Mill Motors Bedford Faulty 2nd Hand Car - Court Claim Issued **WON**

[AndyOrch]

Quote

I just want to check I can make a formal application to the court to withdraw & not have any sanction or costs imposed on me, if it's done in time?

You can submit a Notice of Discontinuance (no fee) to the court and defendant. As this is a small claims you are not liable for the defendants costs nor any sanctions.

 

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Form N279: Tell the court you want to discontinue a claim or counterclaim - GOV.UK

WWW.GOV.UK

 

 

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Use Form N279 to discontinue all or part of a claim or counterclaim. Send the completed form to the court and all other parties in the case.

 

[Flowertots]

Thanks both.

 

I appreciate the thought behind how I could lose £2250 against not paying the £181 but my concerns is that even if I go to trial & win, I'm not going to see anything. The company only exists on paper so my worry & what I am watching out for is that he goes into administration & I don't see a penny.

Today I received a letter from the court saying that the Notice of Allocation to the Defendant has been returned "Not known at the address given". Mine was dated the 22nd Feb, so I would assume his was sent out at the same time, so looking a the filing history in Companies House, he only changed address (back to his original one & the reg address of the new company) on 18th May. 

Where does that leave me, if I continue?

Thanks

[dx100uk]

Did you pers name him as well as his trading name on the Claimform?

 

Dx

[Flowertots]

I stated Mr X of Mill Motors. Both company & his names are listed as defendant.

So on hte notice of allocation it has

me       1st Claimant - me

Mill Motors      1st Defendant - Mr X

[dx100uk]

then you cant go wrong, you've named him personally.

 

dx

 

[dx100uk]

open

[Flowertots]

Thank you all for your help.

I won my case today, nearly a year to the day from when I sent my first letter.  They have 14 days to pay from when court sends out letter, which will probably be next week.

Two things now. First, how long do I wait until I instruct Court bailiff? Do the courts put all that in a letter?

Second, I still have the car. I asked the Judge what do I do with it & he suggested I email the Plaintiff and ask them to make arrangements to collect. I don't think they will come & collect, but how long can Legally give them?

 

Thanks again.

[BankFodder]

This is great news. Congratulations.

If you have a moment, it would be helpful if you could give us a summary of what happened. Did the other side turn up? What did they try to say? What did you say in response? What did the judge say? What questions that the judge ask? How did the judge some up in the end?

He said that the judge has given them 14 days to pay. You will have to wait until the expiry of that 14 days before you can start instructing bailiffs. What was the value of the claim? I expect it was more than £600 but I haven't looked through the thread.

Start researching the High Court enforcement officers because you should get the judgement transferred to the High Court for about 70 quid (which you will get back once it is enforced) and they will do the job for you. High Court enforcement officers (sheriffs) do serious enforcement whereas the county court bailiffs have limited powers and they are pussycats.


Also, the sheriffs generally speaking charge about two grand for enforcement which will have to be paid by the defendant. Make sure that the High Court enforcement service that you find is clear that it is no fee for you if the enforcement fails. This is the normal way it goes nowadays. But double check. That means that if the enforcement fails then your maximum exposure is about 70 quid. It would be about 50 quid or so anyway with the county court bailiffs.

You are asking how long you can get them to pick up the car. I would say that you put them on notice that the car has to be collected otherwise it will be sold.
I haven't looked at this thread. Is the car driveable? Have you been using it? Where is it now? Have you been insuring it? Have you incurred any expenses since you began the court action?

[BankFodder]

Also, I see that you have been withholding the name of the person you have been selling. Please can you tell us who it is – and any other details including address et cetera.

It's important the other people and see this and it's important that this person realises that when they do this kind of thing they will find their name on the Internet.

There is no downside for you. There is no reason to protect him

[Flowertots]

The dealership is called Mill Motors LTD (in thread title) Mr Mohammad Adnan Rafi is the director & who sold me the car.

The dealership was at The Olde Watermill Shopping Village, Barton, Mill Ln, Faldo Rd, Barton-le-Clay MK45 4RF. Funnily enough, I’ve just gone to check something & found I’m blocked from Autotrader…Which is how I found the Kia.

I arrived at court approx. 30mins early. Mr Rafi wasn’t there & didn’t attend. I was called in to see the Judge, who suggested that he wasn’t sure if we could go ahead as the paperwork had been returned “Not known at this address”.

I advised the judge that I had been periodically checking companies house & noticed that the change of address happened in 18 May 2023, which meant the address I used was current on CH at the time the hearing pack was sent out in February. The pack wasn’t returned until 25 May 2023.

The Judge, who accessed companies house records, checked the filing history and saw that I was correct, that the address we used was the correct one registered on CH at the time the hearing pack was posted.

The judge then checked some information before saying that he was satisfied a judgement could be made as the address was correct and it seems that Mr Rafi was evading court which was supported by his non-attendance.  

He awarded me everything I claimed except the interest. He said although Small Claims Forms suggest a max of 8%, courts never agree it, so he advised 3% for 14 months, which still worked out a bit more than what I originally claimed (8% for 8mths).

£2250.00 – Car

£50.00 Diagnostic Report

£80 interest (8% x 14mths)

£297.00 court fees

Hearing lasted 20mins. Other than the address confirmation, I didn't have to say anything else.

The court will write & tell him he has 14 days to pay.

I asked about the car; he suggested I email Mr Rafi & tell him to come and collect it.

The car isn’t drivable. MOT was due 5^th April and would never have passed, so it’s SORN, parked off road. I had to use it from when I bought it as I had nothing else to use. I had to minimise where I drove it. It’s now not insured, as I started looking for another car, which found and bought one I could afford in February. The only major expense was buying a new car (£9k) on finance.   

Edited September 15, 2023 by Flowertots

[BankFodder]

I think you should write to the defendant. Write to him at any address that he might have – in other words more than one copy of your letter – inform him of the judgement. Tell him that you are prepared to hang onto the car for another two weeks but you will be charging him £200 per week storage and in addition to that, you will be charging him a further £50 per week since the date the claim was issued.

Tell him that if he has not contacted you all made arrangements to remove the vehicle and to pay the storage fees at the end of two weeks that you will then make arrangements to sell the car and that you will reimbursing the money that you gain from the car after having deducted all monies owed to you. This would include the storage, and any of the judgements sum which has not been collected.

I suppose it is unlikely that you are going to recover your money from this guy. He is clearly a crook.
How much do you think the car is worth? At the end of two weeks it might be worth doing a calculation to find out whether it is worth spending the money getting it roadworthy and then selling it or just selling it as it is.

Congratulations on sticking it out. It's been a difficult road for you.

Anyway, put into the hands of the High Court enforcement officers. Do some of your own private research and see if you can find out where this guy is hiding.

Interesting that you have been blocked from auto Trader.

I suggest you send auto Trader an SAR. I think that you should try and find out what has happened. You know if this dealer is still using them?

Send them an SAR immediately. You may as well send them a copy of a utilities bill or something as evidence of your identity. They are entitled to ask that.

After that we will help you get the block removed and if they refuse then you can bring a little action against them as well for a bit of extra money.

 

[Flowertots]

Hi,

I sent a letter to all addresses in Co House, re judgement & collecting car. I advised £200pw storage charge & collection has to be by Thursday 5th Oct.

Yesterday, I received a call from Mr Rafi, telling me that he has fired his managers as he found out they were running his business into the ground & could I explained what had happened as he wasn't aware of anything...

He said he had found a couple of complaints & that he was working through them, he had no paperwork as the managers had binned it all & changed all his passwords...

I explained that I believed it was him who did the original transaction when I bought the car & that as director he should be well aware of what is going on with his business! 

I explained all proceeding from first email re refund, to court & judgement.

He offered to refund me what I paid for the car, I said that's not good enough & I want full judgement.

He asked me to email him my bank details, so I did with a copy of the judgement & said he would ring once payment had been made re collecting the car. 

He asked if it was drivable, I said he'd need a flatbed as it's been parked up for 8 months & has a flat tyre, flat battery & seized back wheel.

So, my question is, despite him calling me yesterday, I've received no money. It doesn't take long to do a bank transfer. Does my letter of contact to collect the car by 5th still hold up if I don't hear from him or receive any money by then?

Can legally send him an email Thursday and say that I will be selling / scrapping said car & deducting money from storage/liability as per letter?

I think he's trying to pull a fast one again by ringing to pacify me hoping I will delay bailiffs etc, maybe giving him a chance to get the judgement set aside?

Thanks

[BankFodder]

Don't change your position at all. You have set out the terms and don't budge 

[Flowertots]

Hi all, 

Sos for the delay in updating. I stuck to my guns & text him on the eve of the 4th. He said he will collect the car & do the transfer on the 5th. 

On the afternoon of the 5th, I had received my money in full & he collected the car.

Lastly, from what I can see, he has put the car back up for sale, but it had a proper MOT as in it had a fail - that had a majority of the faults I noted after I bought it -  then a pass. To what extent the works have been carried out, I don't know. Can't find company name to leave review.

 

Thanks you all for your help. As stressful as this has been, it was made easier by the knowledge of you all in this group.

Thank you.

[BankFodder]

Thank you very much indeed for this update.

I'm very pleased that it was sorted out for you in the end.

I'm afraid that you're probably one of the lucky few who have these experiences with used-car dealers and then try to challenge them.

Hopefully others will see your thread and learn from your story as well

As you can imagine, we have expenses to pay and if you wanted to click our donation button, it wouldn't go unappreciated!!