Crazy court process

[Uktzy]

Hi All,

My wife is currently involved in an accident legal claim where she is the defendant. We received the notice which our insurance solicitors then entered an acknowledgment of defence. However, 2 days after the deadline for this, the claimant solicitors requested a summary judgement was granted before the courts even had a chance to receive and review the defence. I.E it was granted based on an individuals statement with no witnesses or video evidence. We always maintained it was 50/50 despite in all likelyhood his fault but we had no concrete evidence just car specs/photos/ positioning.

The issue is, my wife now has a CCJ on her profile and our mortgage renewal is imminent hence we can’t apply to have it set aside due to the time constraints. We are currently leaning towards just asking it to be paid due to this. Is there anything else we can do as to be honest the other driver has lied in his statement.

thanks.

[atticus]

What does your insurer say? Aren't they paying, subject to the excess?

[Uktzy]

Insurer say it’s up to us and will act accordingly. We haven’t paid an excess as we haven’t claimed anything yet. His repair bill was £250 (we saw the invoice) and his excess was £400 but it has ended up going through the court at £3500.

[atticus]

There is something going on that has not been explained. Why isn't your insurance covering this?

[Uktzy]

Sorry what do you mean by covering? The insurance company will pay out to the claimant if we decide we can’t be bothered to apply to have the judgement set aside (as our solicitor has said that the process hasn’t been followed correctly). The other interesting bit is that we have received no notification of any summary judgement proceedings or notification of a summary judgement decision. The only thing we have had is the CCJ entered against my wife.

[Uktzy]

Just to add to this, it’s almost like the court just issued the summary judgement before they got round to picking up our defense material.

[atticus]

You have solicitors so professional rules limit what I can say.

Discuss this with your solicitors. Listen to their advice. Ask them to clarify anything that you don't understand. Then decide what you are going to do.