CCJ to be set aside. Consent form or send my own application?

[Guest]

Hi all,

I have a bit of a situation and I am not sure what the best steps would be as there are a few options.

I purchased a property last year, and a few days ago, I received a letter of a “judgement for claimant” to pay a fee of £3000 for missed payments of the ground and service charges. I called the law firm that is representing the management services and they sent me a letter to show the breakdown of the money owed – which is about £1000 for the ground and service charges and £2000 for their lawyer fees.

I called the county court money claims centre and explained the situation to them. They told me that the claim form was recorded by the mail company as undelivered, so they suggested I can set aside the judgement based on this evidence, and I can submit my evidence once this is set aside.

I have evidence when I purchased the property (that was signed between myself, the management company, and my solicitors) to show that all correspondence is to be sent to two different addresses. However, I did not receive any letters of the charges, and the management services have told me that one of the addresses has not even been registered on their database. I believe that this may be enough evidence to show that the invoices were not served properly in court once the judgement is set aside. However it is hard to prove that invoices have not been delivered.

I do not dispute the original service and ground rent charges, however I want to argue that I did not receive any invoices and therefore would not like to pay the extra £2000 for lawyer fees and court fees.

I notified the claimants lawyers that I will be sending a N244 form to explain my side, and they have come back saying that they would like to draft up a consent form and send it to the court. Ideally I would like to solve this situation as soon as possible, though would asking them to send it off be unfavorable to me? Should I just go ahead with my own application and pay a higher fee, if I think my evidence is strong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[Guest]

Update:

the lawyers have received a reply from the money claims that the claim form was undelivered as refused but satisfied as served, so they will not be drafting a consent order.

please could anyone advise as I would not like to pay the extra £2000 solicitors fees but I don’t know what else to do…

[dslippy]

You cannot insist that correspondence be sent to two places. You choose your one address and make arrangements.

Teh structure is that if the claim was not served, then you can ask for a set aside, but you then need to ask whether you have a defence to the claim. If not, they can just apply for judgment again. You would have only run up extra costs.

You know that you owe the £1000. Pay that and negotiate the rest.

[Guest]

dslippy

Thank you for your reply.
I think that it may be hard to defend myself if it does get that far.

Would you advise that I just pay the £1000 first?
They have only sent emails to pay the full amount only and the default judgement has ruled to pay the £3000 as the claim form was not delivered. They have also emailed now saying they will consider it to be set aside as long as I pay the full £3000 amount and £108 fee, which I would not want to agree to.

Is it possible that they could add extra costs if I don’t pay the £2000 and only pay the £1000?