Enforcing a CCJ and Successfully Claiming Against the Correct Party (Letting Agent)

groupoffour

This post concerns how to best successfully enforce a CCJ against an unlawful landlord, apologies for the length:

We, the four previous tenants, are now creditor of a small claims county court judgment (CCJ) against the defendant, who we understood to be our landlord (the person who countersigned the tenancy agreement that we signed and the person we most often dealt with) and the apparent “boss” of the letting agency which managed the house.

In our ignorance we had proceeded with our TDS non-compliance case before confirming the director of the company and owner of the house. The judgment concerned non-compliance of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS). The CCJ requires the defendant to pay us back our deposit plus its value another 3 times plus court fees. Although the defendant initially defended our claim and launched a counterclaim, on the day of the hearing the defendant did not appear before the judge and we won the decision.

In the hope of successfully enforcing the CCJ, our subsequent investigations (Companies House) have since found that the person who countersigned the tenancy agreement (now the creditor of the CCJ) may not actually have been the director and secretary of the letting agency. The name of the “Consent signature” is different to that on the tenancy agreement and business card: what appears as his surname on the tenancy agreement actually appears as his first of three forenames on the Companies House appointment of director document. In fact the name we recognise as the counter sign on our tenancy agreement appears in the section: “director, secretary etc must sign the form below”. Within my limited knowledge, this appears to mean that the “consent signature” is the ‘acting director and secretary (for whom an a residential address is provided) and the name below is a (or the main?) director. Apologies for this lack of clarity but I have no experience or expertise reading such documents; does it sound as though the CCJ was made against the correct individual?

A further complication appears to be the fact that the letting agency is stated as being “dissolved... struck off the Register under Section 652(5) of the Companies Act 1985 on 28 August 2007 and dissolved by notice... dated 4 September 2007”. This is despite the date of appointment, in the above section being 16/02/2007. Assuming the CCJ was made against the right person, how might the dissolution of the letting agency affect our potential enforcement?

Finally to enable us to make an enforcement against the correct person by the best route, we found that the property where we were tenants is owned by a third party couple from the local area and presumably was/is only being managed by the letting agency. I imagine in this case the house we would not be able to be involved in any potential enforcement route.

Sincere thanks in advance for any time and advice offered regarding our situation.

N.B.:
This issue was detailed in a different thread which was originally created concerning the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. This thread is being created concerning the subsequent outcome of that issue and is of a much more general subject matter. I write this to explain potentially seeming as though I have posted the same thing twice.

clutton_2

Surely the court docs make it clear WHO (person or company) now has the CCJ against them ?

if the defendant does not pay the money within the time that the court stipulated he had to pay it and if the "defendant" has a name (rather than a company) you will need his employment/NI number so that you can get an Attachment of Earnings order from the court (further costs to you)

have you had a read of Eagerlearners thread on here ? she had a tricky LL with different names - there may be some help in that thread - set aside 3-4 hours to read it tho !

Debt_Free_Chick

groupoffour wrote: »

In our ignorance we had proceeded with our TDS non-compliance case before confirming the director of the company and owner of the house.

Who is the LL stated in the agreement? Ignore the signature - the identity of the LL should be stated, usually on page 1. Is the LL an individual or a company?

And can you confirm that the CCJ you have is in the name of the LL named on the agreement?

tbs624

Can you simplify your posts please?

Are you saying that your CCJ was awarded against the person or company who was acting as the letting agent, rather than against the LL/owner of the property?

And what was the CCJ for - non registering of deposit or dispute over deposit?

groupoffour

clutton wrote: »

Surely the court docs make it clear WHO (person or company) now has the CCJ against them ?

if the defendant does not pay the money within the time that the court stipulated he had to pay it and if the "defendant" has a name (rather than a company) you will need his employment/NI number so that you can get an Attachment of Earnings order from the court (further costs to you)

have you had a read of Eagerlearners thread on here ? she had a tricky LL with different names - there may be some help in that thread - set aside 3-4 hours to read it tho !

Yes, the court docs state the person we brought the case against as the person who has the CCJ. The thing is we are now concerned that we may have brought it against the wrong person or rather, that the person we brought it against is going to be able to squirm out of paying us on a technicality due to us targetting the wrong person.

As regards an Attachment of Earnings order, we are not sure if the defendant was actually the director of the company, as he claimed to be, or an employee or in some other role. So we don't know if he is employed and receiving earnings.

I will read that thread now, thank you for your help.

groupoffour

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Who is the LL stated in the agreement? Ignore the signature - the identity of the LL should be stated, usually on page 1. Is the LL an individual or a company?

And can you confirm that the CCJ you have is in the name of the LL named on the agreement?

Thanks for that. I do not have access to the documents right now but I will check this.

clutton_2

""The thing is we are now concerned that we may have brought it against the wrong person or rather, that the person we brought it against is going to be able to squirm out of paying us on a technicality due to us targetting the wrong person.""

whether you did or not - you have a CCJ against that person who has a legal obligation to repay you - and it is now up to THEM to go back to the court and say "it weren't me guv" - carry on with trying to get your dosh out of them - but if they are this slippery you may have to write off the money and just accept the "moral victory"

thousands of folks get CCJs every year and then refuse to pay up ... sorry if this is not what you want to hear

groupoffour

clutton wrote: »

""The thing is we are now concerned that we may have brought it against the wrong person or rather, that the person we brought it against is going to be able to squirm out of paying us on a technicality due to us targetting the wrong person.""

whether you did or not - you have a CCJ against that person who has a legal obligation to repay you - and it is now up to THEM to go back to the court and say "it weren't me guv" - carry on with trying to get your dosh out of them - but if they are this slippery you may have to write off the money and just accept the "moral victory"

thousands of folks get CCJs every year and then refuse to pay up ... sorry if this is not what you want to hear

Thanks for that, it makes sense and I had considered it. I think the next step might need to be getting some legal advice so if anyone can make any recommendations that would be greatly appreciated.

silvercar

You have two straight forward options.

Chase the person who has the CCJ for payment. If they are not the correct person ie they did nothing wrong then they need to go back to court to get the CCJ removed - not your problem.

Contact the landlord. Explain that you've been to court and got a CCJ against XX. Add that the landlord is ultimately liable for protecting deposit and that sooner or later the CCJ'd person will contact them for reimbursement or go back to court to get the CCJ transferred to them. If they pay you your award then the CCJ can be marked as satisfied and the whole action will end.

penguin83

Hi groupoffour - as Clutton has said if you have issued against the wrong person it is up to them to make an application to the court to set the judgment aside. Until such a time, the judgement is enforceable as far as the court is concerned.

If you wish to pursue an attachment of earnings then you do not need to know their employer, the court will try to obtain that information from the defendant.

There are a few leaflets about enforcing judgments if you want to know the methods available to you but there will be more court costs to pay (which will be added onto the judgment debt) but no guarantee unfortuanately that you will get your money back x x

groupoffour

silvercar wrote: »

You have two straight forward options.

Chase the person who has the CCJ for payment. If they are not the correct person ie they did nothing wrong then they need to go back to court to get the CCJ removed - not your problem.

Contact the landlord. Explain that you've been to court and got a CCJ against XX. Add that the landlord is ultimately liable for protecting deposit and that sooner or later the CCJ'd person will contact them for reimbursement or go back to court to get the CCJ transferred to them. If they pay you your award then the CCJ can be marked as satisfied and the whole action will end.

Yes, I think those options are what causes me a dilemma. I don't want to waste time & money pursuing something which will be futile. I think pursuing the CCJ'ed LA person is correct but am concerned he might find a loophole to slip out of so at this stage it is a case of trying to get as much insight, advice and info as possible before taking the next step.

I am thinking about contacting the landlord to notify them that they may soon (already?) be implicated in this situation. I am supposing that couldn't hurt, right? It would be great if we could get some success that way without the time, effort, and expense of investigating and attempting a legal enforcement.

Many thanks.