My partner and I rented out a property about 2.5 years ago. It looked OK but on closer inspection it was riddled with damp, when you took the wall paper off there were big holes and chunks out of the plaster etc. We spent a fortune doing it up to a better standard - it was a labour of love for my our new business, so it was worth it. Its a tattoo business. We found out 3.5 weeks ago that the property is up for sale, along with the flats on top of and beside it and the carpark (1.5 acres altogether) and whilst the advert talks about the tenants and the rental they bring in £19K altogether, it also says that the leases are available to view and that the land is 'ideal for development'. Its up for £375,000 so if someone were to take this on they would have to wait the best part of 20 years for their money back. the advert is quite clearly selling all the land for someone to build flats. Thing is, the landlord and letting agent didn't even let us know it was up for sale! We only found out because a) business went from booming to dead, in about a week - in our busiest season. And then because someone came in clutching a rightmove printout with the shop on it and saying that everybody thought I had closed up - all the photos are inside of the shop, along with all our equipment. it looks like we have shut down and they are selling! Add to this a man came into the shop and was talking on his phone about planning permission and wanting to look in every nook and cranny when a customer was there. The agents say we should have realised as they sent someone in to take photos. But the photographer said that they were not selling it and that it was for valuation. Now the agents are saying they sent a letter, not received and very probably not sent. She also says we should have refused the photographer access to take photos inside, but why would we if the landlord was getting a valuation? Anyway, cut to the point - we've left. We've only given 2 weeks notice til the next due date for rent and this is less than the month required. It makes no difference though as because everyone thinks we are closed, they have gone elsewhere, I have lost regular customers and bookings and am not earning any money. They have effectively destroyed my business. I've lost most of what I earned. Its going to take a long time to build back up and I can't do it here. The agent and landlord say we are not due any money back. I just want my deposit back, (we are only talking 500 quid) but he is not having it, I can't start again without the months deposit I put down. We spent all that time and money on it and they have just gone behind my back. At least with a bit of notice I could have put advance warnings out on our webpage / FB. Is there anything I can do?

Hi this is a bit long winded so please bear with me. The gist of it is we feel we have been forced into a service contract with a company who appear to continually break our machine. They have given us a choice - either pay the £600+ per year or they will charge us for each and every call out, including all parts and labour, even if it appears that they are the ones that caused subsequent damage. We have received independent advice and written to them and their response is : Pay or we will pass your debt to a collection agency. And thats it. No lines of communication open. I do not expect to get anything for free but I do not want a contract with people who make a problem worse and nor do I see why I should pay for their mistakes! Full story below. We run a small piercing studio and recently our autoclave began leaking a bit, it still worked but we needed to get it fixed properly. (An autoclave is like a pressure cooker that sterilises all the equipment at incredibly high temperatures) We called the company who makes it who agreed to come out and when they arrived they said it would be cheaper and easier to have a service contract with them as the call out cost would also be high. We verbally agreed this over the phone. 21st June an engineer came out and gave it a full service, he was there for ages and took everything apart. It sounded like it was whirring as he left and I asked him about it but he assured me it was fine and 'normal'. This noise got steadily worse. On the 26th June we were sent the service contract documents. 1st July - smoke was billowing out of machine. Called out again, couldn't use machine and obviously had to buy disposable parts as the stuff we have couldn't be sterilised. 5th July - company came out. Wouldn't start work until contract was signed (in retrospect a mistake). They found parts were 'damaged heatsticks' and replaced them. End of July, machine had stopped working again. 1st August we called, 5th August they came out. This time it was apparently the fuse holder. We wrote to complain and this is the reply we have received , their reply was embedded in bits of the email we had written to them. Thank you for your email. I have spoken to my MD, the 2 engineers that attended have worked for Excel for over 5 years and are both fully trained and more than competent. On the first occasion the 21 June 2013 you had a full service carried out under your new service contract plan by XXXXX, he replaced all parts that needed to be replaced under the service and tested the machine and all worked well. The second visit was carried out some 2 weeks later by XXXXXX, on this occasion it was found that both heatsticks were open circuit, this has nothing to do with the service that was carried out a few weeks earlier. However this was repaired free of charge under your service contract. The third visit was carried out on 5 August, again by XXXX, on this occasion it was found that the fuse holder was faulty. This has no bearing on either of the past 2 jobs. Again this was repaired free of charge under your service contract. We can once again assure you that both XXXX & XXXX are fully trained and competent engineers. It seems that on this occasion that you were unlucky that after the service 2 repairs needed to be carried out but this is the benefit of being on our service contract plan. These calls were not charged for and repairs were carried as quickly as possible. We hope this answers your questions and look forward to receiving your payment by return. Kind regards Since the first call out we have asked for further verification of what they did and have repeatedly asked about the query we gave to the engineer on the first visits. We received this (again embedded as notes in an email that we had sent to them) The service was carried out on the 21 June 2013 this is some 6 months ago I can not expect the engineer to remember comments made at this time. There is no adverse comments reported on the worksheet dated 21/06/13 only a standard service was carried out. The only ‘normal’ noise we can assume the engineer commented on was either the vacuum pump operating or the steam generator unit injecting steam into the chamber. Your breakdown was reported 2 weeks after the original service so we can assume from this that the unit was working perfectly well between the 21/06/13 & 02/07/13. On this visit the engineer found the heatsticks to be faulty and replaced free of charge under our service contract agreement. The machine was left working well. The next fault was reported on 05/08/13 this was due to a faulty fuse holder again this was replaced free of charge under our service contract agreement. This is the major benefit of being under service contract. That any non faults are carried out free of any charges This is our final correspondence on this matter. Please see our comments below in your email. If we do not receive payment within 7 working days then your account will be passed to our debt collection agency. So, do we just pay up and never use them again? Honestly, this machine has had one leak in two years and the second they get their hands on it it starts blowing up and turning off at will. We have clearly come to an impasse - we are happy to pay for the first callout and parts but not willing to pay for all the subsequent callouts nor do I want a contract with them. I do honestly believe that they have broken my machine on more than one occasion. I don't know how to deal with the debt collectors though - can they just say 'nope, you owe this, no arguments, pay up' and hand it to someone who is going to come barging in the shop? Do i need to seek legal advice? I'm sorry this is so long. I'm so stressed!

we do aim to please. And if I'm right, this is a public forum. Keeping quiets not really the aim of the game is it. Doh.

Dont forget to ask if they want fries.

Ok what about those of us who went via the OFT to claim back charges, do we rip that up and go via the courts now? I can't help thinking that judges will strike off claims as a matter of course because of this latest verdict.

Right - sorry about this non stop stream of posts. I have set the argument out in clear bullet points in chronological order with appendices attached to each point (letters received or sent). I will do the same with why I believe we can win the case. Does it make any difference that the claimants received my defence a month before they requested a stay?

So - the copies of this stuff I am doing is just for the judge and the defendant, it doesn't go to the creditor? And the third copy is just a spare in case something goes wrong. I've got a timeline here and I've marked all my documents so they are clearly recognisable but I'm not sure how to lay it out. Timeline. Reason(s) for missing Court Case Evidence for defence of court case (to show that its worth setting it aside). I was going to lay this all out so that both my boyf and the judge can see it, but not in too much detail, more like... Reason 1). Defendant informed that months stay requested to try and amicably agree claim. (Appendix A) Reason 2). etc. I haven't got a clue, I don't want to overcomplicate it either.

OK. I am happy to copy his DMP stuff over but it has all his other creditors on there. And is it OK for his creditor to see his budget? I'm not sure what to show.

Cool i will, thanks.

just one more thing - should I take my full defence stuff in? I guess if we have already lost its not 'giving anything away' is it. My defence was quite vague (we were hoping that they wouldn;t find the CSA or something else might turn up) so they don't really know what we have.

ps yes I did write to the court but never got a reply, I am turning up anyway and will stay outside if I'm not allowed in - its why I am typing up easily understandable notes for him now - in case I'm not there!

I am re-reading the reams of paperwork and trying to make sense of it all. Thanks for that link spamalot, I'll take a look at that later. I think one of the reasons the judge is seeing us is that they were supposed to issue a copy of the original loan agreement, a copy of the default notice and evidence of service of the default notice. I did not receive evidence of service of the default notice, the copy they sent of the legal agreement is a microfiched copy thats tiny and at the end of March they wrote to say they couldn't find the original signed page of the customer agreement. Also, they wrote to us asking for correspondence in a way to settle the debt, we wrote to them 3 times without the courtesy of any response. Also, they asked for a months stay on their application form - again, thought this would delay it by a month. I have all the letters and forms to back this up. So - to take with me. The reasons for missing the case in the first place. The reasons we think we have a chance to win it if it is set aside. His financial data (DMP etc) to show that he is paying every spare penny he has and doctors note to say he has severe depression. Do I need to do copies for all 3 parties? Can it be just in note form?

Hi - anyone? Its on Wednesday so I need to start now. Do I need to provide packs for the judge and the creditor? Shall i just take everything with me (in some kind of 'sequence of events'?) I'm not really sure of what the court holds - i know its not a jury but what is it? And will the judge understand that we have no legal background? any help appreciated, thank you

Well we applied already and we have been given the hearing. Its a small claim against a CCJ issued against my partner because he went onto a DMP and paid less per month on an unsecured loan (the full thing is on here somewhere but it was a bit long for this question), therefore defaulting. We had issued a written defence and sent it in ready for the hearing. However, although we applied for court mediation and a delay of a month, they also applied for a stay of one month. our original court date was in April - stupidly we assumed a stay of a month meant the court date would also be moved along by the same period (or that confirmation would be sent out nearer the time - I know i know!) - in the meanwhile my partners shifts were set and he thought that the court date wouldn't apply and couldn't attend - they cannot change shifts lightly as he opens up a tube station in London on early shifts. Add to that shortly before the court date we received a letter stating that the creditors could not find the original signed customer agreement, only a small microfiched page somewhere and we also thought that might cause a delay. basically we are idiots and have never been to court before. I thought we were doing everything right and then we received a letter showing a CCJ had been awarded against him in our abcense. So I need to gather stuff together for the hearing to set it aside but I don't know what to take.

We are going to court to ask for a Set Aside as we (foolishly) missed the original court hearing and didn't get to offer our defence (which was precarious to say the least to be honest). We want it set aside back to the dispute level so that we can then attend court and offer the defence up, (so at least if it fails he can produce his DMP payments and a reasonable amount per month can be worked out, rather than charges on our property, which is the option they are pursuing now). My question is - For the court date next week, do we just need to show a good reason for having missed the original date? Or do we in fact now need to prove that we have a good case to win the dispute? In short, what evidence am i taking with me? Stuff that shows why we missed the first case or stuff to show our case against the CCJ in the first place? I just know we're going to be laughed out of court but we've got this far, might as well keep trying.

ooh that is a really informative thread. I didn't realise that paying them via the CCCS guidelines (and continuing to keep paying them) would be looked on favourably. Shall i take all his stuff in re his CCCS budget? The reason he got into debt is because he is bi-polar and this all occurred before he was diagnosed. Can i use that? I'm probably a bit ahead of myself really as i still need to persuade him to set it aside back to the dispute stage. The fault really is ours, through ignorance really, although I will be avoiding mentioning that. So far he'll be saying That due to a months stay in which he was encouraged to communicate with the creditors he made the assumption that the court case would also be moved back, therefore missing the opportunity to defend himself, despite putting in a written defence. That he received a letter from the defendant saying they did not have an original copy of the credit agreement and that he thought this would also bring a delay about in the date (it said they were going to continue looking for it) i know its just a court case, there are far worse things that could happen but I'm worried about looking stupid.

Hi The judge has granted a hearing to see about setting case aside. What can we expect (and can I go with him). Is it just the judge and the creditor. What will we need to do to get it back to dispute level? Will we need to take written evidence? i'm still not convinced we'll get it, seeing as we missed the original hearing through not really being sure about the date!

what type of hearing should I go for? a telephone one? If I apply for no hearing, is the worst that can happen is he actually says no, you do need to have one? it won't get thrown out will it for daring to ask for them to take it on my evidence? ps that paragraph you have written sounds way more professional than mine, thanks very much

right I've done that then, I've said i want it set aside as I was not aware the court hearing would be held on the 22nd April and I did not have the opportunity to defend myself. and I've then indicated that further details are available in the witness statement box. thus removing the need for a draft order (hopefully). He hasn't ticked any of the boxes in 3, he doesn't receive benefits, he works full time, but all of his spare money goes straight into a DMP, which if broken, will result in more cases from clients as the agreements will be broken. I don't think they will buy it but I will give it a go.

i just need to find out what a draft order should be - I've not got the foggiest what I am supposed to be attaching! I shall read that, thank you I also need to figure out whether I am using a statement of case (my particulars of claim or defence) or written evidence on this form. Its the statement of case isn't it? He's buggered really, he hasn't really got a defence!

OK I am attempting to fill in the form. the bit i am confused about is 'What order are you asking the court to make and why?' I'm not sure what to write here - and it asks if I have attached a draft! I think I am asking for a judgement to be set aside and to give the reasons is that right? I'm not sure what draft I am supposed to attach. If yes i'm going to say - in that section - that I was under the impression (from the claimants application) that a stay had been applied for, for a month, for mediation and although I sent correspondence to try and settle the matter out of court a reply was never received. I also did not receive original documentation (signed agreement) from the claimant who wrote at the end of March to say they could not find it. I believed that the court would set a new date to allow for the stay or make me aware the the original documentation had not been handed in. I was not aware that the court date was to be held on the 22nd April. I would not have been able to attend this date due to my shifts at work and I was unable to attend and have the opportunity to defend myself. does this sound like the ramblings of a mad man? Also, I've ticked no hearing but there is a warning at the bottom which states most cases involve a hearing. Will ticking 'no hearing' go against me. Any advice appreciated. thanks.

bump

Bump I am looking at the forms (N244 and a fee remission form) and I am stuck. I need to finish these by lunch so i can send them off. It asks whether I have attached a draft of the order I am applying for - i dont understand. It asks what type of hearing I want (telephone or court hearing or no hearing - which is best?). It asks for level of judge, fixed trial date and who should be served. I've got to provide evidence and a statement and I'm not even sure what excuse I'm giving for missing it in the first place. Can anybody help? for the expenses form - to try and get a fee remission - it only takes into account his earnings and not his outgoings. On paper he looks quite wealthy - its the debts which are bleeding him dry! Does this mean he won't get a fee remission?

ps if we do go for a judgement to be set aside what reason could we give?

I read them, didn't really understand what it meant however i would assume that the part that particularly applies to me is the following section Cases where the court may set aside or vary judgment entered under Part 12 13.3 (1) In any other case, the court may set aside(GL) or vary a judgment entered under Part 12 if – (a) the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim; or (b) it appears to the court that there is some other good reason why – (i) the judgment should be set aside or varied; or (ii) the defendant should be allowed to defend the claim. (2) In considering whether to set aside(GL) or vary a judgment entered under Part 12, the matters to which the court must have regard include whether the person seeking to set aside the judgment made an application to do so promptly. (Rule 3.1(3) provides that the court may attach conditions when it makes an order) (Article 19(4) of the Service Regulation (which has the same meaning as in rule 6.31(e)) applies to applications to appeal a judgment in default when the time limit for appealing has expired.) so have i got a good enough reason to set judgment aside? I'm not sure we have, I don't think he would have won if he went to the court on the 22nd but it was a chance to question the lack of an original loan form and point out that he was on a DMP. I still think he would have ended up with a CCJ as the defence we had was flimsy at best (and vague to boot, I had no idea what it meant!) i've heard there is an option of redetermination hearing if we accept the judgement, what do you think of this possibility?