I've had a CCJ against my name for 11 months that I didn't know about!

[KaitlynMH]

I recently received a job offer, as part of their on-boarding process they do background/credit checks.
Rather alarmingly they discovered a CCJ against me for £346 that was issued May 2018! This is the first I've heard of it as the CCJ seems to be linked to one of my old addresses (I moved out of that address August 2017).
My new work have very kindly offered to pay it off and to set up an agreement with me to pay them back, but I'd rather not have to pay for a fine that I was not aware of.

After some research I've found that the Claimant is Civil Enforcement Ltd, I've tried calling them to find out more information about the PCN that was issued, but I can't get through to a person.

I've read some of the other forums on here to try and find out what the next steps are if I want to defend the claim, but I'm finding it a little confusing/overwhelming.
I know I need to contact the County Court Business Centre for a copy of the documents that were supposedly sent to me, but I'm not really sure what to say.

PCN: 9193527157

Any help with this would be very much appreciated!

[Amethyst]

My new work have very kindly offered to pay it off and to set up an agreement with me to pay them back, but I'd rather not have to pay for a fine that I was not aware of.

Wow. That's pretty amazing - sounds like you've found a decent employer there I agree though, investigate the debt first - even if paid it will still just sit on your credit file and have affects on other finances not just the job, so worth looking at a set aside.

But yes, look at what the claim is, it'll be an old parking ticket - if you moved August 17 then they probably should have traced you to your new address before issuing a claim - do you know if you updated the DVLA with your new details between August and May ?

What you need to do is ring the court, tell them you've discovered a judgment against you - give them the claim number ( which should be on the register of judgments or your credit file ) and ask if they can email you the case details so you can investigate and look at making a set aside application. If you succeed in getting it set aside it is removed from your file - you could then settle it, or you could go on to defend the case.

You might need to write to CEL if the court won't send the info ( sometimes they do, sometimes they don't... make it up as they go along ) ... you should inform CEL that you intend to apply to set aside, request their consent to set aside due to it having been obtained at an old address, that you'd never received the PCN and once you have the info you could consider settlement.

[KaitlynMH]

Brilliant, thank you so much Amethyst!