CCJ- charging order,order to obtain information and now interim third party debt order

[sadiedusty]

Hi,

I'm posting on here trying to help a friend in serious debt troubles.

 

One of the creditors is an old business partner who's out to be as vindictive as possible.

 

When they were in business together, they were both named guarantors on an overdraft with Lloyds.

My friend bought this guy out and one of the clauses of the buy out was that he indemnified this guy against paying back his half of the overdraft (total £35k).

 

This guy said he was retiring and then a short while after the buy-out my friend was told by a large number of customers that they'd received a letter from him, trying to poach them to his new business. He also started driving round the industrial estate where my friends business is, with his sign written truck, in direct competition.

 

Un-beknown to my friend, who had negotiated a repayment plan with Lloyds based on the fact that only he would be paying the overdraft back, Llloyd wrote to his ex-business partner with a demand for money. The ex-business partner, rather than contacting my friend, negotiated a figure with Lloyds to pay off his half of the overdraft and promptly then took my friend to court and demanded this money back - £14K.

 

My friend is already in serious debt - about £95k and isn't in a position to pay the whole amount.

He got advice from his solicitor who's tried to negotiate a repayment plan out of court.

 

I personally think the solicitor's just been out to make money out of him and should have immediately gone back to the court via an N244 or if later an n245 but he failed to do so, and now the ex business partners solicitor has slapped a default charges certificate onto the debt of just over £5k.

 

So the £14k is now about £22k with all the court charges and interest.

Then a charging order was obtained over my friends house,

and he received an order to attend court for questioning

- he duly went and I accompanied him.

 

A couple of weeks down the line he's now received another order to attend court for questioning which is in a few days.

I told him to get rid of his solicitor as he's just been racking up bills and the guys not helping him at all and he's done so.

 

I've now filed an n245 with the court which would have arrived with them 2 days ago.

My friend has since received a letter from his building society telling him the court have ordered his account to be frozen

- and it says until the hearing on January 13th.

 

My friend hasn't been notified of a hearing but is assuming this will be the third party debt order hearing.

 

Given that all of this has happened, will the n245 I've filed have any effect?

Is there anything else he can do?

 

Thanks to all in anticipation for any advice - pretty desperate situation