** STRUCK OUT *** Need help to apply for CCJ to be set aside

[thonvh2017]

Hi R0b,

I have spoken to the court regarding to the Claimant's email above; the court told me I was still obliged to attend the court hearing scheduled on 11/04/2018 which was ordered by Dudley County Court.

Should I reject the Claimant's directions above?

Cheers
Thon

[Amethyst]

The Claimant is consenting to your set-aside request and the directions are simply to ask the court set-aside the CCJ by consent, vacate the hearing ( for the set aside), and the case proceed on the strength of the Defence you have submitted. Pretty standard directions. Let R0b take a look first though but it seems reasonable enough. You would need to put a letter in to the court asking the Judge look and consider the directions agreed between parties.

[R0b]

Hello

Yes it seems reasonable, assuming you are happy with your draft defence. There is no mention of them paying your costs however and you may wish to raise that with Cottams unless you are prepared to take the hit on your application fees. Did you write to Cottams and did you receive a reply from them prior to issuing your application to the court? If you did write and they failed to respond then you could perhaps use that as a reason for them to pay your costs, since they only chose to respond to after the claim was issued.

In terms of attending, you have to assume you are attending unless told otherwise by the court. You might want to prepare a consent order with the agreed terms and then write to the court and say that both parties have consented and request that the consent order be put in front of a judge for consideration. Since consent has been reached by both sides, it is not necessary for the hearing to take place and is not a good use of the court's time and resources which no doubt is already stretched.

[thonvh2017]

Dear R0b,

Thank you for your help.

But I am still not sure what I have got to do with the Claimant's email; this may be due to my English not being my first language. May I ask you the followings:

1. Will I need to write a letter to the court to inform it that I consent to the Claimant, and agree not to have the hearing on 11/04/2018? If yes, in this case would I need to tell (email) the Claimaint that I would agree with it before I send a letter to the court?

2. Based on your advice above, it means the Claimant agree to have my case be set aside. Should I ask the court to remove CCJ against me from its record?

3. I have not written to the Claimant before I submitted a defence to the court to set CCJ aside.

4. In the Claimant' email, it states that it wants to have another hearing between May and July 2018? This means it will make a new claim to the court, and I need to defend its claim? If yes, can I use the same defence I have already submitted to the court and plus a long witness statement together with evidences?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards
Thon

[R0b]

Hi Thon, to answer your questions in the same order

1. It would be advisable to prepare, draft a Consent Order to send to the court based on the terms agreed by Cottams and yourself. A Consent Order sets out the terms of an order as agreed between the parties which is signed and dated. I've attached an example of what a Consent Order looks like, but you will need to tailor it to your current situation as to what terms you have agreed with Cottams. If you are stuck, why don't you write to Cottams once you are happy with the agreed terms and get them to write up a Consent Order which you will send to the court.

2. Just because the Cottams have agreed to set it aside, the court has to approve it and so far they have requested a hearing on this for 11 April. Unless the court makes a further order, you need to attend irrespective of whether Cottams have agreed to set aside the CCJ and therefore you can't request it be removed from your record until the court has made an order to that effect. Hence what I said in point number 1.

3. Whether or not you have written to Cottams prior to the application is irrelevant, you are expected to co-operate and if you don't then you might have a costs order against you for wasting everyone's time when it could have been resolved at an earlier stage.

4. When a court sets aside a CCJ, the claim does not go away. It simply reverts to the position where you had filed a defence or if the court allows you to file a defence and then proceedings to a hearing. If the court accepts your draft defence, then they will say so and that will be the defence put forward to defend the claim against you. You will then at some point have to file and serve a witness statement along with any evidence you seek to rely on usually 14 days before the hearing date.

[thonvh2017]

Dear R0b,

Thank you for your prompt help.

Here is an email I have sent to Cottams Solicitors this morning:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been legally advised to send this email to you to say that I agree with you who want the CCJ to be set aside without hearing scheduled by the court for 11/04/2018.

However, I still maintain my position that I owe your company (Cottams Solicitors) nothing as I have never agreed to pay your firm per hour as you have claimed; plus you have sent me invalid documents (unsigned medical report from a Plastic Surgeon and two page particulars of claim without legal arguments).

Can you draft a consent order that we agree with the CCJ being set aside without hearing?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards

Thon



I will update info here as as soon as I got response from Cottams Solicitors.

Cheers
Thon

[thonvh2017]

Dear R0b,

The Claimant has not responded to my email above. What should I do?

1. Should I write a letter to the court saying that I agree with the Claimant that CCJ should be set aside without the hearing which was scheduled for 11/04/2018?

2. If yes for (1), should I agree with the Claimaint's directions asking the court to have another hearing between May and July?

I appreciate your help.

Cheers
Thon

[R0b]

Hi Thon sorry I've not got back to you.

Have you tried calling Cottams to see what is going on? If not I think that should be your first port of call and if they still don't respond then perhaps you could write to the court and ask the judge to adjourn the hearing. As for question 2, that's entirely up to you, if you are available between that time I can't see any reason why you should refuse other than to make you look unreasonable. Obviously if you have any planned dates that you can't make in that time you should let the court know.

[thonvh2017]

Hi R0b,

Thank you.

I am still not sure that (may be my English is so bad) if Cottams wants to ask the court to set CCJ aside or not? Their email is very confusing to me. Or they just want to delay that hearing and ask the court to rearrange that hearing till between May 2018 and July 2018.

Can you please help explain that to me?

I plan to leave the UK to live permanently in my motherland country for a while before July 2018, but this CCJ drags me here and struggle to make my living with my website design business which does not let me earn enough income for living in the UK. I dont have a family in the UK at all. But I have to clean my name with CCJ before I go.

Many thanks for your help.


Cheers
Thon

[R0b]

Hi Thon

Sorry I have not got back to you any sooner. Their email does suggest that they consent to setting aside the CCJ, I don't think it is confusing, particularly in the email he says the following:

"In the above circumstances I consent to judgment being set aside"

Have you tried calling Cottams to see what is going on? If not, give them a call and make a note of the telephone call. If you can't get a consent order together then you will need to turn up to court on the day, and if you don't then I would expect that the CCJ will remain and all hope would be pretty much lost in getting it set aside.

That being said if you are planning on leaving the UK permanently then, what would be the benefit of clearing your name and perhaps using further time and money? The CCJ only lasts 6 years so if you are not returning to the UK within that time then it will fall off your record. It is entirely possible that this matter could go on further past July 2018.

[thonvh2017]

Hi Rob,

Sorry, I did post an update of my case last week, but it appears to be not posted.

Update: I spoke to the court last week who advised me that the judge has asked the Claimant to send a Consent Order to me to agree; it is Claimaint's job. But no response has been received from the Claimant yet; the court also asked me to forward my email I sent to the Claimant about a month ago asking the claimant to send me a consent order (as you see my email posted above). That was your original advice which is VERY CORRECT regarding what the court is doing now.

My guess is Cottams Solicitors just wants me to get into trouble by paying more money (but fortunately I get free help from you and your website here) preparing defense statement etc. If it is true, they may just drop that case as they may be worried I will request them to pay my costs (which I did not pay because I am on working tax credit - I got full remission fee not to pay for N244 when applying for CCJ to be set aside).

No I dont plan to live overseas for longer than 6 years. I will be a way for max 2 years.

I ll keep you informed.

Cheers
Thon

[thonvh2017]

Hi R0b,

I have been to the court today as Cottams Solicitors had not responded to me nor to the court order in regards of consent letter. However, it was a bit strange the Lady Justice told me that it was agreed that the CCJ was set aside. But the court needs to deal with this matter to determine if I owe Cottams Solicitors any professsional services. I said to her that Cottams Solicitors did not answer to me nor to the court, but she still said it was agreed? Is that correct procedure?

She said the court would send questionaire to both parties to complete.

As soon as I arrived home, I got a missed call from Cottams Solicitors while I was at a court. It seems that Cottams Solicitors made the last minutes call to the court to say it agreed to set aside. Is that normal procedure?

I have messaged you privately too for more details.

I very appreciate your help.

Cheers
thon

[thonvh2017]

Hi,

Not sure if R0b is still around. I would like to update my case against CCJ.

The Dudley County Court has transferred my case to Stoke-On-Trent County Courty, and demanded the claimant file a new claim form with particulars of claim by 22/08/2018.

I phoned the court today which informed me that it received the above paperwork from the Claimant on 20/08/2018; it will list a hearing sometimes in November 2018.

I am not sure if I need to prepare any paperwork to defend this bogus claim.

I appreciate any kind help.

Regards
Thon

[Amethyst]

R0b

So the original judgment has been set-aside and Cottams ordered to file new particulars ( and a new claim form??) ... was there no order to serve these particulars on you ? Do you have a copy ? Otherwise have you got a copy of the order following the set-aside ?

Was there not a further order for you to submit an amended defence against the new particulars ?

[thonvh2017]

Thank you.

I phoned the court yesterday which advised that the court was sending a new order (maybe a new claim form and hearing date), but I have not got it yet. The court told me that the hearing date would be 05/11/2018.

Do I need to file a new defense. I can truly confirm that this is a bogus claim and feel the is unfair to ordinary people. Why the court gave the claiman many chances to validate this claim?

The claimant failed to respond to the court twice; the court should have struck out this bogus claim.

Stoke-On-Trent county court gave the claimant to reply by 01/08/2018 and the claimant failed to do so. Then the court gave him another chance by 22/08/2018, and the claimant did so. It seems something is going on in the system?


I ll post the new claim form here as soon as I got it.

Cheers
Thon