Moatmeister v Business Bank and Solicitor

**TUTTSI** · 12th March 2010, 08:24:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Hi Moatmeister

Welcome to Legal Beagles.

I would be inclined to write a formal letter to the Solicitors (address it to the Senior Partner) setting out your complaint in point order holding them responsible as this matter was not dealt with by the solicitor name xxxxxx. You then require them to supply you with their professional indemnity insurance details so that you can make a claim against them for your losses as a result of them failing to properly deal with your matter.

Did you ever get to speak to the solicitor about this?

Did you ever get a response in writing at any time?

Did the solicitor agree to deal with this metter?

Do you have any written proofs whatsoever?

Tuttsi

**moatmeister** · 12th March 2010, 09:01:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Yes good advice and obviously a route I will be taking but the big issue for me at the moment is addressing the CCJ asap. You would not believe the work put in by everyone, including on occaissions the solicitor in question, into getting this mortgage sorted. They have just not been on the ball with the CCJ issue at all. All i needed them to do was at the very least buy me more time. I was not trying to avoid the debt, just was not in a position to pay it. I will be making a formal complaint but I need action and proper advice from them or someone else first to resolve the court situation. I

feel I need to give the solicitor the opportunity to rectify the situation and have given them till the close of business today to come back to me.

However I need to prepare a fallback plan.

Getting this mortgage to go through is the absolute priority. Everything else falls into place after that. If it hadnt dragged on for so long in the first place the overdraft thing would have been addressed even if I had had to take out a loan to do it. But I couldnt take out a loan because it would have affected my credit score for the mortgage

**Guest** · 12th March 2010, 09:31:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

A CCJ will not show on your credit file if you pay it in full within 30 days, thus how come it has been entered already and are you sure it has been?

It should be relatively easy to have the CCJ set aside, but you need to act fast and you need to fire your solicitor.

When was the hearing during which the judgment was entered?

**moatmeister** · 12th March 2010, 10:11:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Judjment was entered 3rd March. It appears on both my equifax and experian credit reports - I can and have checked both on line.

How do I go about getting it set aside please? How quickly can this be done and off the credi file and by whom? Ideally in a couple of days ie before the BS issues the new mortgage offer. Is this possible??? given the ongoing situation and their conditions I feel it is highly likely they will do another credit check on my previously perfect file to make sure I have complied with their requirements before releasing the funds

Whilst I think the personal guarantee is fairly watertight (although I would love to be proved wrong) I was hoping to negotiate an out of court reduced payment with time to pay and was not expecting this result.

**Kafka** · 12th March 2010, 11:05:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

If the CCJ has been registered then you are unlikely now to arrange a reduced settlement and the 30-day rule applies to settlement in full within the 30-day period from judgment. Even if this were financially possible, it effectively means you are acknowledging the judgment and settling in full to get it removed.

What you need to do urgently is to apply to have the judgment setaside and you will need to draw up a careful case for this based on what happened with the solicitor. You will also need to be able to substantiate these claims, as mentioned already.

**Guest** · 12th March 2010, 18:41:PM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

You need to file an N244 Application Notice in order to have the CCJ set aside. This is relatively straightforward, but as above, you must have a good reason. It does appear however, that you do and you should not waste any time in preparing and filing the N244.

**moatmeister** · 12th March 2010, 20:18:PM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Thanks to all for your help so far.

I have been trying to get advice to sort this form all day unsuccessfully.

What classes as a good reason in this case??

Presumably applying for a mortgage is not classed as a good reason for a set aside?

My solicitor who has spoken to me today and apologised for not getting in touch says that we should get the judgement set aside because the CCJ stops me getting finance to settle the debt?

Should I just say that I have been denied the opportunirty of a fair hearing because my solicitor has overlooked the case?

Or should I go into more detail about what has happened??

Any ideas??

Need to file this on Monday.

Thanks

**Guest** · 12th March 2010, 20:53:PM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

You should have only two words for the solicitor. "You're fired."

You can take care of this on your own. The judgment will have been granted "in default" which means that the court has not made any determination on the facts, merely that one party or the other (in this case, you, aided by your inexplicably still employed solicitor) defaulted. In the case of Masters v Leaver [1999] it was held that a Judgment in Default means just that - it is a judgment obtained due to default. It does not mean that the court has agreed with what was claimed, or favours one or other case.

This being the case, you can file for a set aside on the facts, which are that a default judgment is no basis for you to be obliged to pay over £13,000 that you might not owe. Given that your solicitor filed a defence disputing the sum and requesting time to resolve it, you should be allowed to air that dispute in court. This has been denied you, due to the incompetence and ineptitude of your solicitor and which is all the more reason to wonder - again - why you are still entertaining her presence and should be sufficient reason for you to be able to have the judgment set aside while you file the Allocation Questionnaire.

**Tools** · 12th March 2010, 20:58:PM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Introduction

To have your judgement set aside you will need to put forward a reason why. You must keep your reason as clear and simple as possible.
We have listed quite a few valid reasons below.

Were you given 28 days notice in order to pay?
Were you living at the address when the summons and judgement took place?
If you took out a loan or any form of credit were you in receipt of the Default Notice before receiving the summons.
Did you receive the summons? They are not sent by recorded mail.
Maybe you were unable to attend court and defend yourself.
The judgement should not appear on the credit files if it was paid up within 28 days.
If you agreed to settle 'out of court' with the plaintiff you should not have received a Judgement.
If you did not receive any notification of the judgement/s made against you, then you can appeal.
Did you agree with the full amount of the judgement at the time, but now only agree with part of the amount?
Was the summons taken out against both yourself and another person jointly. If this is so, did you both receive your summons?
It could have been that you were away from the time between the issue of the summons and entry of the judgement?
Did you receive the summons on time for you to apply to the court. You have 21 days to reply to the court. If the summons was 21 days late then the judgement would have already been taken out against you?
Did somebody use your name or address to obtain credit, which resulted in a County Court judgement without you knowing?

Lastly...

You can use any of the above reasons to have your judgements set aside.
Remember that no correspondence sent by the courts or the plaintiff is ever recorded. In the majority of cases County Court Judgements fail to comply with every detail.
This gives you the chance of having your judgement/s removed forever.

Taken from here Removal of CCJ's - Valid reasons to have your judgements set aside

**moatmeister** · 13th March 2010, 04:31:AM

Re: Hello everybody here's a good one for you!!

Excellent and very helpful thankyou. I find these forums an excellent place for at the very least helping to think things through.

Yes i will sack the solicitor, at least on the overdraft issue.

I do have to consider the implications of the conveyancing of which she has done all the work for and is now ready to go as time is of the essence. Depends on what delay this all brings. I will take further advice on that but anyone qualified to comment please do so.

All the above gives me enough legal ammunition to deal with the court myself on the overdraft issue which I will do on Monday. Wish I had found here earlier!

There is also a moral reason which I feel I have but dont neccesarily need to go into in court.

If I employ a professional person within the legal system to deal with a scenario in a correct and proper manner why should I suffer the consequences and loss of getting a CCJ entered against me by the same legal system just because the person i employed has failed to do act accordingly? It is me who gets the CCJ not them!!

Is it also a valid argument to say at the new hearing that having a CCJ against my previously perfect credit history destroys my ability to obtain credit in the present climate for what is a large amount of money making it then impossible for me to borrow money to repay the debt?

Here's a bit more background now I have got the main issue clear in my head.

I am generally disgruntled with this bank in question because they were instrumental in helping my business to fail because having been trading successfully with them for about 5 years I was let down on a business loan application for £20k to buy some new equipment for a new strand of work offered to us by one of our major blue chip clients. Having been promised faithfully by my relationship manager that it would be ok, they dragged out the application for nearly 3 weeks before declining it. Because of this we were not able to take on the extra work in time which then lead to a situation where 3 people lost their full time jobs and many freelancers who used to work for us lost out when the business failed, resulting in the same bank calling in the personal guarantee and ultimately me now getting the CCJ.

Very helpful wernt they?? Thats why I feel I needed a chance to negotiate a settlement with them.

I received one unsigned letter showing no other details but asking me to contact them.

I replied in writing asking for further information.

I heard nothing back, the next thing was the court papers claiming for the £16.5k not the £13k overdraft I agreed, which I gave to the solicitor to deal with and defend, getting us to the situation outlined in my initial post.

I feel that the bank did not even act correctly at this stage which was the basis of my defence and we should have been given the chance to settle out of court which i would have tried to do, making this whole scenario unnecessary.

Am I right?

Further comments welcome please!!

**Amethyst** · 19th March 2010, 07:51:AM

Re: Moatmeister v Business Bank and Solicitor

bump for moatmeister

Moatmeister v Business Bank and Solicitor