Problem with Will/Trustee - ** judge found in our favour **

[hyperjase]

I understand - may be it is better to err on the side of caution on this. The chances of actually recovering the next £5000 + interest may be in jeopardy but safer than incurring costs which we cannot afford.

 

I'll re-do the paperwork with just her name and send a letter to the Chancery Judge to forewarn another case will be brought against the Defendant for the same reasons.

[hyperjase]

Well, a further update to the original post.

 

The deadline for the whole payment to be at the Court was 19th March @ 4.00pm.

 

Today I received a letter with a cheque for £254.80 and a notification they had sent post dated cheques which had to be returned as the court rejected those, and even then, it only made up £750 worth of liability. So they're in some serious doo-doo. The case has been passed back to the Chancery District Judge and I'm hoping they'll take direct action and proceed with prosecution. For the amount they'll owe on both Trustee cases, it'll be around £13,000 in total, I'm hoping that'll make some form of local news, to shame them. I know it sounds harsh but for what they've done ... is unfair and dishonest and no defence could be made for what they did.

 

So the saga continues. If they don't take further action to recover the amount I'll go for an Attachment of Earnings order, best chance of recovering the entire amount, albeit in small chunks. I don't think there's much point sending Court Appointed Bailiffs in as they can only enforce up to £5000, which is a shame.

 

I'll keep you posted with what happens.

[steampowered]

I don't think the Chancery District Judge could initiate prosecution. Presumably at most he could inform the CPS or police.

 

If you wanted to take bailiff action you would give the case to HCEOs who can enforce for a higher amount. Whether they'd be able to find £13,000 of assets though is another question.

[king12345]

HCEOs are the way to go.

Especially if she's named in the house deeds.

Don't give up, these people need to be taken down.

Stealing from a child...how wrong is that?!?

[hyperjase]

Trust me, not giving up, just finding the best way of extracting the money from them and causing as much hassle as possible. May seem arsey but they stole. Simples.

[hyperjase]

This is carrying on from my previous case, this time it's my second Step Son, who was left £5000 in the Will.

 

I've prepared the paperwork much the same as the first case but as soon as she got the paperwork she admitted to owing it, but has supplied nothing in the way of where the money is or how much interest is owed, so I haven't been able to put this down on paperwork. I've attached a PDF of a letter which arrived today - looks like they made the judgement regardless of my argument? Not overly happy with that, I know I can object to this, but what shall I do? Shall I object claiming she hasn't provided documentary evidence of where the money is? How much interest it should have accrued? Also -- should I request the interest rate be set at 8% as she hasn't sent and documentation as to how much there should have been if it had still been in Trust.

 

Any advice gratefully received as I'm now concerned she'll just end up having to pay £250 a month (which is OK as long as it includes 8% interest).

[steampowered]

The £5000 seems to cover interest up until the date of judgment. Is this correct?

 

In theory you could object and try to push this to a hearing but I'm not sure there is a great deal this would achieve. I think you might struggle to get documentary evidence of where the money is. My best guess is that the money has been frittered away over time on general living expenses.

 

Did you ever start receiving payments for the first case?

[hyperjase]

The £5000 was the amount left in trust, the £5000 does not have any interest included (my previous case was successful and the judge awarded 8% interest which added a further £1800 making the total judgement £6800).

 

Can I now request the interest on this? I have no date to go from as they have provided no evidence (she had to supply it for the previous case and I have a date the monies were invested, but this being a separate case I'm not using any of the information from that case)

[hyperjase]

Did you ever start receiving payments for the first case?

 

Since the judgement, received two cheques for just over £500 ... nothing since and I believe it is with the Police for investigation as to whether it can be classed as a criminal act.

[steampowered]

The judgment is inclusive of interest up to 24 April 2014. Presumably this is because it was the amount claimed. If you are feeling bullish there might be a possibility of trying to go back and claim pre-judgment interest, but it would not be easy now that there is a judgment in play and I think would need a retrospective amendment to your claim.

 

Judgment debts of 5,000 and above automatically carry interest from the date of judgment (i.e. 24 April 2014). However, where the terms of a judgment specify payment by installments interest does not begin running on the amount of an installment until it falls due (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1991/1184/article/3/made)

 

Regarding the first claim, if the court order requires immediate payment then interest will be running at 8%. It sounds like she is trying to pay this off by installments but interest will run unless the installments are approved by court order.

 

Regarding the second claim, it sounds like there will be no interest unless and until an installment is late.

[hyperjase]

So it's looking unlikely I'll be able to claim the 8% interest, can I refer to the first case and show them the evidence in that case? As the outcome of that was more in depth. Don't really want her getting away with not having to pay out what should be due. Just seems like my argument wasn't sufficient enough.

 

I do have the contact details of the District Judge who awarded the first judgement, would it be worth contacting them to explain this situation?

[steampowered]

The legislation is quite clear that, if instalments are ordered, interest only runs if the instalments are late. I don't think you can get around that. The difference is (I assume - obviously I haven't seen the documents) that she was ordered to pay the full amount immediately in the first case but was granted instalments in the second case. Unfortunately I'm not sure there is much you can do about this.

 

Interest/loss of returns arising before the judgment date is in theory claimable but would be a bit more legally complicated. You would have had to indicate the dates on which you are claiming interest when completing the online form.

 

I don't think you would achieve much by trying to contact the DJ informally. You'd need to kick the process off with an application notice asking the court to do something, which would get the case allocated to the same court (its currently in Northampton) and you can then request that the case is put before the same judge.

[hyperjase]

If I send an application notice off requesting the interest it would accrued be added to the amount from the date of investment would that get the ball rolling? I'm not sure how it's not quite gone down the same route this time, essentially she has spent/stolen/disposed the monies however, but it was left in trust and is a breach of the Trustee Act.

 

I'm happy to pursue further paperwork and my step son isn't working so any costs would be removed, I just don't want him to lose out.

[steampowered]

Did you claim for interest from the date of investment in the first instance, though? If no careful thought will be needed about how to approach this properly. One option might be formally amending your original claim. Not sure if you can do that once a judgment has been issued, would need to check.

[hyperjase]

Because no evidence was supplied, I entered in "£5000 + interest" -- I made a point of noting this as many times as I could. Because it's a separate claim I couldn't take the date of investment from the first claim, therefore I left it as an unknown period of time and amount accrued. I've prepared an Application Notice requesting the evidence of the bank book to show when it was invested to be able to calculate the interest accrued and owed. I have referenced the first case stating they had a judgement against them for the same situation. I may be clutching at straws here but the first application (for my first Step-Son) did make it to Court, I just want this one to head the same way. I'd like a similar outcome for both Step-Sons.

[hyperjase]

Attached, with blurred out personal details, is the form I submitted for this case.