Letter from the court, help?

ohdear_4

We moved in to a new property in August, in a new area. We hadn't paid any water rates until the beginning of December as the water company hadn't received our bank details apparently. So we got threatened with court action. I phoned at the beginning of December and paid £73 which was half, I did say I would make another payment o the 23rd but I forgot, I know, my own fault. Today I have received this letter

Before ???? judge sitting at Burton on trent court

Upon the court's own motion. The court has made this order of it's own initiative without a hearing. If you object to the order, you must make an application to have it set aside, varied or stayed within 7 days of receiving it.

IT IS ORDERED THAT

Unless the defendent within 5 days of service of this order files in court a fully completed allocation questionnaire the defence shall be struck out.

I haven't got a clue what it means, can anyone shed any light?

Sooler

Read this document ...
A Guide to Dealing with a Small Claim
http://www.crippslaw.com/services/dispute-resolution/claims.pdf



The options for replying to the Claim Form are to:
• pay the amount claimed;
• admit all or part of the claim or
• admit liability for the claim, and ask for time to pay; or
• dispute (“defend”) the claim.
If you know that the claim is justified and you owe the sum claimed, you would be advised to respond by admitting the sum due on Form N9A (see below) and either paying it immediately or asking to be allowed to pay by instalments if you cannot afford to pay all at once. If possible, you should ensure your payment gets to the Claimant within 14 days of service of the Claim Form to avoid a judgment being entered against you and possibly affecting your credit rating. If the Claimant is claiming interest, you should add daily interest to the amount claimed. You can admit part of a claim and dispute the rest if you have good reason to do so.


I assume that if you don't file in court a fully completed allocation questionnaire within 5 days of service of the order then the claim will be automatically awarded in the claimants favour.

So probably best to return the form and pay up post haste.

Xbigman

A good answer from sooler.

However, the short answer is to pay it off now. If you did not recieve a bill did you put money aside to pay it when it arrived? And you forget to pay a second installment, so did you put money aside for that? This court action is a short term problem but it appears to highlight a wider issue. You need to start budgeting with a vengence. If you budget and you forget to pay something then the money is there when you need it and these issues do not get to the court stage.
If you can't pay it off then fill in the income and expenditure forms from the court and make an offer to pay.
Regards



X