Cohens and CCJ

[gh2008]

She applied for set aside, had to send more forms back to court about her benefits, waiting for them to respond.

 

In the meantime - CL start to play silly games:

Pre-Bailiff? Phone number is Boston Lincolnshire, and relates to a transport company when Googled.

Why confuse the issue further with a Northern Ireland address?

Should also mention, came in a brown envelope, second class stamp - no visit at all!

 

Love the 'brick wall' pattern - sums up the feeling we have about them!

 

Just to let you know, this is a firm of bailiffs. They can (and will) try and collect whilst any application for set-aside/appeal is going on.

[gh2008]

Ida asked me to pop in ..

 

Ok, re the hearing, just because you tick 'without a hearing' does not mean it will be 'without a hearing.

 

The Court clearly decided that it was '*with* a hearing' as they charged £75 which is the with hearing fee (£40 without)

The person should have been sent a notice of hearing and alarm bells should have started to ring on receipt of Cohens bundle.....

 

As to what to do now ...

 

It is difficult now, I think perhaps a visit to a local solicitor or the CAB for help as IMHO she is out of her depth even applying for a set-aside and is going to need lots of help when it comes to defending the claim.

 

Is the Judgement payable forthwith? Is it for over £600?

[gh2008]

What was in the Witness Statement for the set-aside - can you post it up?

[gh2008]

Cohens would have been sent a copy of your application by the court, and knowing you would not be attending took advantage by appearing themselves on the day, I'm interested that the court state upon hearing "council" for the claimant - I would be asking the court what exactly "council" stated.

 

Sorry I disagree, the COURT decided it needed a hearing hence the £75 fee. Both sides should have been sent a 'Notice of Hearing'

 

You will not get to see what Counsel said, but they would not have said much, probably commented on the lack of appearance by the applicant which, unless the applicant's WS was a killer the application would have been summarily dismissed.

 

Costs were quite 'conservative' that is a standard attendance fee (which would be totally expected) as opposed to punitive costs.

[gh2008]

 

The above is a genuine case I assisted in. Not too sure of its relevance here but anyway ....

 

When the claimant issues a summons and this is defended, the Judge then has to allocate the case to a suitable track, the court has no influence towards an application hearing when a defendant submits their Application Notice, the defendant specifies what they require for the application to be heard. Errrr not true, and you are confusing Claimant& Defendant, with Applicant and Respondent

 

It is the defendants choice if they wish to have their application heard at a hearing, or without a hearing, the N244 questionaire is quite specific, again not true unfortunately hillards made a genuine mistake, I'm sure had hillards known, he would have asked for the application to be heard at a hearing, where he could then have attended and acted as the Lady's lay representative, I would also think the court where the application was heard was not to far from Cleckheaton (cohens terriorty). The application should have been heard at the Defendant's(Applicant's) local Court as they are a LiP and the other side carry on business in that area. If it wasn't then that in itself would be a reason to have it set-aside

 

The court staff I believe were right in what they said, they believed there was no need to attend, the application was requested without a hearing by the defendant, miscommunication, not malice, cohens are to blame, they attended without notifying the defendant. Legal yes, ethical no.

 

The Court issued a notice of Hearing, it was up to the parties to attend

 

hillards can appeal, the appeal would then be heard by a higher level judge, the appeal has to be made within 14 days of the application hearing and I'm not sure if time is on their side, to say they were way out of their depth was unkind and demoralising.

 

I am sorry if you consider my comments unkind and demoralising - unfortunately we are dealing with reality here. We are also not dealing with the person concerned, but an advisor to that person.

 

To suggest an appeal, without knowing the defence to the original claim is, imho, irresponsible. An appeal could open the defendant to costs of £000s. As no new evidence can be used at appeal and AFAIK no evidence has been put forward by the defendant I cannot see how this will work.

 

The notes from the N244 that was filled in includes this paragraph

 

Question 5

Most applications will require a hearing and you

will be expected to attend. The court will allocate a

hearing date and time for the application. Please

indicate in a covering letter any dates that you are

unavailable within the next six weeks.

The court will only deal with the application ‘without a

hearing’ in the following circumstances.

• Where all the parties agree to the terms of the

order being asked for;

• Where all the parties agree that the court should

deal with the application without a hearing, or

• Where the court does not consider that a hearing

would be appropriate.

 

My emphasis although you will note that the Court decides when an Application will be dealt with without a hearing as opposed to the Applicant

 

IMHO the defendant arguing that they did not read the notes, and did not understand the need to attend the hearing will be difficult.

Your best bet, again jmho, would be to seek legal advice via a local solicitor, most offer a free 30mins.

 

If they now have, used the time to produce a solid defence to the claim then you are more likely to get it heard.

 

If it can be shown that the claim is flawed then that is your best bet, it will require evidence from the claim on the PPI. If the PPI doesn't cover the claim then you may well have a claim against the creditor for missold PPI.

 

Again, this is very messy - I would seek the advice of a solicitor urgently

[gh2008]

If do hope the lady in questions is going to seek proper legal advice over this.

 

However is she doesn't yes, the bailiffs look as though they have already been involved.

 

If she is not going to get advice about how to deal with the CCJ against her, the best she can now do is limit its effect.

 

She will need to apply for a stay of execution and apply for a redetermination.

Stay of Execution is a stay of the enforcement, i.e. no bailiffs or collectors or anything like that, redetermination will give her an opportunity to put her side as to why she cannot afford to pay it all at once, and hopefully agree an affordable repayment.

 

Hopefully the case is still at County Court level, although if it is for over £650 then the Claimant can transfer it to the High Court for enforcement instruct the High Court Enforcement Officers to attend without notice and they are not so nice. If that happens or she sees words like 'Fi Fa' in correspondence then yell.

[gh2008]

I do hope she has applied for a Stay of Execution as per my post #37

[gh2008]

Think you'll be lucky - court staff will not express opinions on your intended legal actions.

 

took the words right out of my mouth ......

 

IMHO and I will say it again - her best bet is to go and see a local solicitor using their free 30 mins appointment offers that a lot of them do

or go to the CAB - they could actually be a very choice in these circumstances