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A county court made a mistake and sent letters out late for a hearing for a CCJ to be set aside (we had to escalate a complaint twice to uncover that a franking machine had been out of order and letters rerouted via a different court). As the court would not admit its mistake, we got a second N244 but HCEOs came and took car between it being applied and paid for and coming into force. At second set aside hearing, CCJ was set aside and judge ordered car returned. HCEO refused to return car as it wasn't explicitly mentioned on document issued by court. Shouldn't the writ fall away automatically with no adverse judgment? Eventually we had to settle out of court to get car back. The MoJ, when investigating the complaint against the court, said that the CCJ would have undoubtedly been set aside on the earlier date. We're currently making a complaint about the HCEO company and need advice on who was at fault. Should the judge have been more explicit in writing and/or should the HCEO company have returned the car anyway regardless of this?
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Oh good gracious. Do you have the text of the Judges order setting aside the CCJ ?
Did you first find out about the original judgment due to a letter or visit from the enforcement officers ?
So the first application was to suspend the warrant and set aside the judgment …. hearing was set but because of the utter ineptitude of the court you didn't know about the hearing until after it had happened, and the outcome was the judgment stayed in place and the suspension of the warrant was lifted. You filed a new N244 ( because the court wouldn't admit they had cocked up ) to, again, suspend the warrant and set aside - but the court failed to put a bar on enforcement as soon as the application was made and the HCEO's came and took your car. There was a new hearing at which the judgment was finally set aside and the court ordered payments made be returned ( or goods seized etc)….but the HCEOs refused. To get the car back you had to settle the claim ( out of court by this point as the CCJ had been set aside) - did you pay the full original judgment amount and the enforcement fees to the HCEO ? or was it settled on negotiation with the claimant/judgment holder ?
Did the claimants attend any of the set aside hearings ? ( either the one you didn't attend as you weren't aware or the later one where the Judge ordered the car be returned?)
Tagging ploddertom on the HCEObehaviour side of things but think we need the text from the court order that was disputed by the HCEO.
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Pretty much, yes. The claimant didn't attend the first hearing (because they weren't invited in time either). They did attend the second but the person we had to deal with afterwards was a different person to the one who attended and he denied being aware of the judge's order. He has since left and the claimant has now agreed that the judge did order the car's return (and that their letter to the first hearing was late too - which we already knew). The HCEO company said they couldn't comment on what was said or not said at court as they (the HCEO) didn't attend.
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The judge said (written down by our lawyer):
'As a consequence of judgment in default against the defendant being set aside, the vehicle seized under a writ of control dated 15thJuly 2016 should be returned to the defendant forthwith as a consequence of this order'
We couldn't afford to keep a lawyer on after the hearing.Comment
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The order only said:
"It is ordered that the judgment against X dated 4th July 2016 be and is hereby set aside."
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When the HCEO refused to return the car, we contacted the court that had issued the writ to see if anything else needed to be done and they said our case was closed as a writ can only have any force when there is an adverse judgment. They said the file had been transferred back to the court where the CCJ had been issued and set aside but, once again, we couldn't get any information out of that useless court.Comment
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Can I ask who the HCEO was - if you don't want to say I understand but would respectfully ask you send Amethyst a PM with the details.
How long after the car was removed was the Hearing where it was "ordered" to be returned? Essentially once a Judgment is Set Aside then it goes back to the beginning where it originally started. Therefore there would have been no Writ or any other enforcement involved. You should be refunded any monies handed over (including the Judgment Debt - which should then be paid to the Claimant). As to any fees then the HCEO should look to the Judgment Creditor as it was them who instructed them and they had carried out enforcement in good faith - this is one aspect that is very rarely explained when someone transfers up a Judgment for enforcement, they are expected to read the small print in the Contract they enter into.
My view is that any Claimant getting an "iffy" Judgment against someone deserves all they get as 9 times out of 10 they have rushed things and get giddy with a Judgment by Default.Comment
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The HCEO was DCBL and they turned up with a TV crew to my wife's workplace, a nursery full of toddlers and gained entry by tailgating her.Comment
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The car was 50 days before the hearing.and then retained for a further three months after the hearing.Comment
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As I said above, we settled to get the car back (and to make sure the film wasn't shown). We were confident of winning the actual case against the CCJ but it was scheduled quite far in the future.Comment
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They would have been my first guess. They run with an HCEO for hire who actually lives in Florida and is clearly not in control for those who she is supposed to be responsible for. The downside with them is they are not members of the HCEOA so making a complaint about them is a little more difficult but whispers tell me moves are afoot to resolve this.Originally posted by billybee View Post
There have been a few instances lately where OFCOM have come down on both DCBL & Ch5 for the way in which they operate.
Have you served them with a SAR?Comment
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The car was in storage stored somewhere.
DCBL ARE members of the HCEOA. I escalated my complaint to them in May 2017 I think. I kept chasing them but HCEOA announced that, because we had settled out of court, we couldn't complain as terms of out of court settlements are normally full and final ,even though I had explicitly excluded DCBL from the agreement. It took HCEOA nearly a year to come up with this excuse but they said I could make a fresh complaint and re-escalate. After making a new complaint to DCBL and being rebuffed again, HCEOA decided the matter was closed in spite of their earlier advice to re-complain. They have now re-opened my file because I was persistent and started copying in my MP.
I have served DCBL with a SAR for bodycam footage. Coincidentally (or not), one of their directors offered me £500 out of the blue a week ago to settle the matter. I declined.Comment
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I would suspect they sold the car, have you had a look at the MOT database to see if it has passed a test since thenOriginally posted by billybee View Post
https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history
https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-status
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Sorry - we got the car back when we settled out of court with the claimant. Had the claimant (via DCBL) not had the leverage of the car and film, we would not have settled.Comment
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