Remove/Dispute a CCJ

[jaymeetee]

Hi There,

A check of my credit report at the weekend showed a surprise CCJ on my record filed in September 2019 for £600.

I checked this morning with the court and it had gone to a previous address I moved from last year.

The debt was to a car lease company for excess mileage at the end of the lease (I had forgotten to inform them of change of address as the lease had ended).

I have paid the amount in full to their solicitors today but as it's outside of the 30 day window this CCJ will remain on my credit record.

I wanted to know if I have a chance of removing the CCJ on the grounds that I didn't actually receive the hard CCJ or any correspondence to allow me to pay within the timeframe.

This despite the debt company having email and mobile phone contact details and them not contacting me via these methods.

As stated, I'm not disputing the debt here, just the fact that doesn't seem a reasonable attempt to contact me.

Any help appreciated

Thanks

[R0b]

Hello

The only way remove a default judgment is to make an application to set it aside. When the CCJ is removed, legal proceedings continue and the parties are put back to the position when you will need to file a defence to the claim.

The problem, however, is that you have already paid them the money so there is, in reality, no claim for the Claimant to continue with because you've already discharged your liability. What you should have done is refrained from paying the money and asked them to consent to setting aside the default judgment or make the application to the court directly. As you never did that, there is no guarantee that a court will agree to remove the CCJ because you are essentially asking the court to repair your credit file and that is not their job nor is it in the spirit of maintaining justice.

There are some options:

1. You can obtain confirmation from the solicitors that you've paid and then pay £15 to the court for a certificate of satisfaction which would be recorded as satisfied on your credit file but would still likely impact your right to obtain credit at least at favourable rates.

2. Send a letter to the solicitors and explain you intend to make an application to set aside the default judgment on the basis that the claim wasn't received, you never had an opportunity to defend yourself and in any event the Claimant should have taken steps to ascertain the last known address. If they agree, you will need to pay for the application fee which is £255 but no guarantee the court will rubber stamp it.

3. As per point 2 above but you make the application directly to the court without notifying the other side (not recommended but your choice).

If you do a search of the forum there are threads on here that discuss the exact situation you find yourself in. I remember helping someone out last year and they managed to get multiple CCJs removed using the second method but I can't remember the username who posted that issue.