Business CCJ Please Help

[RobCom]

Hello I hope someone can help us we are a small family business who got into a bit of debt with a supplier

The supplier sent us a court letter which required us to submit a defence within 21 days and on the same day a notification of a CCJ.

I am a director of the business and contacted the courts who said it was illegal to.do this and said it would be thrown out so i thought that was the end.of the courts involvement and did not submit a defence.

I contacted the supplier and arranged a payment plan with their appointed 3rd party collectors.

We kept up the payment plan paying the 3rd party collector and then were notified the CCJ had gone through against our busines.

I contacted the supplier and they said they instructed the CCJ as we had not keptup with the payment plan but we had it was the 3rd party collectors did not pay them.

I contacted the courts and they said because I did not submit a defence in time the supplier was entitled to do so.

after supplying evidence in October that we had made payments the supplier said they would speak to their appointed collectors and have the CCJ removed but still now nothing has been done

we originally owed £28,000 including a £1300 court fee and have paid £20,000 but to date the statement from the supplier is still missing £5000 paid to the collectors as they have not passed it on.

Today we have been contacted by the 3rd party collector saying we must pay another £5000 or they will enforce action and add further charges.

I am willing to make a payment but not until i get a statement showing all monies paid but they say NO i must pay.

Also I have said the supplier promies to remove CCJ aslong as I made the payments but has not removed.

What can I do now I am so worried and confused by it all... Can I withold payment until monies shown. Can I tale them to court for affecting my credit with other suppliers? Do I have to just pay up and keep the CCJ on my family business record

Please Help me thanks.

[Amethyst]

Good evening,

Im sorry to here of the issues you've been having to deal with here. I think you are best to go back to the court and have them set the payments. It sounds like the supplier has been taking the mickey a bit and misleading you throughtout the process.

How did you pay the 3rd Party collectors - ie do you have evidence of those payments ? and evidence that the supplier told you to make the payments through the 3rd Party ?

The CCJ will stay on the register of judgments for 6 years - regardless of whether it's paid - although of course it would be better marked as satisfied.

The only way to remove the CCJ would be to have the original judgment set aside. You would have an uphill battle as you have known about it and been making payments.

I'm not sure where the 21 days part came from on the original claim nor how he sent a judgment order on the same day he issued the claim. The court staff were write to say he shouldn't pretend a judgment exists when it didn't but I'm not sure how they thought that would get the claim thrown out without you putting any submissions in as to what happened.

Would you have defended the claim otherwise ?

Was the claim issued via moneyclaim online or through a local court ?

Do you have a copy of the actual judgment in default order ?

[ploddertom]

Who is you have been paying? Have you received receipts from them for each payment made?

[RobCom]

Good Morning

Thank you very much for the reply, apologies if I seem a bit vague I have not been through anything like this before and have obviously messed up by being naive.

Yes we received a claim form asking to submit a defence with a claim no from County Court Business Centre and on the same day received a Judgement.

I contacted the Court and they said the CCJ was done illegally as i had not had the time to send a defence and that it would be thrown and that they would contact the claimant. I mistook this to mean the whole case would be dismissed and thought I would not need to submit my defence.

We then tried to talk to the supplier (Claimant) and they said they were not willing to talk to us and to go through their appointed third party and setup a payment plan, I have noticed the firm have been mentioned on here in other posts.

The collection company arranged the payment plan we made all payments and thought eveyrthing was fine but did not know in the mean time the court time had passed to submit a defence or that the claim was still ongoing through the court.

Payments made to the agency had not been passed on the the supplier and we received a "Judgement for Claimant (in default) on 11th October 18.

We contacted the supplier and said we had not missed a payment and they said they had only received £5000 however at that point we had paid £15,000 and the 3rd party had not passed the payments on.

When we submitted evidence of payments the supplier said they would have the CCJ removed if we made a further payment which we did on 12th October 2018.

On 15th November we chased to have the CCJ removed again and was told it would be removed the next day by the suppliers.

By the date 12th October we had paid £20,000 but still today there is only £15,000 been marked off the account.

We received a statement yesterday showing we still owed a further £5000.

Now we have been given until 5pm today to make the payment by the 3rd party or they are enforcing collection and adding further charges,

I really do not know what to do.

[RobCom]

Who is you have been paying? Have you received receipts from them for each payment made?

We have paid the debt collection agency through bacs so evidence is clear that payments have been made. But supplier is not getting the money from them.

[ploddertom]

We have paid the debt collection agency through bacs so evidence is clear that payments have been made. But supplier is not getting the money from them.

In that case that is your creditors problem to sort out as clearly they are banking the money (and possibly gaining a little in interest) before forwarding it on. Personally I would have bypassed the collection company and paid direct to your creditor. As for having the CCJ removed then I think they may be telling you porkies about this.

[Amethyst]

Rather than set aside you want the court to set the amount of the payments. I don't think you dispute the money is owed. Their collection tactics leave a lot to be desired. However they did get the judgment through ,well, fraudulent means so it could be set aside on those grounds so you can defend the case. You had a payment plan in place before they issued the claim ?

Theres no warrant of control been applied for or issued is there ? If you're not sure give the court another call and check now then you can add on the application to suspend the warrant.

The debt collectors are not court or high court enforcement agents.

[RobCom]

Rather than set aside you want the court to set the amount of the payments. I don't think you dispute the money is owed. Their collection tactics leave a lot to be desired. However they did get the judgment through ,well, fraudulent means so it could be set aside on those grounds so you can defend the case. You had a payment plan in place before they issued the claim ?

Theres no warrant of control been applied for or issued is there ? If you're not sure give the court another call and check now then you can add on the application to suspend the warrant.

The debt collectors are not court or high court enforcement agents.

Thank you for the reply, I have spoken to the Court there is not a Writ or Warrant been issued.
not sure what my next step should be it frightens the life out of me

[RobCom]

In that case that is your creditors problem to sort out as clearly they are banking the money (and possibly gaining a little in interest) before forwarding it on. Personally I would have bypassed the collection company and paid direct to your creditor. As for having the CCJ removed then I think they may be telling you porkies about this.

They are certainly telling porkies, been stringing me along for months... i should have contacted the courts a lot sooner

[Amethyst]

Thank you for the reply, I have spoken to the Court there is not a Writ or Warrant been issued.
not sure what my next step should be it frightens the life out of me

Good.

Well, to start with you know that the debt collection company are not enforcement agents or bailiffs, and there is no warrant in place. They are simply bullys. If they do attend and you feel threatened at all call the police. ploddertom

Your main decision is whether to apply to set aside that October default judgment ( that seems to have been obtained due to the claimant misleading you and a miscommunication with the court ) on the grounds that they purposely mislead you and it was obtained while you were in an agreed payment arrangement with the claimant that had not been broken at all.

You have evidence of your payments, you have evidence that the claimant told you to pay their third party. That the claimant has an issue with their third party is their problem to sort out. You stick to making the payments agreed that you have evidence of. There's about £8000 outstanding but you are up to date with the arranged instalments I believe ?

It seems that you had this invoice, couldn't pay it immediately, so made an arrangement to pay agreed with the company, you stuck to the arrangement, but the company decided to get this bunch of toerags involved and it's messed things up and made it ridiculously stressful, despite you just paying as per the arrangement. That is their issue not yours.

[RobCom]

Good.

Well, to start with you know that the debt collection company are not enforcement agents or bailiffs, and there is no warrant in place. They are simply bullys. If they do attend and you feel threatened at all call the police. ploddertom

Your main decision is whether to apply to set aside that October default judgment ( that seems to have been obtained due to the claimant misleading you and a miscommunication with the court ) on the grounds that they purposely mislead you and it was obtained while you were in an agreed payment arrangement with the claimant that had not been broken at all.

You have evidence of your payments, you have evidence that the claimant told you to pay their third party. That the claimant has an issue with their third party is their problem to sort out. You stick to making the payments agreed that you have evidence of. There's about £8000 outstanding but you are up to date with the arranged instalments I believe ?

It seems that you had this invoice, couldn't pay it immediately, so made an arrangement to pay agreed with the company, you stuck to the arrangement, but the company decided to get this bunch of toerags involved and it's messed things up and made it ridiculously stressful, despite you just paying as per the arrangement. That is their issue not yours.

They are bullying us into paying, have treat us like criminals and mugs as we have made the payments and they have kept the money.

[Amethyst]

You have evidence of the money you have paid, under instruction from the supplier, to the debt collection company. That the debt collection company are not passing that on to the supplier is the suppliers issue to deal with and nothing to do with you.

[ploddertom]

One of the great downsides to all this is that you are possibly going to be saddled with a CCJ that will affect your credit for the next 6 years. A lot in your situation may have thought have filing for bankruptcy or similar and then started afresh with a new company.

[Amethyst]

Okay.

With the original claim and judgment.

Seems they issued a claim and then told the court you had made an admission and offer to pay on the claim so a judgment was entered accordingly.

However you had not received the claim ( or the claim had not been issued ) at the time you made the arrangement to pay.

So the court requested the copy of the admission and offer from the claimant, which they failed to provide ( as it didn't exist ) - so they set aside the judgment and gave you an extension of time to file your defence.

Because you weren't clear on the court process / or were mislead by the court you failed to file a defence in time.

And thus the claimant were entitled to obtain a default judgment.

So although it started very poorly and the claim shouldn't have been brought in the first place as you already had an agreement, the issue with the incorrect judgment was resolved by the court quite quickly in June. Defence was due in July. Judgment was issued ( in default as you failed to defend ) in October.

Not sure there's a great deal to go on there, unless you hadn't actually received that order giving the new defence date. ( sorry )