Dilemma over CCJ and huge solicitors' charges

[Kathy321]

Thankyou ATTICUS

That is what I needed to know. The other charges were solicitors fees of over £1800, which I have disputed too.

[Kathy321]

Hi atticus and Pezza54

I have just opened the following email, sent at 9am today, and giving me only 6 hours to accept or reject their deal (a time period that I have unknowingly already exceeded):


WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO SAVE AS COSTS
I refer to the above matter.

We have discussed the matter with our client and as a gesture of goodwill and in an attempt to bring this matter to a resolution, my client has agreed to remove the legal fees and will accept payment in the sum of £2XX.XX (‘the Settlement Sum’). This offer is made on the condition that full payment is received by 3PM TODAY.

The Settlement Sum is broken down as follows;
Court costs: £1XX.00
Court fees: £1XX.00
Disbursements: £1X.00
Outstanding balance: £2XX.XX

I refer to Clause 3.18 of your lease, which provides a contractual entitlement to recover legal costs. In the absence of a settlement, we will be relying on this clause to support our position. I also refer to Chaplair Limited v Kumari [2015] EWCA Civ 798, which confirms that contractual provisions for the recovery of legal costs within leases are enforceable and recognised by the courts.

Please arrange for payment of the Settlement Sum to be made to the following details;

XX BANK

Should payment not be received by 3PM TODAY then we may look to revoke this offer and seek our clients’ instructions.


I have managed to speak to the solicitors a few minutes ago, and they have extended their offer to mid-day tomorrow. As far as I can see, I have 'won', ie. the £1800 legal costs have reduced to £200. But I am suspicious that after 9 months of ME chasing THEM for paperwork, signatures, even to answer their phone, they are suddenly in such a rush for me to agree to this settlement (Act in haste and repent at leisure).

Any thoughts?

Kind regards, Kathy

[Kathy321]

Is anyone still awake to offer any advice? I am at work tomorrow 8am to 4pm and can't check my emails. Thanks.

[atticus]

I can't explain the rush. It does seem unnecessary.

But the decision is for you whether to accept these terms. Are you able to pay that sum that quickly? Doyou need to seek more time to pay?

[Kathy321]

Hi Atticus,

I have phoned the Court. They have sent the solicitors a 'Directions questionnaire'. It is after receiving this that the solicitors have come up with this offer to pass their court costs/fees on to me. However, the Consent Order that we both signed stated 'No order as to costs'.

Although I am very happy that they have dropped all their extortionate legal fees, I think they are going against our agreement but asking me to pay their court costs (I have already paid the set-aside application fee). I think this is their last ditch attempt to recoup some costs before they throw in the towel. Hence the 'this offer is only valid for 6 hours' to pressure me.

The amount they are now suggesting is much more manageable, and I can pay it, but I don't want to, not after all the stress they have put me through.

The next step would be to assign the case to a 'track' and arrange a hearing. I do not think they are going to send a solicitor up from the Midlands to Liverpool to fight this. I would like to refuse their offer and reply 'See you in Court' (but don't worry, I would not word it like that). The courthouse is a 15-minute walk from my flat, and I would be happy to go.

Am I being stupid? Should I just pay up and get this over with? What would you do?

Kathy

[atticus]

Sorry - I cannot advise what you should do. You need to weigh up a number of factors including chances of success, possible downside if you do not settle and lose the case, advantage of getting this over and done with, and no doubt other things.

But giving you a matter of hours is silly, unless they really are making you an offer that is so good that you cannot refuse!

[pc52straw]

Sorry for not seeing this earlier. Just a question - regarding the CCJ itself, just to confirm - did the claimant acknowledge late payment of the £100 and then go for Default Judgement without sending you anything at all about the claim, despite you even offering to pay the late payment fee?

Giving you less than six hours to accept (or not) a WPSATC invitation so that the offer expires before you've even had a chance to read it is unfair practice, I'd have thought. Maybe another expert would know the right answer here, but if I understand it correctly, a "save as to costs" marker means the claimant can put it in front of the judge at the relevant time but so can you.

Gut feeling is, their offer would've been equitable had they actually given you a fair amount of time to accept it - but perhaps the claimant's intention is to present a (second) fait accompli as your fault when in reality it was an orchestration. Especially if they had sound reasons to know it'd be unreasonable to send an email to your personal email at 9am giving you less than 6 hours to respond to it. (Maybe your work situation actively prevents you from even being able to pick the email up until after you've clocked off, and they already know this because of past communications.)

Rather than waiting for them to pitch the idea that you rejected / ignored a fair offer, maybe you would be better off calling it out first - if the judge has interpreted the timeline you covered in #68 the same way I have, I'd be starting to think the claimant has been acting in bad faith throughout.

[Kathy321]

Hello atticus and pc52straw

I will answer you questions first, PC52STRAW:

I do not know what exactly you mean by whether or not the claimant 'acknowledged' my late payment of £100. I transferred them the money and sent them a letter telling them of this on 11 Nov. They had received both the money and my letter by 13 Nov (my letter to them was date-stamped by them 'received 13 Nov'). They applied to the Court for the CCJ the same day, 13 Nov, without telling me anything. I did not find out about the CCJ until January.

The first time I offered to pay the late payment fee was when I wrote my Draft Defence. Then I did NOT offer to pay the late payment fee when I filed my Actual Defence (Atticus said it was OK to do this).

Yes, 6 hours to accept a settlement sounds crazy, even to a layperson like me. They would not have known that I could not check emails during that time. I wrote the claimant an email a couple of hours after the deadline and told them that it was inhumane to expect me to decide so quickly, especially after 10 months of me trying to contact them to move things along. So they 'generously' extended the time to 27 hours.

I have no idea what 'to save as costs' means. I thought it was a typo, and they meant 'to save costs'. So I did not know I could call them out on this first.

Yes, I think the whole thing has been an orchestration from start to finish. The claimant seems to do this a lot, and I am guessing I am in the minority to have resisted them for 10 months.

Anyway, to cut this long story short, I have accepted their settlement offer of £227 and paid it. The claimant has emailed me to say that the case is now closed, and they have emailed the court to tell them this too. I feel that Damocles's sword has been removed.

The masochistic part of me wanted to email the claimant and say 'See you in Court', and I think they would have given up at that point. But now we will never know. I would have enjoyed pointing out all the Claimant's behaviours to the judge. But my daughter says all this has been a bit like the gameshow 'Deal or no Deal', when the contestant (me) sometimes just does not know when to stop. So I have stopped.

I was afraid of the following:
1) I read that Courts expect parties to consider settlement, and if I rejected this relatively low offer (seeing as the original claim was for £2000+), then the judge would wonder what the hell I was doing pursuing it in the courtroom.
2) The Directions questionnaires online look pretty daunting.
3) IF I lost in court, I read that it is quite common for the judge to ask me to pay the Claimant's fixed costs (£227, as above), plus the £181 small claims track fee, plus the claimant's transport costs (and I am sure it would have been a 1st class train ticket from the Midlands to Liverpool).

Kathy

[atticus]

You have settled the case - well done. You can now move on and forget about all this. Hopefully we won't be seeing you here again!