Threatened with arrest..please help

[samdan2cats]

Hi guys,

 

To cut a long story short i am out of the country currently and I have tried to deal with Creation consumer finanace to make a full and final settlement last year before i left the country but they wouldn't accept anything. Consequently they took me to court and as i am not in the country obviously they didn't get any response from me. I have finally had mail forwarded on and the lastest letter states that

"if we do not hear from you we will make a further application to the court for an oral examination. This is requiring you to attend court and provide full details of your income and assets and liabilities including the amount owed to the above parties (of which there are two, mortgage company and home owner loan company). Should you fail to attend the oral examination, you should be aware that you may be at risk of being held in contempt of court for which the court may issue a warrant for your arrest".

 

That is the letter verbatum. I know they are using alot of 'may' in their threat but i have never heard of this before and as i'm not in the country obviously i won't be attending court!

My question is can they actually do this oas i have never heard of this before but this company plays hard ball and were a nightmare to deal with. Their solicitors are Greenhalghs of Wigan.

Any help and advice would be much appreciated as i do not want a warrant out for my arrest nor do i want them to know where i am either.

What do i do?

Anyone else had any dealings with these solicitors?

thanks in advance

[flyingdoc]

I would say that this is clearly in breach of section 40 of the administration of justice act.

 

There is NO court that would issue an arrest warrent for failure to respond to a civil debt.

[samdan2cats]

cheers, i thought that to but is it possible...these guys play real hardball!!

[flyingdoc]

if the court HAVE issued a summons and you fail to appear they may give a judgement in the credit companies favour by default.

[kitchenboy]

Hi,

 

Okay, I had to attend an oral examination as a director of my company which ceased trading, this was with HMRC. Greenhalghs managed to get themselves on TV a little while ago and came across as a right bunch of maggots. This is definately a threat.

 

Any summons to appear under oath for questioning has to be served on you personally. You can be arrested for contempt of court if you do not attend once served with an order. As the consequences for the debtor not appearing are very serious, the creditor has to follow strict protocol and an affidavit of service has to be filed with the court. The order can't be left at your address with someone else nor can it be posted through a letter box.

 

The reason for an oral exam is that it is an effective way to establish the financial position of the debtor. The actual oral exam is not scary at all, you just fill in a form, a court officer then goes over it with you and the other side if they attend, you swear an oath and that's it, no Judge.

 

I think you can relax a little the onus is on them to serve the order on you and to prove it under oath. Also if by chance you are served they have to provide sufficient travel expenses to and from the court but only if you ask within 7 days of being served. They have to swear an affidavit as to wheather they were asked for travel expenses. You can then get Greenhalghs to pay for a return plane ticket.

 

However look at getting your ccj set aside on your return as you never received the the court papers in the first place.

[samdan2cats]

thanks for that kitchen boy....although we are not planning on coming back to the UK but if they want to pay for a ticket we can use it for a visit i guess!! Whats the chances of them serving it across the Atlantic do you think???? I got the original court order way back last year and my wife filled it in and signed it on my behalf offering a payment but nothing was done as far as i know and the letters are fairly recent which my wife has now burned as i'm not in the country and neither of us live at the address which the letters are being sent to as our house has been repossessed, we are only getting the letters as we have our post redirected to a relatives address in the UK and they post some on to us. They are pretty nasty though these guys and threaten also according to my wife....the original company was really bad to deal with also so please be on your guard anyone who has to deal with them. How does this stand getting the judgement set aside if my wife filled and signed the original court papers would that stand as the debt is in my name only. if there was anything else the judgement must have been got by default.

[palomino]

I would say that this is clearly in breach of section 40 of the administration of justice act.

 

There is NO court that would issue an arrest warrent for failure to respond to a civil debt.

 

Hang on a mo!

 

This isn't the claim from the creditor. This is an application from the creditor to the court requiring the defendant to attend court for an oral examination. This isn't optional and the defendant can be arrested for non-compliance.

The form that the Court will require to be completed is here - http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/ex140_0403.pdf - so the defendant will need to bring all the appropriate paperwork with him/her.

 

In this case the fact that the defendant is now resident overseas complicates things a bit. Not sure how this can handled, although writing to the court when the summons is received would seem to me to be the best option.

 

[EDIT] Post in haste ... I see kitchenboy has already covered this. Interesting note about the creditor paying for transport - I wasn't aware of this.

Edited March 12, 2009 by palomino

[kitchenboy]

The rules regarding the personal service are strict, so if creation obtained the judgement in their name they have to personally serve it themselves and then swear an oath. If they do track you down someone would have to get on a plane and physically find you. Then there are certain rules regarding personal service outside of the jurisdiction of UK courts such as they would need to make a High court application to do this and would have 4 months to serve within Europe and 6 months outside of Europe, and then effectively paying for your holiday back to the UK, chances of these scumbags doing this, slim to F... all.

 

The only reason they want to get you in for questioning is because the CCJ is not being paid, and they want to know what assets you have. i.e they want a charging order or an attachment of earnings, (saying that you might want to take the precaution of making sure any money is moved from your UK bank accounts).

 

Unfortunately as they have a ccj it will never lapse so the debt is not covered under the act of limitations, although it will disappear off your record after 6 years. It will probably now bounce around between the different pound **** dca's as they will each try to get their pound of flesh.

 

Morally you tried to do the right thing and settle your debt, but through their own greed they have now shot themselves in the foot. Enjoy the fact that you are now causing them a major headache.

 

With regards to a set aside it will be very difficult as it was acknowledged, but you may have an argument in that if the ccj wasn't issued within 30 days and you left before it was issued you where not given a chance to pay it off because if the ccj is paid within that time frame it is automatically set aside.

[samdan2cats]

cheers guys this just keeps getting better! I think i need to dig out all their paper work as i'm not sure they did the court thing by the book.

However, do they not have to check that we are still at the address where they are sending letters as the house has been repossessed anyways so they cant get a charging order on it. What happens to a court order when you are no longer in the country and they can't find, does it just disappear after 6 years and if so is it the date from when it was issued?

Whats the best thing to do, should i just sit tight and wait it out or should i contact the court in writing, however, if i do that that means i am acknowledging the paper work and they will be like rottweilers then and try and track me down. I would pay some off this debt but they are such nasty people to deal with i am reluctant to do anything about it.

I really don't want an arrest warrant out for me as this may affect our residency which we are currently applying for. I can't believe they are going this far its only a debt for 7k i think although they will have bumped that up with solicitors costs and charges. What's the chances of the court agreeing to this do you think, i've never heard of this before has anyone else?

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[bazaar]

So the letters are being sent via your old address?

Ronnie Biggs only went back to blighty because he was ill, so stop worrying.

If these idiots know you're in a different country, what real good is it to them to go to a Judge and say so?

At the end of the day, if you ever return and you get served something you dont know about, you can apply to have it set aside with the mitigating circumstances being you were residing elsewhere.

As for the oral exam, they have dentists in the new world too:D.

Have you actually had anything from the court? Or is it just these monkeys threatening court to try and get you to pay?