Backdoor HFO CCJ and CO - old Virgin MBNA card debt

[mini mee]

they took me to court for ?credit card debt. i dont know what card. they did this after telling me that they accepted my monthly payment offer and had banked it. they got a charge against my house and applied to land registry. i have appealed this but there was another court date in feb and this was accepted by the judge. i have had next to no paperwork from this co and have never seen anything to say what the original debt was. due to personal grief i was in a bit of a mess at the time and agreed terms for a "quiet life"! any ideas anyone what i can do now. the land registry sent me a letter telling me basically not to appeal as they would charge me the earth and i wouldn't win! helpful.

[debt4get]

ok first things first do not panic

you need to send a letter to the debt collection company asking for a copy of the CCA that you signed, you must find out if the debt they are chasing you for is actually yours, these companies have a nasty habit of just going for the money without any legal claim to it. I cannot find the template for the letter but if you look at a few threads it should be there somewhere, they have 12 working days to give you the info, make sure you send special delivery, include a £1 for the fee and do not sign the letter with your signature, who are the debt company u dealing with?

[mini mee]

it is HFo/turnbull rutherford solicitors

[mini mee]

thanx have sent cca off now. do they have to reply tho as they have already got the charge order against my house?

[mr.ton]

the land registry sent me a letter telling me basically not to appeal as they would charge me the earth and i wouldn't win! helpful.

 

You go ahead & make an almighty fuss anyway, dont be bullied into being silent

[debt4get]

regardless of whether they have charge order or not they still have to abide by your request, they need to prove that you owe the debt, you say you have no recollection of it, so let them prove its yours, have you made any arrangements to pay them at all? you said you'd had a monthly pay offer which they had taken

[mini mee]

yes i made monthly offer which they accepted and was paying by direct debit. that is why they said they weren't going to court and then did just that without me knowing.

[Docman]

Hi Mini

 

Unfortunately, a CCA request won't be much good at this stage. HFO have already gone to court, and obtained a final charging order. From what you have said, the chances are that HFO have done so without producing any evidence - if they had any in the first place, which I doubt.

 

You will need to apply to have the charging order rescinded and the original judgment set aside. It won't be easy as you haven't challenged the claim earlier, but it is possible. There are a number of grounds but it is difficult to advise without asking a lot of detailed questions. I suggest you have a word with your local Citizens Advice Bureau and let them have all the details. It may be that you will need a solicitor to present your case at the court.

 

One other thing, have HFO said anything about enforcing the charging order?

[mini mee]

not as yet but it only happened very recently. i didnt appeal because they told me it wouldn't be going to court as i had offered them payments which they accepted

[djdave]

What evidence did they provide in Court?

 

All might not be lost...

[diction]

Can HFO get charging orders without a homeowner knowing anything about it? Surely the court would write and notify you?

 

This is scary stuff.

[mini mee]

had awful experience with t&r which culminated in them achieving an order against my property last nov. heard nothing since until yesterday had debt collector note through my door threatening me with bailiffs and warrant if didn,t contact him. (didn't know it was t&r at the time). upshot of all this was that they now want me to make payments on this debt as well. where do i stand?

[psmith64]

had awful experience with t&r which culminated in them achieving an order against my property last nov. heard nothing since until yesterday had debt collector note through my door threatening me with bailiffs and warrant if didn,t contact him. (didn't know it was t&r at the time). upshot of all this was that they now want me to make payments on this debt as well. where do i stand?

 

Hi Mini Mee - I would be interested to know if they got their CCJ on you by default - ie did you go to court and defend it, or did you just bury your head in the sand and do nothing - if it was the last it would appear this is what they hope for.

 

I am currently having a run in with them, and if you look around for my posts, got the same threats, but for the moment have got them holding off.

 

I am not sure what you can do now that have a charging order, but hopefully some of the other good people on here will.

 

Out of interest, how much did they get against you on the CCJ

[mini mee]

i didn't go to court because i didn't know until they had done it. no ccj as far as i am aware they went straight for a charging order. i had an agreement with them to pay monthly instalments but they never sent me their bank details and when they finally contacted me again to say they were taking me to court i was on hols

[FunkyFox]

Hi, fancy meeting you here:)

 

Is this the same case as this http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/133477-hfo-got-charging-order.html

 

If so did you take any of the advice given then about trying to get judgement set aside. If not the last 6 months you have lost may have cost you.

 

What is the basis of your complaint. Are you saying the debt isn't yours or something else. If you went to Court in February and the CO was made final I struggle to see how you can now apply to have judgement set aside, nearly a year later unless there is something i'm missing.

 

Please try and fill in the blanks but as I said the time to act was earlier this year.

 

As for the debt collectors calling card does it say who from.? If so write to them using the template letter advising you don't want anyone to call. Also are you sure the card is about the same debt? As far as I am aware they can't enforce a judgement with a charging order and then try another means of enforcement as well (although I'm sure someone will correct me if thats not correct), so make sure that its not a different debt.

 

On the plus side, if you have no interntion of selling your house then they won't get their money for a good while yet.

[mini mee]

yes it is the same case. i did what was suggested contacting the land registry and filed but they won cos they had order. court case wwas in dec 07 not feb and didn,t know about it cos diana nelson told me she was cancelling the case as we agreed payment terms. she already had the case booked and simply went ahead behind my back! i only knew about it afterwards. the debt is mine but i dont know how much the original debt is as not had cca reply. the person yesterday said he was acting for hfo and they can ask for payments with a charging order in place as well. i dont know!!

[FunkyFox]

Hi minimee, Sorry I'm confused now. In your original thread nobody suggested appealing to Land Regsitry. They are only a recording agency and will only put on your title what the court instructs.

 

You were advised to apply to have the judgement set aside and the co discharged, which I guessing didn't happen.

 

In your other post you said you appealed it? and there was another case in feb which didnt go your way. what was the basis of this case?

 

Do you want to try and get the CO removed or do you just want to know if they are allowed to ask you for money now that they have secured judgement for your debt against your home. Unless the orginal order said so I wouldn't think so but will try and find out.

 

Please bare in mind that even if judgement is set aside you will still have to defend the claim again, if you don't have a defence the outcome may well be the same and you will incurr more costs. If you don't have to pay anything now, there are no more costs or interest the best thing to do may be to get the collector off your back and then relax knowing the debt is taken care of.

[surfaceagentx20]

I suspect that your knowledge of the existence of the judgment for this long will preclude you from obtaining an order setting aside the judgment. The charging order alone goes back to November 2007.

 

Applications to set aside have to be made promptly. A Judge would probbly decide you hadn't acted promptly. He might be persuaded to turn a blind eye to these requirements if you persuaded him that [a] there was a good excuse for your failure to apply promptly and, above all, your application showed the existence of good grounds for supposing you would suceed at a trial if the judgment was set aside and you were allowed to defend it. If say, it could be shown the debt was unenforceable at the time proceedings were issued, the Judge might just turn that blind eye. However, I'm not so certain you would be able to do this if with the assistance of a peson who appears to be a debt counsellor or similar, you were proposing to agree instalment arangements.

 

How much was the judgment worth when it was entered? This is important in terms of your exposure, to the type of bailiff which can be employed and the calculation of interest on your judgment.

 

As for the bailiff, there is nothing which precludes a judgment creditor who has secured his judgment on the debtor's property from beginning alternative enforcement steps. The creditor is merely obliged to reduce the value of the judgment debt by whatever is recovered so that, in the case of the charge on the property, the sum it is intended to protect will tumble by whatever sums are paid in redution of the judgment debt.

 

You can still seek an order for the payment of the debt by instalments.

 

x20

[mini mee]

i am confused too! the charging order was granted in dec 07. it was applied in feb 08. no other court case. my defence is that i have no cca still. the agreement with diana nelson was in place and she said the court case would be dropped. it wasn't but i was unaware of that until i had the letter saying that the co was applied. i originally wanted to know how to get the order dismissed and didn't find out. then i had to have emergency surgery in mar 08 and obviously it took 2nd place. i decided to leave the order as i have no intention in selling my property soon and i thought i was safe against any other threats from this company. until yesterday when this charmer appeared demanding some arrangement to pay as well as the chargin order in place.

[surfaceagentx20]

Can you explain what you mean by saying:

 

my defence is that i have no cca still

 

Are you saying your defence is that you never entered into a consumer credit agreement with the Claimant?

 

x20

[mini mee]

the charging order was in dec 07 and diana nelson is turnbulls rottweiller in chief not a debt counsellor

[mini mee]

they have never responded to my request for the cca. i thought that meant they were not able to proceed

[surfaceagentx20]

Ha, we're speaking over each other.

 

OK I got the date now. Earlier you had said the Claimant had succeeded in 'achieving an order against my property last nov', not there's much in the way of difference.

 

Right, so it was a representative from the Claimant's solicitor who said the case would be dropped after you had agreed an instalment arrangement. Did the failure to stick to the instalment arrangement then lead to the application for a charging order?

 

Can you answer some of the questions about the age and value of the judgment please? Also, when did you apply for a copy of the agreement and when did they begin legal proceedings against you? This has a bearing on whether the creditor can proceed.

 

x20

[FunkyFox]

Thank you for clarifying that. x20 I am suprised (although nothing should anymore) that once a charging order has been secured a creditor can still come after someone for payment. So in theory, if a charging order has been secured a creditor could still ask for an attachment of earnings or a warrant for balliffs? How common is that in practice?

 

EDIT - if the charing order was nov/dec '07, what was the hearing in feb '08 you refered to?

[surfaceagentx20]

Not that common. But obtaining a charging order is not akin to recovering the judgment. It is merely securing it. So if after obtaining the charging order the creditor learns the debtor has found an income, acquired a valuable asset like a car, won the lottery or even become the owner of another house (ie grounds for 2nd charging order), the creditor can adopt further enforcement procedures.

 

That's not to say the creditor would do that; just that he 's not precluded from having a go.

 

x20