Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

[gavandcarly]

Hello everyone,

Just wondering if anyone has any advice on this.

My ex partner had a credit card in her name, and she added me as an additional card holder.

When we split she kept stating that I need to pay her back half of the balance of the card.

We had a joint mortgage together, and I really wanted my name taken off the mortgage to cut all ties with her as she kept trying to contact me and using the house as an excuse.

She was living in the house and I was renting a property and still paying mortgage and ground rent for the property.

I asked her lots of times to remove my name off the mortgage but she refused.

In 2010 her solicitor sent me a letter demanding half of her credit card balance.

I replied with the following on 24/08/10: I am unreservedly prepared to accept point (1) of your clients proposed settlement on the condition that I am indemnified and released from the mortgage first; should this criterion be satisfied, I will happily pay the whole sum of the credit card liabilities of £1200, as a sign of my goodwill.

I received no response what so ever from my ex partner, nor her solicitors.

On 24/03/11 (7 months later), I received an email from my ex partner stating: Would you please be able to give me a call today and I will explain the next steps to you, this is an extremely painful and express process- just want give you heads up. Also need to talk about getting me the £1200 to pay off that credit card.

My name in the end was removed from the mortgage roughly 7-8 months ago. I did not pay my ex the £1200, as firstly she never replied to the letter that i sent to her solicitor agreeing to the deal, and she did not reply to me at all for 7 months!

She has now taken me to a small claims court over this.

I now live in Dubai therefore was not aware of the hearing and the hearing went ahead on 13/02/12 without me being aware or being able to submit evidence or attend and I now apparently owe:
1. Judgment for the Claimant in the sum of £1450.00 together with interest of £393.99 (a total of £1843.99).

2. Defendant to pay Claimant's court costs of £245.00 (being £80.00 of the claim form and £125.00 hearing fee)

I am going to get the judgement set aside due to me being unaware of the hearing, however I would like peoples advice on the whole situation and if you think I have a chance of winning the case, and what sort of evidence I need to take with me?

Due to me only being an additional card holder, I am not even allowed to view the card statements, so god knows what has been bought on the card, I also found info on the Halifax website stating: Please note that additional cardholders will not be able to view the credit card online.
As principal cardholder, you are responsible for all transactions made on any additional cards. If the additional card is withdrawn, you must retrieve and destroy the card, during which time you are still liable for all transactions made using that card.

Any help/advice good or bad is much appreciated. :-)

[leclerc]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

Personal opinion is pay the £1200. I would ask to see the balance of the card at the point in which the solicitor initially contacted you but providing that is in order then you would need to pay the amount and I suspect that you will have additional costs due to the County Court issue, ie interest and cost of filing the claim.

[berniel]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

Hi
As you say you have no contractual obligation to pay anything, that is as far as the creditor is concerned.
So it is just the same as if it were a cash loan made by your ex. She would have to show how much of the sum was spent on your specific purposes; anything bought for joint use would not be due.
A difficult area.
Personally I would get this set aside, if only for the sake of your credit record. Then it sounds like an ideal case for the mediation service. This can be done over the phone and you would hopefully be able to agree on a compromise figure.
Bernie

[teaboy2]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

I agree with leclerc. The mistake you made was to assume non reply meant they had not accepted your proposal, when really they had not refused it either, and therefore their silence could have been due to unforseen reasons - Such as reply letter getting lost in post, or working on how to get your name of the mortgage etc. Ultimately the judge will say, you offered to pay the full amount of the card if your name was taken of the mortgage, your name was taken of the mortgage, by refusing to pay your therefore in breach of contract.

Basically its clear from her attempts to contact you to dicuss getting your name off the mortgage that she had actually accepted your offer.

What the banks terms state are irelevant as your offer to clear the balance in return for removal of your name from the mortgage was accepted and formed a legal contract. YOu therefore should have contacted her or her solicitor to follow up on it once you had not received a reply or when your ex tried to discuss it with you.

Its not what you wanted to hear i know, but i can not see you winning in court even if you did get a set aside, as all a set aside does is return the court process to where it was just after papers are served. So you will be better of paying the £1800 odd, otherwise if you lose in court, you could well face paying a lot more.

[berniel]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

I suppose it would be down to the court. To me the offer was just an invitation to treat , there was mo acceptance and therefore no contract.

Bernie

[teaboy2]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

Yes, but silence does not mean it has not been accepted, in fact usually it means the opposite (just look at how many times we see an offer made to DCA and they cash the cheque without writing back, then denying they accepted, when cashing the cheque), i think the fact the OP's ex tried to discuss the matter of removing him from the mortgage shows acceptance and that its likely during the 7 months since the offer was made, that they had been working on how to get the OP's name removed in light of the OP's offer, which would also show acceptance - Whether a letter of acceptance was sent or not, or even lost in the post is unknown, but a possability that can not be ignored, just like silence can not be when your the one making the offer. And a judge will likely see it as the responsability of the OP to have followed up on whether their ex accepted or not.

And of course, as you said it would likely come down to the court at the end of the day and the mood of the judge - Hence why its better to pay the £1800 then risk losing and paying even more. But in my opinion i can not see the judge siding with the OP, when its clear they made the offer and they never withdrew the offer; therefore estoppel now prevents them from doing so, since its clearly been accepted. Which means their non payment of what they offered would likely be deemed breach of contract regardless of the time delay. If they had withdrawn the offer, or stated in the letter making the offer that if no response is received in 14 days the offer will be withdrawn or should be deemed as withdrawn, then yes then the OP would have a strong case.

[berniel]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

Yes, but silence does not mean it has not been accepted, in fact usually it means the opposite (just look at how many times we see an offer made to DCA and they cash the cheque without writing back, then denying they accepted, when cashing the cheque), i think the fact the OP's ex tried to discuss the matter of removing him from the mortgage shows acceptance and that its likely during the 7 months since the offer was made, that they had been working on how to get the OP's name removed in light of the OP's offer, which would also show acceptance - Whether a letter of acceptance was sent or not, or even lost in the post is unknown, but a possability that can not be ignored, just like silence can not be when your the one making the offer. And a judge will likely see it as the responsability of the OP to have followed up on whether their ex accepted or not.

And of course, as you said it would likely come down to the court at the end of the day and the mood of the judge - Hence why its better to pay the £1800 then risk losing and paying even more. But in my opinion i can not see the judge siding with the OP, when its clear they made the offer and they never withdrew the offer; therefore estoppel now prevents them from doing so, since its clearly been accepted. Which means their non payment of what they offered would likely be deemed breach of contract regardless of the time delay. If they had withdrawn the offer, or stated in the letter making the offer that if no response is received in 14 days the offer will be withdrawn or should be deemed as withdrawn, then yes then the OP would have a strong case.

I think realistically setting asside the case would enable the OP to negotiate with his ex.
I do not belive that this would contitute a legal contract, but that is just my subjective opinion.

Bernie

[teaboy2]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

I think realistically setting asside the case would enable the OP to negotiate with his ex.
I do not belive that this would contitute a legal contract, but that is just my subjective opinion.

Bernie

Agreed but that is assuming the OP's ex is willing to negotiate, as far as she is likely to be concerned, the OP made the offer and she accepted and had clearly tried to discuss it when she emailed the OP, only for the OP to ignore her email or refuse to discuss it. Therefore she has tried all means of resolving the matter amicable prior to court.

And yes when an offer is made and can be shown that it was accepted, which i believe in this case it was, then it does form a contract. Its only when it can not been clearly shown their was any acceptance, would an offer remain an offer and not form a contract. In my opinion their was a clear acceptence when the OP's ex emailed them to discuss the process of removing them from the mortgage and the paying of the amount owed on the card, which was evidence of the Op's ex acting upon the OP's offer, and as i said estoppel prevents them withdrawing the offer once accepted. Ideally the OP should have withdrawn their offer in writing after not receiving a response, which would put the OP in the clear, but as they did not, and there subsequent refusal to honour the offer when their ex contacted them about it, puts them in breach of the contract.

Say if i agreed to lend you £1000 on the condition that you repayed the full amount i lent you within 6 months of the date the money is transferred to you, and i write to you asking you to confirm acceptence of my offer and you did not respond and i did not withdraw the offer or include a deadline for acceptance, then the offer still exists. As such if you then contacted me to take me up on the offer (acceptance) 6 months later, i would be prevented by estoppel from refusing to honour the offer, as you have already shown acceptance and therefore your acceptance means i am not legally obliged to honour my offer to you, as such a contract is formed upon your contacting me to take up my offer. If however, i had stated in my intial letter that the offer is valid for 14 days from the date of the letter, after which the offer shall be deemed withdrawn. Then if you did not accept the offer within those 14 days and decided to accept it after those 14 days, then i would not be legally obliged to honour is due to the acceptence coming after the 14 days, meaning the offer had already been withdrawn as a result of no acceptance within the 14 days allowed - Therefore also meaning estoppel plays not part and no contract was entered into. This is the same reason why companies on their quotations make it clear the quotation is only valid for the stated period on the quotation, usually 60 days, 6 months or 12 months. After that they do not have to honour the quotation.

[berniel]

Re: Additional card holder issued CCJ by Ex partner

There is buckets of case law supporting both sides of this argument.
Was this an offer? Was there adequate consideration? Was the acceptance binding on the contract?

All argument would be subjective, My opinion is as stated.

Bernie