Acknowledge of Service without a Particulars of Claim - CCMCC

[Ssssssssss]

Hi jaguarsuk I'm not sure if you are still there as its been so long.

Anyway, our case was previously delayed till 25th August from the original date in march earlier this year.

I phoned the court on friday and they said that the case is definitely going ahead on 25th August but they have changed it to be remote via skype for business. They are apparently going to send letters out asap to inform everyone.

I was wondering therefore as this is now the final hearing, what would be the best thing to do in terms of preparing and also if you have any tips for dealing with a remote hearing.

Do we need to write any statements to read out and how should we prepare regarding all the issues ? Should we have questions for the other side or anything like that. It's been listed for 2 hours but if they go through everything it would likely take longer.

Anyway, any prep help would be appreciated. We havent heard anything from the other side but i suspect when they get their letters, they will probably try to delay again.

I understand we can share documents via skype for business if needed also.

[jaguarsuk]

Your best prep is to go back over your case both as defendant to their claim and claimant on your claim, bullet point all the points you want to raise on each
and have them there to tick off as you go. If those points are supported by evidence note where to be able to tell the judge where they are.

Don’t let them get you riled up not matter what they say, stay calm and professional throughout. Refer to the judge as Sir, Madam or Judge. Don’t talk to the other side directly even if they talk to you directly.

If you want to cross examine them, ask the judge if you may ask them some questions.

Also have a bullet point list of their behaviour throughout the case, so that if you win you can ask for costs and if they win you can argue against any cost request.

Good luck and obviously let us all know how you get on.

[Ssssssssss]

Your best prep is to go back over your case both as defendant to their claim and claimant on your claim, bullet point all the points you want to raise on each
and have them there to tick off as you go. If those points are supported by evidence note where to be able to tell the judge where they are.

Don’t let them get you riled up not matter what they say, stay calm and professional throughout. Refer to the judge as Sir, Madam or Judge. Don’t talk to the other side directly even if they talk to you directly.

If you want to cross examine them, ask the judge if you may ask them some questions.

Also have a bullet point list of their behaviour throughout the case, so that if you win you can ask for costs and if they win you can argue against any cost request.

Good luck and obviously let us all know how you get on.

So we have just got off the call. However the case has been postponed again.

Firstly according to the other side, their Skype wasn't working well and so could they call in instead !!!. So judge concluded that it wouldn't be fair to see one party and not the other.
Plus the size of the files are big (ours is very large - lots of exhibits) and to put the effort into looking through them and being fair, a day was needed and not the 2 hours that it had been listed for. He said that the sums were not trivial and so to be on the wrong end of that when the files had not been read properly would not be fair and when one party wasn't happy to do it remotely.

He then asked the other side - that previously they had objected to doing a Skype call. They said they had and it would be better to come in etc etc. They then moaned that they had only received all the information from us on the 16th and so hadn't been given a chance to answer it all.

When the judge came to me, I said we would like to finished it as soon as possible and even though parents are vulnerable we just want it finished. I then said to the judge that we swapped all information with the other side on the 16th as part of the witness statements and therefore we Hadn't seen their information either till that date.

And then he then said he would find a room big enough and then get it listed for after 1st October and hopefully before 15th. First date available.

The other side are still moaning about not seeing stuff and I suspect they will continue to do that in the hearing - however they never gave us anything themselves and still haven't as most of it is not in their witness statement either.

Also, they said to the judge that they had got rid of their solicitors as they couldn't afford to continue with them. And confirm to the judge that it would be only the two of them coming to the final hearing.

He was a really nice judge though it seems and far more approachable that the others we have had. But don't know if it will be him in the final hearing.

[jaguarsuk]

Okay, disappointing and the same game they have been playing all along.

I would write to the solicitor based on what he has said and ask them to file form N434 to ensure there is no doubt over where any future correspondence should be served.

[Ssssssssss]

Okay, disappointing and the same game they have been playing all along.

I would write to the solicitor based on what he has said and ask them to file form N434 to ensure there is no doubt over where any future correspondence should be served.

Hello Jaguarsuk,

So we finally had the final hearing. However, at the end, when the judge went away, her computer broke down apparently and so she has delayed giving her verdict to a later date as a telephone conference call. Bit of a shame as it would have been nice to have ended it today but hey ho.

As a whole the hearing was really not what i expected at all.

Apparently, according to the judge, she had read our witness statements (but not looked at all of the exhibits i think) and the experts report but she had not read the other sides as apparently they didn't have the bundle in court and a second copy had been delivered at 10am this morning.

Both she and the other side said there was a lot of paperwork etc (I had a lot of evidence!) and the other side on a number of occasions made out that they couldn't find anything as there was too many papers (even though I told them the page numbers verbally of where what they were looking for was).

Judge said that the way it was going to work is that the Claimant and his dad would articulate their case, one by one they would speak. Then I (the defendants) would ask them any questions i wanted to ask them about that or their witness statement.

Then I and my parents would speak, and the other side would ask us any questions they wanted to.

As it happened, the judge really asked little to no questions at all and occasionally stepped in just to ensure an answer was given or things didn't go off topic.

This was probably the worst scenario for me as asking the right questions to get the points out i found very difficult indeed and every time I wanted to just say something, she kept pushing me to make it a question rather than a statement. I dithered quite a lot to be honest. We were starting to get pushed for time when it came to our turn to present and then by lunch time (I think she kept reminding us of time running out), i'd only articulated a small amount of information from my witness statement so i decided in the afternoon i would forget the rest of my witness statement and concentrate on the one or two bigger points i wanted and needed to make about the tiling and the experts report. So i did that. ( i left a lot of gaps but there just didn't seem time enough to get to them.)

Then the other side asked me questions.

I was able to answer their questions well I think and we managed to talk about a few of the issues in more detail as a result. I definitely didn't get to push all my points forward and with the limited time, it was almost like a rush job but I think i got a few of the bigger points over at least even if it leaves holes in some places that we haven't been able to address.

When I needed to prove anything or when the other side said something had happened which had not happened, i referred the judge to the exhibits and explained how those statements can't be true or aren't true. I also challenged them a few times to provide evidence and they just flapped about and complained they couldn't find anything it the file because i had obviously just been fabricating complaints and I had been googling everything and creating reems of paper for them to get through for the sake of it ( yes they actually did say that a few times - not sure what the judge thought as i didn't look up and i also didn't respond ).

I had thought that the hearing would focus heavily and mainly on the schedule of issues but she really didn't go there at all.
She didn't even review our quotes or ask about our estimates. She didn't even ask anything about the experts report or the figures that the expert had ended up putting in his report.

She asked a lot of questions like
1. what is the price difference between the tiles you wanted and the ones you got
2. whats the difference between the radiator you got and the one you should have got.
But what was annoying is she didn't ask us, she asked the other side !!!

I really don't know how she is going to work out how much to award or not at all from what happened today. I really thought the main focus would be the schedules and list of defects and it really wasn't.

She did say at the start that there would be a winner and and loser and it was her job to find out which was which. But unless her aim was to find out who was telling the truth and who wasn't i really don't know how she will get to a monetary figure on the basis of what happened today ( other than taking the experts numbers at face value - he ended up including them in his experts report in the end). The other side also tried to tell her that the figures were exaggerated and not accurately calculated and she seems to be listening to that...she didn't ask us what we thought in response though !

All in all, I think we did ok but I'd have liked to get more specific points across and talk about the things that really were out and out lie. Just have no idea what she is going to do now though or what she thought or who she believed or how she will calculate values.

[Ssssssssss]

Hello jaguarsuk Hope you are well.

We got our verdict on Thursday last week after so long !!

She (the judge) awarded ZERO to the other side and awarded us £4300. Add to this the experts fee of £750, £50 interest, £455 Court fee and £95 for my time and it comes up to £5650 they now owe us.

So all in all a fantastic result. The figure isn't everything we claimed for but given our total amount we gave them was £4115, and she rightly didn't offset their last instalment, we essentially are getting all of our money back.

We had originally claimed £6500 ish assuming there would be an adjustment to take into account the other sides final installment that we had refused to pay of £1600 ish. So looking at it, she's come up with a similar figure to that. I suspect she must have thought its fair to get all our money back and not get extra.

She said she was looking at 3 things. Was there a contract and when was in created, were goods the right goods and was workmanship below standard. She also stated which laws applied.

She essentially found in our favour on pretty much everything except a few minor points. She said :-

- failure to provide a 14 day cooling off period was a breach of contract but she didn't think we'd have used it so no harm done.
- she found their story about buying tiles and getting approvals to be implausible.
- she didn't accept there was any agreement to vary the goods (tiles and others). It's interesting though as she seemed to ignore all that when it came to the pay out and instead concentrated on them not using proper skill and care.
- dot and dab was a clear breach and not to standards and she believed thats what they had done.
- she said the other side should not have told the expert not to do exploratory works, and that the expert should have been allowed to do those works and should have done them.
- She accepted the whole bathroom needed to be re-tiled and as a consequence everything would have to be redone.
- She didn't accept the flooring was not right though.

One downside (and lesson learnt for us) is that she never really asked us about the numbers in our schedule or the experts schedule. That worked against us slightly because we had split our numbers out differently to the experts for each item in the schedule e.g. tiling around the shower was in the shower section and not in the re-tile whole bathroom section on our schedule but on the experts schedule, it was all lumped into one. So she assumed our figure for retiling the bathroom was £2600 ish, when in fact it was £3900. The experts figure was around £4000 which is in line with ours.

If you recall, we had to do this to get our numbers to add up in the schedule and put the work into what we thought was the most relevant section. And to keep it simple and not detailed explanation or verbose for fear of another strike out application. I do feel she should have asked us about all that in the hearing though but it's a lesson learnt for us really too, to tell her in the hearing whether she asks or not.

She also wouldn't allow us to tell her this as she gave her judgement (which is when we realised that is what she had done ) - i suspect it was too late at that point and i think the total she came up with was relatively fair anyway and I suspect that maybe she was aiming for a figure around the full pay back of money mark anyway.

I did ask for anything i'm entitled to as my costs for having to come to court 3 or 4 times now. She said she can only aware £95 max. I thought this was per hearing but she was adamant it was the max amount for the whole lot.

I would have liked her to throw the book at the other side for lying on their witness statement but she let it go.

The other side have 21 days to pay. I asked her about enforcement and she told me to contact the court if they don't pay.

Firstly, the other side said he was on step change and in heavy debt and could he pay £30 a month. The judge said she didn't think that would be acceptable and asked us and of course we said we want our money and have been waiting long enough. She then told them they could work with stepchange to get a better plan but the court normally likes payments to be made as quickly as possible and not prolonged (30 a month would take 15 years !). (FYI - i don't believe them - they had money enough for a solicitor!).

They then said they didn't agree with the judgement anyway, and that they hadn't had a chance to answer all our claims in our witness statement - complained they had never seen that stuff before ( i note we never saw any of theirs before either and they still didn't submit the tile receipt !!). So they said they were going to appeal.

So that was where the judgement hearing ended.

We haven't received the court order yet but I'm sure that will come in a day or two.

[pt2537]

1) An appeal doesnt stop enforcement. They have to secure permission to appeal, without that they are dead in the water.

2) You dont need the order, the time for compliance starts from the day the order is pronounced in court so that was the day you won.

3) the judge was wrong on the cancellation rights point, but it doesnt matter really, you won so thats that.

4) When you get the order and the time for payment has passed, dont go back to the Court, send it to the HCEO

[Ssssssssss]

1) An appeal doesnt stop enforcement. They have to secure permission to appeal, without that they are dead in the water.

2) You dont need the order, the time for compliance starts from the day the order is pronounced in court so that was the day you won.

3) the judge was wrong on the cancellation rights point, but it doesnt matter really, you won so thats that.

4) When you get the order and the time for payment has passed, dont go back to the Court, send it to the HCEO

Thanks pt2537.

That's good to know regarding appeal. I hope they don't prolong this and we'll look at enforcing it asap after the deadline for payment. Should we look into in before that ? I'm just wondering if I should do something now ? OK RE HCEO - I'll do that. Do i just pick a local company ?

Yes I believe they should have been penalised for cancellation rights violation as I read the law clauses on this at the beginning of our case and i believed they should have been fined for that as its a criminal offence (at least that is what CAB told me). But i think i can forward to Trading Standards and ask them to follow up on that maybe now we have a judgement ?

It is a great result but :-

She didn't ask many of her own questions in the hearing and instead told us to cross examine each other. We didn't go through the schedule in detail on the day and she didn't ask anything about the numbers we or the expert put in. I really wish she had.

I do also think she should have been a bit stricter and not let them get away with provable lies in the witness statement but I didn't know how to push it so she would do anything. The fact they even doctored photos should have been taken seriously too.

On a more positive note though, she did go through quite a lot of the paperwork and evidence beforehand and there was a lot of it so that is really good ( 3 big fat folders worth). Maybe she felt she knew enough from that as it was pretty detailed apart from explanation of the numbers.

[GBExile]

Do i just pick a local company ?.

I used https://dcbltd.com/ when Lloyds Bank owed me money & will be using them again for another matter coming up soon.

You never know your debtor might end up being embarrassed on national TV.

[Ssssssssss]

I used https://dcbltd.com/ when Lloyds Bank owed me money & will be using them again for another matter coming up soon.

You never know your debtor might end up being embarrassed on national TV.

OK fab - I'll take a look at them.

Oh it would be glorious if they were embarrassed on tv

[pt2537]

Just make sure they dont act unlawfully .................................https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-48743932

[GBExile]

Just make sure they dont act unlawfully .................................https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-48743932

Pretty sure every high court bailiff would have done the same thing.

[Ssssssssss]

Just make sure they dont act unlawfully .................................https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-48743932

Blimey

[Ssssssssss]

Hi, So as expected the builder hasn't paid off his CCJ or even acknowledged the letter we sent to him with payment details.

As it's lockdown now, i was wondering if anyone has had any experience using high court enforcement during the lockdown or whether i should wait ?

Also I do have one bank account detail for the builder so i was wondering if its worth doing a third party debt order or how difficult that would be ? I don't know much about them, just what I've googled.

Last question, if i get the judgement transferred up to the high court to get the high court enforcement in, does that mean that ALL further applications i make would have to be made in the high court ? E.g. if i get it transferred up, then have no joy with high court enforcement and so decide to get a third party debt order later on.

Thanks in advance

[pt2537]

Hi, So as expected the builder hasn't paid off his CCJ or even acknowledged the letter we sent to him with payment details.

As it's lockdown now, i was wondering if anyone has had any experience using high court enforcement during the lockdown or whether i should wait ?

Also I do have one bank account detail for the builder so i was wondering if its worth doing a third party debt order or how difficult that would be ? I don't know much about them, just what I've googled.

Last question, if i get the judgement transferred up to the high court to get the high court enforcement in, does that mean that ALL further applications i make would have to be made in the high court ? E.g. if i get it transferred up, then have no joy with high court enforcement and so decide to get a third party debt order later on.

Thanks in advance

The Lord Chancellor has confirmed that enforcement of CCJs can continue. Get them in there asap