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Comments
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Your father can apply to have the CCJ set aside....
https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/howtosetasideacountycourtjudgment/settingasideaccj.aspx0 -
That is outrageous!!The legal office in the council said to him she has no knowledge in how to remove the CCJ...
The Local Government Ombudsman should surely be interested in that.
A set aside by consent should be the least the council should offer - and the council should pay the court fees too.0 -
Dad spoke to the bank, they investigated and said someone had changed the standing order and did not put the reference. But he questioned this saying, a bank should be asking for a reference. Any other payments being made, whether one off or not, they always ask for a reference, why not for this standing order? Lloyds Bank admitted liability there that they should have asked for a payment reference.
Standing orders can be created and amended online without the need for a reference to be quoted. Admitted liability sounds like an interpretation of the facts.0 -
It seems to me that thyere are 3 issues here
1. Therer was in existence a standing order which had been getting paid for some time with no complaints, so therefore there must have been a reference included as part of this, this reference somehow got removed - it seems that the bank have admitted liability for this - but the payments continued to be made without a reference for a short period.
2. The council admit that they received the payments but, because of the lack of a payment reference, did not allocate them to the correct account.
3. Because of 2 above the council issued a default notice then went to court and obtained a CCJ against your father but using an incorrect address - which they knew full well was incorrect - and are refusing to do anything about it.
Seems to me the bank and the council should share responsibility for this and he should pursue both for redress.
As has been pointed out above, the local government ombudsman would take a very dim view regarding the legal response you got which basically said they don't know anything about the CCJ process and I think they should be your next port of call as a matter of urgency as this sort of remark shows lack of legal capacity which whoever it was in the job should have to do the job they have.0 -
Your father can apply to have the CCJ set aside....
https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/howtosetasideacountycourtjudgment/settingasideaccj.aspx
Thank you for this - I have sent the link to him. And will be reading through the article/site tomorrow morning when not tired.
I appreciate your help0 -
That is outrageous!!
The Local Government Ombudsman should surely be interested in that.
A set aside by consent should be the least the council should offer - and the council should pay the court fees too.
Thank you KeithP. I will definitely look into this avenue for my father.
And I spoke to our solicitor family friend - he advised my father to take matters to court and that will [hopefully] prompt the other side to withdraw/set aside CCJ.0 -
It seems to me that thyere are 3 issues here
1. Therer was in existence a standing order which had been getting paid for some time with no complaints, so therefore there must have been a reference included as part of this, this reference somehow got removed - it seems that the bank have admitted liability for this - but the payments continued to be made without a reference for a short period.
2. The council admit that they received the payments but, because of the lack of a payment reference, did not allocate them to the correct account.
3. Because of 2 above the council issued a default notice then went to court and obtained a CCJ against your father but using an incorrect address - which they knew full well was incorrect - and are refusing to do anything about it.
Seems to me the bank and the council should share responsibility for this and he should pursue both for redress.
As has been pointed out above, the local government ombudsman would take a very dim view regarding the legal response you got which basically said they don't know anything about the CCJ process and I think they should be your next port of call as a matter of urgency as this sort of remark shows lack of legal capacity which whoever it was in the job should have to do the job they have.
Hi D_M_E
You have hit the nail on the head with the 3 issues.
1. My dad has been paying this service charge for the same amount for the last 7-8 years. Only in Aug 16 the payee name changed, which is when the problems/arrears were for that very particular period (Aug 16 to Dec 16). My dad is the very least technological person in the family so he definitely did not use a computer/online banking to change any details. He is old-school, in that he would rather visit the branch. However, he has no recollection of going there to change the existing SO. Why should he need to if it was being paid to the beneficiary without any problems for the previous years. Since father is saying he did not go and change it himself, it looked like the council/beneficiary details changed a little - could the council have had any part in the change of SO without reference?
2. Correct. The payments being made on his SO, was being put in a suspense account. What baffled him was that when he spoke to the council collections officer, they were adamant that their systems were automated so when a payment is made, it automatically gets credited to the leaseholder account. Surely, if that is the case, then the lack of reference, but with everything else remaining the same, should have been attributed to my dads SC account right? He's been paying with the same account for all these years. Can anything be said on this point?
3. Correct also. Father has an email from the same council collection officer admitting that they provided his correspondence address to their solicitors, but why on earth they used the rental property address - is what he will find out. Apparently, the collections officer sent an email to their senior solicitor within the council to find out more. But the legal officer, simply washed her hands of the issue. We get that the council acted upon the info they had, but frustrating that they would not accept liability that they did wrong.
The matter is complicated because my father was denied mortgage because of the CCJ, This is when the CCJ came to light.
He had to miss work several days to see solicitor, go to the bank, countless phone calls etc to get all the info needed to understand the story behind this. Can he claim compensation? if so, from who and in what value?
Thank you in advance.
jay0 -
The council cannot change the details given on a standing order, the details can only be altered by the sending party i.e. customer or bank.1. My dad has been paying this service charge for the same amount for the last 7-8 years. Only in Aug 16 the payee name changed, which is when the problems/arrears were for that very particular period (Aug 16 to Dec 16). My dad is the very least technological person in the family so he definitely did not use a computer/online banking to change any details. He is old-school, in that he would rather visit the branch. However, he has no recollection of going there to change the existing SO. Why should he need to if it was being paid to the beneficiary without any problems for the previous years. Since father is saying he did not go and change it himself, it looked like the council/beneficiary details changed a little - could the council have had any part in the change of SO without reference?
Allocation is based on the supplied reference number, not where the payment comes from. If there was no reference number then the council will not know where the payment was for and so cannot allocate it.2. Correct. The payments being made on his SO, was being put in a suspense account. What baffled him was that when he spoke to the council collections officer, they were adamant that their systems were automated so when a payment is made, it automatically gets credited to the leaseholder account. Surely, if that is the case, then the lack of reference, but with everything else remaining the same, should have been attributed to my dads SC account right? He's been paying with the same account for all these years. Can anything be said on this point?
The LGO will only look at a complaint, except in unusual circumstances, where all of the complaint routes have been fully exhausted with the council first.I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
TLDR: OP's dad pays monthly service charges to the council for years, Aug 2017 the payment reference was somehow removed so payments were no longer allocated to his account. The council said he was in arrears and took him to court, issuing a CCJ but some notices were lost/sent to the rental property address instead of a correspondence address they did have. Arrears & CCJ satisfied, OP's dad wants the CCJ removed / compo.
1. Bank don't HAVE to ask for a reference, so no liability there.
2. Council were always getting monies, so arguably OP's dad was never in arrears. However if the terms state you must include a certain reference, OP's dad didn't technically fulfill that, causing more admin to find the payments / issue letters.
3. If the council did have the correspondence address, they should have been sending post there.Hi MSE's,
I am hoping to get some advice on behalf of my dad and am not sure if this is the correct place to contact regarding his issue.
So my dad's been paying a monthly service charge by way of a standing order with Lloyds bank. This has been happening for a number of years since he purchased the property. Only in Aug 2016, someone went and changed the reference of the payment at the bank (my father is adamant it is not him, because he has no reason to go change something that has been in place for more than 6 years prior), so the council were claiming that they did not receive the payments between Aug 2016 and Dec 2016. However, the bank confirmed the money was still going to the council but payments were not being attributed to his account due to the payment reference being deleted. My dad does not recall going to the bank to make a change. As that bank account is only for rental property dealings - service charges, mortgage payments etc.
Unfortunately, the council took him to court and was issued a CCJ against him in June 2017. But he never received the councils letters about being in arrears for payments not being made (even though the payments were still going to the council/beneficiary but not with a reference to identify him). The letters could have been lost as they are sent by standard post as opposed to recorded delivery etc, which happens!
Dad spoke to the bank, they investigated and said someone had changed the standing order and did not put the reference. But he questioned this saying, a bank should be asking for a reference. Any other payments being made, whether one off or not, they always ask for a reference, why not for this standing order? Lloyds Bank admitted liability there that they should have asked for a payment reference.
But with regards to the council side of things, he's not received their letters warning him of arrears, and asked them to confirm address of where the letters were being sent. Council letters were being sent to his correspondence address. But the 2 letters warning of him of arrears and possible court action, were never received at the correspondence address. But as for the official court letters, they were being sent to his rental property address - which he visits every 4-6 months. He spoke to the council last week and when they checked their dealings with their solicitors, the council officer admitted that they had provided his correspondence address to the solicitors but all official court letters were being sent to his rental property address, hence why he's not seen any of the claim forms etc...but the council requested their solicitors send it to his correspondence address. The CCJ was issued in June 2017 and he only found out about this at the beginning of January of this year 2018.
The arrears have been paid in full.
However, upon speaking to the council, they do not want to accept liability nor do they want to remove the CCJ because it is not their problem, even though they knew about his correspondence address. Now he has to waste time and money to remove it.
Where does he stand with this issue with the council to seek compensation? Its caused him a lot of stress and hassle, and is already a heart patient which has not gone down well with his health.
I hope you are able to advise. Or point me in the right direction as to how to go about resolving this.
Many thanks,
JayU0 -
To try and find out what the Council were up to:
You can request the entire file from the Council under Freedom of Information legislation. In theory, you should then be sent all the documentation they have, held on file and on their computer systems.
They will probably have a central department that deals with FOI requests, phone them up or google their website to find out more.
you can get more info on the Information Commissioner website.
For the Bank:
You can make a similar request to your Dad's bank. This is a Subject Data Access request, and he can ask the bank for their full file on his account. Again, this might throw up info about when and why the SO info was changed.
Both processes will take a few weeks and you and your dad will then have to spend some time going through the data they send you to see if it there is any evidence of who may have been at fault.
Once you know that, you can then write to them and ask for an appropriate amount of compensation.
If they refuse, go to either the Local Authority Ombudsman or the Financial Services Ombudsman with your complaint and see if they take it up.
Alternatively you could appoint a solicitor and take it to court. But you will still need to provide evidence that supports your claim.
Best of luck.0
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