Claimant In The Dark

[Autofire]

Hello everyone.

There's a saying, "With friends like this, who needs enemies ?"

Some time ago I was asked by a then friend of many years standing to be a guarantor for a loan for which this "friend" went on to default on and I ended up paying it off to stop the crippling interest form spiraling out of control.
The agreement we came to verbally was that she would pay me back when she had got settled into her new employment and got herself sorted out. Now this "friend" has broken off all contact with me, taken herself off Facebook and is seriously avoiding me and others she owes money to.
I wrote and hand delivered a letter to her laying out the terms of our agreement with a reminder of all my avenues of contact but as yet have not heard a peep from her, as a result I have now taken out a CCJ against her which has been granted in my favour by default as she made no attempt to get in touch during the 14 day period, the debt including court fees is over £8k. Luckily I have the paper trail from the loan company as evidence the whole thing is genuine.

I am totally new to all this legal stuff and to be honest, quite overwhelmed by the process, which I have done ok through the Money Claim Online System but the trouble with it is that it leaves more questions unanswered that I can't find out online in the user guides.
For instance, I have had the CCJ paperwork sent to her last known address but as I don't seem to have seen her about for a while I'm not 100% sure she is still living there although I think I have seen one of her daughters coming out of the house, the first question is, how do I know she has even seen the notice and the judgment or my pre action letter, I take it the former are sent recorded delivery but can that be signed for by anyone that answers the door ?
Now that the judgement has been granted, what happens next, do I wait for someone to contact me, how long do I give it before contacting MCOL.
If I hear nothing am I right in thinking I am to apply to the system to request that she attends court to give details of her employment and financial situation, is this the case and am I right in thinking that I have to serve this paperwork myself ? Well if that's the case she is not going to answer the door to me and it will end up not served. If I pay for some other official to serve it, what happens if she can't be tracked down, does it go unserved ?

I'm really not holding out any hope of seeing a penny of this £8k ever again and it was part of my savings and to be quite honest I think the whole thing was cleverly engineered by this despicable person who was supposed to be a friend and who has broken one of the most precious things and that is someones trust.

Anyone's observations and advice would be gratefully looked at.

Thanks, SW

[ostell]

Re: Claimant In The Dark

The courts do not send things recorded delivery just normal mail. They do not enforce the judgment, that's up to you.

What you can do is send her a copy of the judgment to the address where you believe she is. You can use recorded delivery if you want but she could refuse.

It is then up to you to continue to enforce. Either the count court enforcement (bailiffs) or the High court enforcement. Does she have the money or property to actually pay or be seized by the bailiffs?

[Autofire]

Re: Claimant In The Dark

Do I take it that the PDF Document that is shown on the MCOL site is something I have to print off and take to her ? I have had a letter from them stating I have the judgement awarded but I don't understand what is meant by enforcing the judgement, it's not very clear what you have to do and considering I've paid over £400 court fees up front I don't seem to be getting much bang for my buck.
I'm sorry to sound thick here but I find it rather strange that I should be doing any "enforcing" when I'm not a court official or uniformed officer or anyone else with any clout and could easily be accused of harassment if not careful. Let's face it if this were some big guy that was handy with his fists I could get my face re-arranged.
I'll just have to ring up MCOL and find out exactly what I'm supposed to be doing here but thanks for your input nevertheless.

[ostell]

Re: Claimant In The Dark

The court will send a copy of the judgment to the address that they have on record for the defendant. That is then their job done, a judgement has been made. Sometimes the court are a little tardy in sending these out so you can print it out and send it to her so you know that it has got there.

If the money has not been paid after the notice of judgment is received then it is, unfortunately, up to you to arrange enforcement. This comes, of course, at a cost. If you are sure that money is available then contact the enforcement officers at your local County Court to arrange for them to go out to collect the money. Or you could transfer up to the High Court so that they can enforce. You must have seen the TV programs "The Sheriffs are coming" and "Can't Pay We'll Take It Away". You pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Debt Camel]

Re: Claimant In The Dark

do you have any reason to think she has any assets - does she own the house? or that she has a reasonable job?

[Autofire]

Re: Claimant In The Dark

I believe the house is on a mortgage and she has a low value car so not much in the way of assets.
When she spoke to me last a long time ago she was settling into her new job with a wind turbine logistics company in Hull but I'm beginning to wonder if that was a load of crap to appease me at the time. I have watched the house for a while a couple of times lately and her car is back there and one of her daughters comes and goes so I know she will have seen any paperwork that has been delivered.
She's just an absolute fool and keeps ignoring stuff hoping it will go away, it's not the first CCJ she's had.

In a nutshell, I don't know what money if any is available, I was going to opt for an attachment of earnings and see how long that lasted for and if that fails a charging order on the house if she ever sells.