County Court order being ignored - what now?

[Stupidfish]

We engaged a builder to do some work and gave him £1400 upfront for materials. He was supposed to bring these materials prior to starting the work but never showed up. When I contacted him there were a series of excuses but no progress. He never actually started the work, giving more and more ridiculous excuses over a few months (some subsequently proven to be outright lies) before I gave him an ultimatum and he offered to repay our money in full if we didn't want to wait any longer I accepted this offer. That was about 18 months ago now. Alleged bank transfers weren't made (by him) and then he stopped replying to texts/ calls or emails. I used money claim online to try and recover the money; there was a court judgement in my favour, he ignored it, bailiffs went round and were told by his wife that he had moved out, they went to his new address and he then agreed to fill in an income and expenditure form. After this he offered to repay the money at £5 a month. Since the outstanding amount now includes costs to date and some interest, it would take about 26 years to complete the repayment. I rejected this offer, partly because I felt it was unreasonable and partly because the money is not in fact a debt (ie money owing for services received, or that had been lent to him) but amounts to theft - we gave it to him to buy materials that he did not buy, for a job that he did not even start - so I feel he should just give it back. There was then a County Court hearing which he didn't bother to attend; the judge made a court order that the money should be repaid in full which is also being ignored. What, if anything, can I do now? It seems all wrong that someone can pocket a substantial amount of another person's money, ignore all legal orders, and get away with it.

[Barnet]

Re: County Court order being ignored - what now?

Hi Stupidfish
As far as I'm aware your best course of action would be to have High Court Enforcement (The Sherriffs as was) collect the debt. The fee is about £70 and those boys have so much more weight than County Court Bailiffs. If you look for a firm of High Court Enforcers they will handle the Court transfer of the judgment for you. Good luck!

[thepostman]

Re: County Court order being ignored - what now?

I had a similar problem many years ago.

The first thing is to work out if this guy as any money, he may be broke just ripping off the odd sucker (sorry) when he gets chance.
Does he own his own house (you can place your debt against the deeds), you get paid when he sells.

In my case I knew this so called builder had money (house owner and more) and I had just read a case of a girl complaining how she had just been made to pay a debt that contained around a third of debt collectors payments.

I had already sent a heavy around, he actually came back and said "no chance", this builder was big and I think that they consider the heavy tactics as a challenge.

What finally worked was the debt collecting tactics, all where ex police officers, I put the idea to them that they should just keep billing him for their efforts to collect the debt.

He said he was broke and had no money, they rang him and pretended to be a customer, he bragged about all the jobs he was doing and the money.

He soon cracked , they sent him a schedule to bill for each letter, each time they called.

My advice

1 Find out if he as any money.
2 Find the right debt collectors.


If you can find his bank details you can take money from that, you are dealing with a con artist, you have got to find people that will play his game

[ploddertom]

Re: County Court order being ignored - what now?

This is now an old thread and unfortunately someone found out the hard way that even having a CCJ against someone is no guarantee they will ever get paid. Depends on how much else you want to throw at it as each stage of Enforcement costs money.

I had a similar problem many years ago.

The first thing is to work out if this guy as any money, he may be broke just ripping off the odd sucker (sorry) when he gets chance.
Does he own his own house (you can place your debt against the deeds), you get paid when he sells.

In my case I knew this so called builder had money (house owner and more) and I had just read a case of a girl complaining how she had just been made to pay a debt that contained around a third of debt collectors payments.

I had already sent a heavy around, he actually came back and said "no chance", this builder was big and I think that they consider the heavy tactics as a challenge.

What finally worked was the debt collecting tactics, all where ex police officers, I put the idea to them that they should just keep billing him for their efforts to collect the debt.

He said he was broke and had no money, they rang him and pretended to be a customer, he bragged about all the jobs he was doing and the money.

He soon cracked , they sent him a schedule to bill for each letter, each time they called.

My advice

1 Find out if he as any money.
2 Find the right debt collectors.


If you can find his bank details you can take money from that, you are dealing with a con artist, you have got to find people that will play his game