Surprise County Court Judgement

[anonymous3388]

A company has been contacting me on and off for the past year claiming that I owe them money, to which I repeatedly informed them that I disagree. I heard nothing of it for several months, but today received an email from the company stating that they have a CCJ against me.

 

I have not received a court letter nor a letter informing me of the county court judgement. At the start of September, I moved house, and informed the company of my new address. At the end of October and the start of December, my landlord informed me on both occasions that two letters had been attempted to be delivered (signature required), but my landlord was not in on either occasion and so they went back to the post office and presumably were returned to the sender. Although I thought nothing of it at the time, I now suspect these letters may have been from the court.

 

It appears to me that the company (despite being informed of my new address) deliberately issued a claim against my old address so that they could win the judgement by default, when I inevitably did not respond to the claim I knew nothing about.

 

I have been trying to get details of the claim all afternoon (reference number, etc), so that I can sort this out. I have tried phoning and emailing the company for the reference number, but they have not responded. I have also tried to contact the court, but they cannot confirm whether there is a CCJ against me without me providing a reference number (which I do not have).

 

The last option would be to pay to complete a search on the online registry, which apparently should provide a reference number.

 

I am quite concerned, not so much about the possibility of paying this money, but more about the effect that this judgement will have on my ability to obtain credit and pass pre-employment checks in the financial services industry.

 

I would appreciate any advice on how I should proceed.

[Will Goodfellow]

How did you inform the company of your new address?

[anonymous3388]

I emailed them, and they responded stating that they have noted my new address.

[Will Goodfellow]

You can apply to set-aside the CCJ but there is no point in doing that if you do not have good grounds to contest the debt. You will still end up with a CCJ if you do not successfully defend the claim. There is also a £255 fee to set-aside if you are not eligible for fee remission.

 

You could also pay the debt within a month of a CCJ being granted and it will not appear on your credit record, you can also do that if the set-aside is unsuccessful. Without further details of the debt and your grounds for disputing it, it's impossible to state whether a set-aside would be successful or not.

[anonymous3388]

How would you advise that I go about settling the debt if I do not have the reference number, etc? Is the online registry the only way of finding this out? If so, will it even be on the registry yet if the judgement was only recently issued?

[renegadeimp]

Whats the debt about?

[Will Goodfellow]

How would you advise that I go about settling the debt if I do not have the reference number, etc?

 

Give the company time to respond with a reference number, at least two working days. You could contact Trust Online and ask how long it will take to appear on the register:

 

https://www.trustonline.org.uk/contact-us/contact-us/

 

The reference will eventually be on your credit record too but that can take a couple of months to update.

[dx100uk]

what is the debt all about

when was judgement granted?