Ccj order by default

[Peng2]

Hi all, I hope someone can help.

This may not seem relevant but please bear with me.

Me and my mother have recently got back in touch with each other and she has informed me that I've had a few of letters sent to her address (over about 1 year) regarding a debt for just over £300 from a company (from what I've read on here a well known company) called Lowell. Now the first couple of letters she didn't open and marked them "return to sender" but after the 3rd letter she mistakenly opened it. Upon opening the letter she phoned Lowell up explaining she hasn't seen or heard from me for about 18 months and didn't know where I was, or have a contact number for me. To which they said ok and that they would remove her address. After this she never had another letter addressed to me so presumed that was the end of it.

Now i I haven't lived at my mothers address since I was 17/18 and I'm now 35 so god knows how they got to the conclusion I lived there.

Anyway back on track, today my mum received a letter in a brown envelope addressed to me and it's a ccj by default from Northampton county court saying I owe just over £400 now inc costs.

I have now registered with noddle and the only thing it could be is for a credit card which I totally forgot about. According to noddle the default date was 2012, so I know it's not in a status barred (if that's what it is called) state.

My question now is what can I do? I vaguely remember having a credit card all those years ago (I was going through a bad spell of depression), so I'm not going to argue the fact I owe money on it. However I don't want a ccj against my name. I'm willing to pay a lump sum off it, say £200-£250 but I'm worried they will still want the rest inc court fees.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

p.s hope the above makes sense lol. Also just to confirm I haven't had any court paperwork before this "order by default"

[R0b]

Re: Ccj order by default

Hi Peng have you contacted the court to see when this claim was originally issued? At the moment is take the default with a pinch of salt especially if the debt has been passed between companies.

If you want to remove the CCJ then you'd need to apply to set it aside. What might go in your favour is if your mother can be a witness as she informed Lowell and told them you were not living there so it sounds like they may have ignored her and issued the claim there or somewhere else - the court should be able to tell you what address it was sent to.

It will cost you though £255 but you could have grounds for recovering your fees given Lowells behaviour. Or you could contact them to consent to setting aside the CCJ which will cost you £100

[Peng2]

Re: Ccj order by default

Hi Peng have you contacted the court to see when this claim was originally issued? At the moment is take the default with a pinch of salt especially if the debt has been passed between companies.

If you want to remove the CCJ then you'd need to apply to set it aside. What might go in your favour is if your mother can be a witness as she informed Lowell and told them you were not living there so it sounds like they may have ignored her and issued the claim there or somewhere else - the court should be able to tell you what address it was sent to.

It will cost you though £255 but you could have grounds for recovering your fees given Lowells behaviour. Or you could contact them to consent to setting aside the CCJ which will cost you £100

Thanks for the reply

for the cost of the above I may as well just pay what they want, as even if I can get the debt lower by the time I've paid the either of the above it will cost me either the same or more.

As for phoning the court I'll do that tomorrow and depending on what they say I'll phone Lowell as well (with everything backed up in writing from them). I'm still within the time scale to get the ccj removed before it goes on my file as the judgement wasn't passed until the 31st August so I've still got 21 days to pay it before it gets recorded. Well that's how I've read it anyway.

[R0b]

Re: Ccj order by default

I've guess your question has been answered then

Yes as long as you pay the amount within 30 days of the judgment being made it won't go on your credit report. Just make sure to get a receipt or acknowledgement from them that this is the case an that it is in full and final settlement.

[Peng2]

Re: Ccj order by default

Thanks mate, your advice is really appreciated

[Diana M]

Re: Ccj order by default

Even if you do decide to pay the CCJ it may be worth your while getting to the bottom of why Lowells issued a summons to an address where you hadn't lived for over a decade.

If there has been any skulduggery by the firm then you can always report it to the FCA which collects data on the businesses they regulate and can sanction those which get it wrong

https://www.fca.org.uk/about/protecting-consumers

Di

[Peng2]

Re: Ccj order by default

Even if you do decide to pay the CCJ it may be worth your while getting to the bottom of why Lowells issued a summons to an address where you hadn't lived for over a decade.

If there has been any skulduggery by the firm then you can always report it to the FCA which collects data on the businesses they regulate and can sanction those which get it wrong

https://www.fca.org.uk/about/protecting-consumers

Di

Thanks for that bit of information.

ive just been on the phone to the Lowell solicitors and the debt was for a capital one card which I took out in 2010 but according to them was stopped being paid for in 2011.

I explained the situation but they still won't accept a lower amount then the court order. Tbh I knew they wouldn't but it was worth a shot.

As for the address, all they kept telling me was it was my last known address, which is funny as I haven't lived there for 18 years and wasn't even the address the card was took out at.

[R0b]

Re: Ccj order by default

Diana is right, even if you do pay for the amount you can still report them to the FCA if they have not complied with the applicable FCA rules.

Claimant's have to be careful of arguing last known address because if they are aware or suspect that someone no longer lives there then they must carry out reasonable checks to ascertain the person's location. If they don't then service of the claim form is invalid and grounds to set aside. It used to be the case that you could send to the last known address even if they didn't live there but a change in the CPR means that is no longer the case.

If you have already got a CCJ for the amount specified you can't then negotiate a lower settlement, part payment of debt does not relieve you of the rest when the court has already ordered that this is to be paid by you, that would require a vary to the order, again costing you money.

Either way, if you pay it up before the 30 days, you can notify the court it has been paid and no CCJ will be registered - BACS transfer will be the fastest option than a cheque as you need to take into account the time it takes to clear.

[Peng2]

Re: Ccj order by default

I've just paid the full amount over the phone as it went straight onto my account instead of having to wait up to 24hrs to show I've paid it if I did it online, but yeah I'll definitely be looking at reporting them.

They say they will let the court know that it's been paid and settled, but I've also let the court know I've paid it and told them the transaction/authorisation code of the payment so they have a note of it.

Its not really what I wanted to do especially as I didn't get the chance to pay it before it went to court (well I suppose I did in their eyes) but me and the other half want to try and get a mortgage at some point in the future, so although if it was just me I wouldn't care less about a ccj, but I need to think about the future.

what made me laugh was how the bloke on the phone was asking "how have you got the money in your bank to pay it?", the cheeky blinder lol. My reply was "it's none of your business how I'm paying for it and all you need to care about is that it's being paid"