Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

[charitynjw]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge!

[MENTION=71570]R0b[/MENTION] :thumb:

[R0b]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge!

Good afternoon, first of all congrats on having it successfully set aside, very cheeky of Euro Parking and Gladstones as well not to turn up and say the evidence is overwhelming but not provide anything.

Do you have an order from the court with the effect saying the claim is set aside and that Euro Parking shall pay your application fees of £255?

[Baggievann]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge!

Hi Rob,

Yes, I've got a copy of the judgement stating to that effect, I sent a copy to Gladstones and Euro Parking for their perusal!
It didn't surprise me how cocky they were. Apparently a DVLA check stands as overwhelming evidence, anyone knows the database for V5c checks is not an accurate measure by any means! The judge agreed with me that overwhelming would have been following through with appropriate credit checks to find my address, hence her agreeing they pay my issue fee after I said I should never have been in court in the first place!

Regards,
Alex

[R0b]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

Well, if they don't end up paying up I'd be enforcing through bailiffs just to cause them a bit of hassle Though I fully expect them to pay up before then.

As for the rest of your problems, I would first of all send a copy of that Order to the Registry Trust, the company who maintains the register of CCJs and fines. A short cover letter to them explaining that judgment has been set aside and politely ask them to update the records accordingly. The Court should notify them of the changes but if not the letter will prompt them to contact the court and confirm.

A letter should also be sent to the credit reference agencies if you have not done this already. Again, their systems are usually automated and update usually at the end of the month but there is no harm in asking them to speed it up. If they don't then you could perhaps threaten to issue proceedings against them for breach of Principle 4 under the Data Protection Act 1998. They have been made aware that the CCJ has been set aside but if they fail to act upon it then they are not keeping your data accurate and up to date.

Now the tricky question about your losses and I'm afraid I can't fully answer that for you. The first issue is how are you going to calculate all of those losses and come up with a number? Secondly you would have to show that the CCJ has been the direct cause of your problems, sure your credit rating is easy to argue but the equity on your house and other things is unlikely to be so straight forward.

If you ask me what your chances are in recovering compensation for the knock on effect of the CCJ, I have to be honest it is probably going to be difficult. The only argument I think you may have is the tort of abuse of process. In short, it is an abuse of process where one party deliberately misuses the court process for an improper or collateral purpose, that is to say obtain something that it would not have otherwise been entitled to. This type of tort is very rarely used and would probably require some proper legal assistance.

[Baggievann]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

@R0b

Hope you are well! It's me again... This time with more tales of shenanigans from Euro Parking Services and Gladstones Solicitors (if you can call them solicitors)!

So as an update, Euro Parking have not paid me my £255 even after the 21 days I gave them on top of the 21 days the judge gave them to pay has expired, so now they are in breach of the order given by the court. But things get better... In the original judgement back in October, the judge ordered the set aside, ordered I be reimbursed my issue fee, and that Gladstones/Euro Parking serve me with details of the case including photographic evidence within 21 days.

Seeing as the original case for the set aside revolved around the whereabouts of my location and the fact that Euro Parking had not issued papers correctly after sending everything to the wrong address, the hearing for the set aside went through extraordinarily quickly. During the case I was at pains to explain to the judge my new address, and after she set aside the CCJ she asked where I would like correspondence to be sent by the court and by Gladstones/Euro. I explicitly said that I wanted to have any and all correspondence sent via post to my home address which the Judge took down and forwarded to both the Court and Gladstones. My fiancee was present in court and witnessed all of this.

So imagine my surprise when I opened up a very infrequently used email account of mine last night, to find an email from Gladstones serving me with the documents! This came as even more of a surprise considering I neither divulged my email at any point, nor consented to receiving any documents via email, therefore Gladstones had to have trawled the internet to find an email address associated with me in order to send their email! To say I am angry is an understatement, but these devious and underhand tactics cannot surely stand up in a court of law surely?

Incorrect service of documents seems to be a recurring theme for these people, but it appears that they are deliberately attempting to contact me in methods that prevent me from corresponding in return. Their email was sent on the 27th of October, within the time frame allotted by the Judge, but yet again, my failure to receive said documents means I have been unable to file a defence within the 21 day time frame I had to respond.

My question is thus: Because I deliberately requested in court that correspondence be sent to my correct address, and because the court notified and updated my address, and I sent letters to Gladstones and Euro with my new address, and this can be witnessed if needed; can an email to an unverified account constitute good and proper service of documents? This of course is on top of the fact I never divulged my email address, nor consented to service via email!

If this is proper service I will be shocked beyond belief, but I am hopeful that this will not be proper, and so therefore can I request that the case is dismissed since they failed to serve me correctly in the 21 day period allotted.

Aside from that, the photo evidence they provided in their case file is hardly damning either, the image is shot at night, shows very few points of reference and shows no signage, simply the front and rear of my car bumper and a picture of the car with a ticket and without a ticket.

With regards to the non payment of the judgement, how do I proceed with legal enforcement of the ruling? The court have advised me to put everything in writing and seek the advice of the judge on how best to proceed, should I write to Gladstones and reject their service in writing and inform them I have instructed the court to seek to dismiss the case on the grounds of improper service?

Any advice as always greatly appreciated!
All the very best,
Alex

[Kati]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

This might be useful to you [MENTION=90220]Baggievann[/MENTION] - https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-...rce-a-judgment

6. Enforce a judgment

You can ask the court to collect payment from the person or business who owes you money (the ‘debtor’) if they don’t pay you after receiving the court order.
You must pay a court fee when you ask the court to collect the payment.
Find out what the debtor can afford to pay

Ask the court to order the debtor to attend court to provide evidence of their income or spending, for example bills and statements.
If the money is owed by a business, you can ask for an officer from the company to attend court and give details of its accounts.
You can then decide if you want the court to take further action to collect your payment.
Send bailiffs to collect payment

You can ask the court to send bailiffs to collect the money.
Use Money Claim Online if you used it to make your original claim.
If you made your original claim with a paper form, you should download and fill in either:

• form N323 - to apply at a county court (you must be owed £5,000 or less)
• form N293A - to apply at the High Court (you must be owed at least £600)

You can apply to either a county court or the High Court if you’re owed between £600 and £5,000.
You may need legal advice if you apply at the High Court.
The bailiff will ask for payment within 7 days. If the debt isn’t paid, the bailiff will visit the debtor’s home or business to see if anything can be sold to pay the debt.

(if it was me, I'd be sending in the bailiffs ... and making them pay for that too :lol xx

[Baggievann]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

Hi Kati,

Thanks for the link! I've drafted a letter to the court and asked them to enforce the judgment! I've also mentioned that under Practice Direction 6A I have to be asked and consent to service via electronic communication, therefore service is (once again) defective and have therefore asked to court to consider dismissing the case entirely. I hope that may be the end of it!

Thanks for your help,
All the best,
Alex

[ploddertom]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

Rather than do Bailiffs how about a 3rd Party Debt Order to freeze their Bank Account, yes it will still cost you initially but you add that to the debt owing.

[Baggievann]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

I didn't realise that was an option, is it still as enforceable as a Bailiffs order from the court? If so that would be a wonderous form of justice!

I thought the only option open to me was asking the court to enforce Bailiff action, so would be intrigued to hear what my options are...

Regards,
Alex

[ploddertom]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

Have a read of http://www.trustonline.org.uk/unders...cing-judgments which gives you some options. All have a cost implication but you just add that to the debt owing & you do not need to ask the Courts permission to carry out any enforcement.

[R0b]

Re: Please help! CCJ Issued without my knowledge! - won

Personally I wouldn't go with a TPDO, as first of all you will need to know who they bank with and secondly the account is only 'frozen' temporarily until a hearing takes place within 28 days for a judge to decide whether to go ahead. They aren't that popular, especially if there's not enough funds in the account to cover your judgment.

Other others such as charging order or winding up petition (not available to you as under £5k) can also become costly too.

Warrants with bailiffs as I understand it can be done quite speedily so if you are looking to to have it sorted, then I would suggest your best bet is going down this route.