Hi Monty Thanks for replying. A loan was agreed upon in January 2006, and the PoC of the claimant's default judgement included an output of an account, in which the advance of money was dated 24th Jan 06. Not in dispute that they gave us the money. However, the PoC also contains an agreement and a promissory note for the amount, but dated 21/6/06 (i.e. 5 months after the money was forwarded). My partner (who is one of the defendants in this case) thinks it may not have been dated at the time of signing, and that this date has been added later by someone else. I know it's a long shot, but can we get them on a technicality if they have falsely introduced a random date?

Hello again In this ongoing dispute with a certain brewer, we have reason to suppose that the date appearing on the signed agreement for the advance is NOT the date when it was actually signed. If we could prove this, does it mean that the agreement itself is unenforceable? Professional advice would be highly appreciated, and as soon as possible Thanks in advance BW

Hi Caro Thanks for your interest. The £13K in dispute arises from some unpaid invoices from the period after my partner left the business, and for "unlawful retention of goods" to the tune of £10K, which Marstons say relates to the cellar equipment they installed (rather than it being commissioned by my partner and her ex) when they first started supplying beers to the pub. We are hoping to demonstrate to the judge (the adjourned hearing is now set for 2nd Feb, but the papers have to be submitted by this Friday) that (a) my partner and her ex never saw, or signed, a contract or agreement outlining a penalty clause that would become active in the event of them either selling the pub, or changing beer supplier, (b) that the amount of £10K is entirely arbitrary, and therefore unenforceable, © they have never asked for their goods back (so how can they be retained unlawfully), and (d) that it is entirely standard industry practice for brewers to replace each other's equipment without any liability to the licensee. If you have any other pointers, i'd be most grateful to hear them. Cheers

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Hi Is anyone able to help me on this. We have to get our submissions to the Court by next Friday. Time is running out!!!! Thanks in advance

Dear All As some of you may recall, my partner and I were up in Court a couple of weeks ago to try to set aside a default judgement made in June against her and her ex by Marstons brewery re: non-payment of a £20K loan, and for unlawful retention of goods amounting to £10K. Some of the details of this case are immaterial, so i shall spare you! There was no dispute regarding the £20K; my partner acknowledged that she and her ex had been made jointly and severally liable for the loan, and the judge made the interim charge against our property final in the sum of £20K, but adjourned the hearing in the matter of the extra sum (which is in total about £13K) until around Christmas, as our barrister argued reasonable prospect of success in us being able to defend said amount, but that the claimant (Marstons) had not issued details of the original claim early enough for us to form a defence. We are now compiling our defence for this case, as we have been advised by the solicitor to keep our legal costs down at this stage, to save them for later hearings. She feels we should be able to defend with the witness statements and other documentation we have at our disposal. Our defence is based on the outright assertion, by both my partner and her ex, that Marstons cannot produce a true signed copy of an agreement stating [our] liability for these goods. They will not be able to produce this, as no such document exists. They never signed anything in this regard, unlike the £20K loan, which is now no longer in dispute. SO, we need to know what happens next, so that we can assess when best to employ a good counsel. As this hearing will be continuation of an adjourned hearing to set aside (part of) the original judgement, am i correct in assuming that it cannot result in this disputed amount being struck out immediately? However, if this part of the judgement is set aside, assuming the judge believes us to have reasonable prospect of successful defence of the original claim, it is like we are back to the original claim hearing (which we did not attend due to court papers not being served at our present address - a pathetic flaw in the system, if you want my opinion!), where the burden of proof will be on Marstons to show that there IS a document with my partner's autograph on it, accepting liability for the goods concerned. Is this correct? If they decide not to challenge our defence that there is no signed document at the upcoming set-aside hearing, CAN the disputed amount be struck out, or do we have to make an application to the court to have this done, and attend a further costly hearing? Not wishing to put the cart before the horse, but IF it turned out that there was no documentary evidence to support the original claim for this disputed amount, and hence the subsequent judgement, could we have a case against Marstons for attempting to obtain money by deception, and subsequent damages? Just a thought. Many thanks in advance for your help here, as always. Best wishes to all.

Thanks for that comment. We are just trying to keep our legal bills down by doing as much evidence gathering as we can. So can you tell me if there is a public record of County Court actions taken by a particular party? Thanks again

Hi x20, and anyone else who may be interested and able to help. Yesterday we were in Court, and didn't go too well, but could have been worse. It all centred on whether we (when i say we, i mean my partner, but we are in this together!) had a reasonable prospect of success in defending the original judgment. As i mentioned before, there was an element (£20K) which she acknowledges she is liable for, and an element (£13K) which is in dispute. The DJ refused to set aside the entire judgment, but agreed to adjourn proceedings so that we could formulate a defence in respect of the disputed £13K, thereby implying, we assume, that he believed we may have a case. We had only received knowledge of what this alleged £13K consisted of a short time prior to the hearing, and thus had not had time to submit a defence in this matter. In view of the above decision by the judge, he decreed that a charge be finalised on our property in the sum of £20K, but that the remaining £13K would remain as an interim charge, subject to the outcome of the adjourned proceedings. We did not oppose this. OK, so we now need to prove that my partner and her ex did not sign any agreement regarding the terms under which the brewery would install new cellar equipment. They allege unlawful retention of goods. However, we assert that (a) no agreement was signed outlining what would happen to the equipment in the event of a sale of the pub, or simply choosing to switch supplier, and (b) it is the industry standard that cellar refits are carried out when a new supplier is selected, and the equipment is regarded as a donation as a gesture of goodwill in return for selling their products. A couple of questions for anyone still awake: 1. Is there a listing (ideally online) of County Court proceedings issued in England, that can be searched by Claimant's name, and which would outline the particulars of each claim? We want to know if the brewery has tried this thing before, or whether we are a test case. 2. The original judgment was against my partner (defendant 2) and her ex (defendant 1). Are we correct in assuming that IF the £13K in dispute is struck from the original judgment at our future hearing, that it will also no longer apply to Defendant 1? (i.e. he will now only be liable for £20K). Many thanks in advance for your help.

OK, thanks for that info. Maybe the DJ will be unhappy with the way the original claim was constructed, and allow a set-aside, but i'm not getting my hopes up! He may also be interested to learn why the Claimant refused an offer by my partner's ex to pay them back in substantial instalments, and why they have not chased putting a charge on HIS property as well/instead. Would the mention that he is currently awaiting set-up of an IVA to include this creditor be any reason to set the case aside, i wonder? Anyway, that is probably by-the-by now. We'll take advice as to the best course of action from our barrister tomorrow, but i may come and bother you as to how best to initiate proceedings against him in due course. Meanwhile, MANY thanks for your help, and i will keep you posted with the outcome. Cheers Ian

Hi, and first may i say thanks for responding. OK, i'll answer things in order. No, i have no involvement in the debt. Is it not true that a CCJ against someone with whom i share a mortgage and a charge on my property would affect my credit rating? We signed to say we would be Joint Tenants, NOT Tenants in Common (i.e., no unequal divisions apply). The "indemnity agreement" was suggested by her former solicitor, and means that should she lose this case, we would be able to recoup our losses. We are now aware that this will not be accepted by the court as a reason to strike the judgement re: her involvement. There were other circumstances regarding the sale of the pub (which was going ahead at the time this agreement was signed), which meant that had she insisted on her half of the proceeds, her ex would not have been able to afford the place he now owns. Before you say "aaaahhhhh", the relevance is that he bought the pub that HIS buyer owned, and had he not done so, the sale of the pub would have fallen through, and he would have gone bust. We have not yet tried to enforce the indemnity, but her ex is aware that we will do so, maybe via a charge on his pub! Do you think my actions would have a chance of holding off the charge being applied Thanks again

Another PS. I apologise if this is not the correct forum for this question. If not, could someone advise me where else to go?? Ta BW

Dear All I have noticed some really useful advice being doled out by the kind people on here, so i have registered in the hope that someone can help me too. A swift answer to my problem would be much appreciated, as i have a court hearing tomorrow at 10! I'll try to be as brief as possible, but get all the facts down. My partner and i have been told of a charge being placed on our property. We are joint tenants. This arises from a judgement made in June against her and her ex by a brewery, for failure to pay back an advance that was made to them. She had previously had her ex sign an indemnity agreement to say that he would be responsible for all debts on the sale of their pub, for which she would relinquish all claim to proceeds from the sale. That gave her reasonable excuse not to tell Marstons where she had moved to, and so was unaware of any court action against them. We have a hearing to set aside the judgement on that basis (and that the amount is also in dispute) tomorrow. We hope we would be successful, and that the charge on the property will be invalid due to there being no judgement in place. OK, here is my problem. As i said, she and i are joint tenants in a property we bought last December, with £50K of my own money, and the rest a mortgage. It is being suggested by her solicitor that i make a statement to the court tomorrow to the effect that i have no involvement in the debt, and that it would be unfair to put a charge on the property, thus affecting MY credit rating. Although we are joint tenants, would it be useful to mention my contribution to the purchase? WHAT SHOULD I WRITE IN MY STATEMENT TO THE COURT??? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. PS Can they force us to sell our house to recoup the charge??? PS