything.
Any help/advice or guidance will be greatly appreciated.
Jay
I am new on this forum and this is my first post.
I am in need of some advice, whether legal or otherwise regarding a CCJ. Here is the back story where the dates become quite important:
I own a council property, and have done so for many years. SO set up to pay service charges to council every month of £88.96. This was setup in March 2011. Any under payments were always taken care of by a cheque at the end of the year to bring account back in line.
Fast forwarding to 2017, the council have found that there was non-payment of SC between the period Jul 2017 to Dec 2017. And in light of this period of non-payment, the council also found that there was non-payment between Aug 2016 and Dec 2016. The council have said several letters were sent to my correspondence address (different to my rental property), but I never received any of the letters. If I had, I would have made payment as the funds were there. Anyway, as a result, council took action in the form of legal proceedings to recover these payments. And subsequently, a CCJ was issued in June 2017. However, the court paperwork/summons were being sent to my rental property by the councils' solicitors, despite council providing my correspondence address (I have email confirmation council even admitting to this). So I had no knowledge of the CCJ in the first instance.
Only last month, my family and I were trying to buy a house and upon doing credit checks, I found this CCJ to be in existence, 6 months after it had been issued.
I contacted the council, who have said that they investigate and found payments were being made - by my bank as a SO ( bank statements also show this) but there was no payment reference attached to the SO's in order to correctly attribute any SC payments to my SC account. So moneys were being held in a suspense account. All those 10 payments for the 2 periods above, were to have been received just without a reference to payment.
I immediately, contacted the bank and asked what on earth happened and opened a complaint and told them I have received a CCJ. They investigated, and advised me that:
- in Aug 2016, previous SO (Mar 2011 to June 2016) was cancelled and a new SO setup in Aug 2016, just as when the arrears started.
- no reference was put in place when new SO was setup. I only went to the bank on Jan 10 2018 to put this in place.
Both the council and bank were not helping in the documents I wanted. There I did the following:
- Under SAR - from the council, I requested all info held on me regarding the CCJ as well as bank ledger showing payments being received by the council with payment reference in the middle period and not both periods either side; AND
- Under SAR - from the bank, I have asked the bank provide detailed info of all my SO's between Aug 16 and Jan 18, as well as any proof of documentation me making a change to my SO back in Aug 2016.
And any arrears outstanding were paid immediately by cheque to bring SC account bank in line.
However, my main question is, who can I claim for compensation - either parties or both? And for how much? This has left me in such a pickle because I lost a house in the process to purchase and to buy a car on finance for my business. And my insurance will be soon come for renewal which will undoubtedly be affected.
Council have admitted the blunder, but not apologized, and have got in touch with their solicitor who admitted liability and will be bearing costs to take CCJ off. Do I have a claim directly against solicitor or do I have to go through council as ultimately, its their client...?
As a side note, I have started a complaint through council complaints procedure, which is at stage 1 - decision of first investigation to be made by March 19th 2018. I have also opened a complaint with bank which recently closed because they were offering a mere £350 then £500 as compensation, to which I declined. Only because it felt like they were trying to close the complaint as quickly as possible in order to just satisfy my problem. I am not done with them.
Sorry for the long winded post but wanted to cover everything.
Any help/advice or guidance will be greatly appreciated.
Jay
