Thread: Statutory demand in wrong name.

Hello
I have received a few letters to my address in the wrong name demanding about £9000. This is for a service I received about 3 years ago and which was invoiced to the name of my street instead of me. I have recently received letters from a debt recovery company, again to the name of my street, demanding £7000 and saying that unless an arrangement is made to pay, a Statutory Demand under provisions of section 268 of the Insolvency Act 1986 will be issued.

There does not seem to be any opportunity to go to county court and argue whether or not this debt is due. Should I reply and put them right on this, or, since everything is issued in the wrong name, ignore it as it will be unenforceable?

If I call their bluff and their SD fails and nothing has ever been invoiced in my name, could the creditor then change the invoices, invoice me properly and go through the process again?

Where and at what stage does this Statutory Demand go into the public domain where my credit history may be compromised?

Thanks for your help.

Since it doesnt have your name on it , i wouldnt worry (even though it is a stat demand)

Originally Posted by debt4get

a stat demand means that the person named in the demand could be made bankrupt by the courts if the stat demand is granted..if you applied for the stat demand to be set aside using the defence it isnt you then you could also apply for costs to be awarded to yourself

Surely if the demand isn't in my name, I can't have it set aside as it would be a pointless demand to someone who doesn't exist. If I don't respond to anything, the "complainant" won't know anything until they try to enforce it.

Originally Posted by harrassed senior

Have you tried just returning the mail as Not Known At This Address? as legally you should not even be opening it!

Not sure that is illegal but if I return it to sender they may investigate further and get the right information. I think it's easier for me if I let then bark up the wrong tree.

Originally Posted by debt4get

i agree with harrassed senior if you allow them go gain an sd on this basis then the chances of your getting it set aside will be extremely slim

Yes but the SD wouldn't be in my name so it doesn't matter, or does it? That is my question..

Originally Posted by debt4get

im a little confused in that is this your debt? cos you say they may investigate further and get right information

I do have a debt with this company but I don't agree with the amount they say it is and advised them 2 to 3 years ago but received no reply at the time and didn't pay anything.

Nothing has been done for 2 years to recover it until recently and I have now found that they don't seem to know my name. The debt (or part of it) is in fact owed by a limited company I'm involved with but there is no mention of this company. They are using the name of my street as my name and the company is not the name of the limited company nor is the fictitious company they have written to limited in the correspondance or any of the invoicing. The letters do not have a street number either but come to me because one syllable in the addressee is the same as the proper company and so the conscientious postie has delivered them to me. Fact is that they have completely messed up.

Just to clarify matters regarding the Statutory Demand.

A Statutory Demand is a necessary legal precursor to a bankruptcy petition.

It is served (sent/delivered) by a creditor directly to a debtor. There is no court involved at this point. A creditor doesn't 'get' a Statutory Demand. It is simply issued by the creditor - and that's it.

If it is not set aside then the creditor can (but doesn't have to) petition for the debtor's bankruptcy. When a debtor applies to a county court to have the SD set aside then this will be the first that the court will know about it. If you don't apply [to have it set aside] then the court will never know about.

There is no provision for Statutory Demands to be be recorded on, for example, the databases of credit reference agencies. The original debt (which has led to the SD) can and probably will be.


In my view you should, if you take the moral high ground, advise the creditor of the mistakes. Unfortunately I have very little sympathy with creditors in general because of the abysmal way they behave - and moral considerations become irrelevant in these circumstances.
Hence I would just ignore any mail. It is not addressed to you and legally you should not even open it. There is no legal requirement that you should send it back to the sender.

Originally Posted by palomino

There is no provision for Statutory Demands to be be recorded on, for example, the databases of credit reference agencies. The original debt (which has led to the SD) can and probably will be.


In my view you should, if you take the moral high ground, advise the creditor of the mistakes. Unfortunately I have very little sympathy with creditors in general because of the abysmal way they behave - and moral considerations become irrelevant in these circumstances.
Hence I would just ignore any mail. It is not addressed to you and legally you should not even open it. There is no legal requirement that you should send it back to the sender.

Thanks for taking the trouble to write that, palomino, that is the info I was seeking.

If they realise that they have issued the demand (and invoices and correspondance) to the wrong person and company, would they be able to start the process again?

My view as well. Let it lie, and let Mr Acacia Avenue be declared bankrupt. It might be difficult to pin him down though as I understand he can be found in quite a few towns around the country. I wonder which 'local' county court he would use?

What Palamino says is 100%. You cannot apply to have this SD set aside as its not in your name. Just sit tight and enjoy their increasingly desperate letters sent to Mr Acacia Avenue. I really would love to see them enforcing a bankruptcy judgement against a street.

If the SD was just posted to you by standard post its a good indicator of it just being a scare tactic to get you to phone their threat monkeys

Originally Posted by ODC

What Palamino says is 100%. You cannot apply to have this SD set aside as its not in your name. Just sit tight and enjoy their increasingly desperate letters sent to Mr Acacia Avenue. I really would love to see them enforcing a bankruptcy judgement against a street.

If the SD was just posted to you by standard post its a good indicator of it just being a scare tactic to get you to phone their threat monkeys

I must admit that there is some pleasure to be gained from this, particularly as I may end up getting their original services for nothing despite having offered to sort it out years ago. There is a mischievious side to me telling me that I should take advantage of their incompetence. I can't at present tell you who this organisation is but they have been mentioned quite a few times in this forum for their incompetence and arrogance, as have the collectors.

Latest on this. I received a letter from debt people stating that they intended to call at the address on the letters on a specific date which they duly didn't, maybe because it was bluff or maybe because it was wrong address. I then received another threatening letter supposedly from a different agency with mention of the "visit" but giving me another chance to pay with the unfortunate giveaway error on it where they asked me to make cheque payable to first agency.