Default against Natwest

[HarryJackson]

Two more questions. 1) Could i now respond and state this is my considered response, having afforded myself the actual time needed ot look into this, and 2) as no hearing has yet occurred, could this fee be refunded? That is if it is not necessary, whatever happens?

[pt2537]

1) If you are sure that you sued the right company, and
2) If proceedings were served correctly, and you complied with the pre action protocols, and
3) There is no reason why the judgment should be set aside, ie they have offered no defence to the substantive claim

Then you would have a good justified reason for refusing to set aside the Judgment. If however they have said they didnt receive the claim due to lockdown then you could be in trouble

Biggest issue for me is we dont know what your claim was for, we dont know what their application said, we are simply guessing or worst relying on your interpretation of matters, which is always a dangerous thing to do when someone asks you to advise

[pt2537]

Two more questions. 1) Could i now respond and state this is my considered response, having afforded myself the actual time needed ot look into this, and 2) as no hearing has yet occurred, could this fee be refunded? That is if it is not necessary, whatever happens?

1) I dont think this would help
2) The lack of hearing means little, the fee has been incurred by the Court upon filing the application.

[R0b]

Just reading back through your original post, it really isn't clear what the basis of your claim is. My interpretation suggests that you were waiting for a package from a company and you were notified a package was delivered to your address in the USA. You had the package redelivered to your current country of work only to find that the package was a card reader from NatWest. So you claimed compensation for costs and time of having the packagae delivered and dealing with the matter. Is that about right?

Answering your other points:

1. We haven't seen the application form by NatWest so we don't actually know what it is they are asking the court to do. It would be helpful if you could upload a copy of that application so we can see what it says - make sure to redact your personal info. IF you don't upload it, then we can only speculate and there's no guarantee what we are suggesting is appropriate or relevant.

2. If they are claiming not to have received the claim form, how could they have accessed the Money Claims website? You need the claim form and accompanying information to be able to access the claim.

3. It is true that not receiving the claim form is not normally a good reason to set aside the default judgment, but as PT has pointed out, there is a pandemic going on and also your original post suggests you only called NatWest and then issued the claim. If you didn't comply with the pre-action protocol that could be a good reason to set aside because, if you had followed this protocol, NatWest could argue they would have responded or at least acknowledged your letter.

4. I don't think it's a good enough excuse to hide behind the 5 hours option to rely on the response you gave them. It would have been reasonable to reply back to their solicitors and say that the 5 hour response time is wholly unreasonable and that you do not have the relevant paperwork to hand to consider their request to set aside, and that you will state your position on Monday once you had time to digest and review what they have said. If they issued anyway, then you could argue no costs ought to be allowed because it was unreasonable for them to expect you to give a reply within 5 hours. Whilst set aside applications have to be done promptly, an extra couple of days is not going to make much of a difference in this case.

5. As for costs, the general rule is that the successful party is entitled to recover their costs but the court has discretion to make a different decision. You made it clear to them that you were not going to agree to set aside the default judgment so they had no other choice but it make an application. If it is proven that the claim has been issued against the wrong defendant, that would be a mandatory set aside and no relief from sanctions is necessary. Again, this all depends on what NatWest are relying on in their application, it may be that they are only saying that the entity is wrong or they could have said there is some other good reason or that they have a reasonable prospect of defending the claim - this is why we need to see the application.

6.You can file a witness statement objecting to the application and asking the court not to set aside the but you will need to explain your reasons, and personally I think you might run into problems since you've not followed the Civil Procedure Rules (as to the pre-action protocols). It might have been easier to simply agree to setting aside the default judgement and allowing them to file a defence and then continuing with proceedings.

[HarryJackson]

Thank you everyone. Very helpful.

[HarryJackson]

I guess my biggest bugbear is the assertion that I am somehow at fault, I need to agree to have the Default set aside, and I need to do ASAP or there is a threat of costs. I did send a pre-action letter demanding compensation,*I served the correct entity, and I cannot see that Natwest's head office were somehow not in receipt of the initial Court claim. Therefore, they cannot claim that they have a reasonable success of defending this claim, as they don't know what the claim is, and don't have a leg to stand on, claiming that it is Royal Mail's fault that they don't.. I think they have seen the claim and dropped the ball in their due diligence.*

[HarryJackson]

It's equivalent to me suing a limited company, for fining me for not paying a parking ticket, as per a Court order, and then stating that it is Royal Mail's fault for not letting me know there was a hearing to attend. Is it not? And after they sent me an initial letter which I did receive asking me to pay, which I wilfully ignored.

[HarryJackson]

Can anyone point me towards the case law for service by mail?

[HarryJackson]

I'm sure I saw some thread somewhere with a case where a Judge decided it was not sufficient to claim you had not received a claim and it was on the Royal Mail.

[HarryJackson]

Help!

[pt2537]

If you served on them during lockdown you will struggle not withstanding the other issues relating to the correct party

Read here https://www.civillitigationbrief.com...-lessons-here/

[HarryJackson]

Thank you pt2537 please do you have any links to the usual case law regarding service if claims via Royal Mail?

Also very confused because, my home is in Newcastle. But my correspondence address is in Manchester as I am away at the moment and need someone else to open and scan my mail for me. The MCOL centre have sent this application to Manchester. On checking, they told me they have followed the correct procedure and used the correct address for allocation i.e. the correspondence address.

Does this mean that a final hearing, if the Default is removed, will be allocated not to my home court but to Manchester too? Doesn't make any sense to me.

[R0b]

If you do a search on the website, you will find references to 'good service' or 'service of the claim form'

You will get directions questionnaire sent to you if the default is removed and then you can nominate the court and give reasons why. It is never guaranteed however, because it is usually accepted that the allocation will be at the local court of the defendant simply because it was you who instigated the claim and not the defendant, so they should have the benefit of defending in their local court.

[HarryJackson]

I am so confused. I have taken four companies to Court over the last five years, all their head offices where I served them at addresses far outside Newcastle, yet they all ended up being heard at the Court in Newcastle, and were sent there. Did the decision about Courts, and where to send them, change recently?

[R0b]

No it has not changed recently. It is all governed by the CPR and just because the last cases were heard in Newcastle doesn't give you an automatic right to have it heard again in Newcastle.

Suggest you read the link below.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/he.../38870.article