Ccj issued without knowledge

Jackrussel8

My husband and I were involved in minor road accident in March,we have fully comprehensive cover with Churchill.Liability of accident was disputed and a 50/50 offer rejected by the other parties solicitors (Camps of Birkenhead) .We were asked by Churchill if we were prepared to go to court,to which we agreed. This week we have received a CCJ,without having any knowledge of any court dates etc.The amount of CCJ is £3,800. We have spoken to Churchill who say that "an incomplete file" was passed via their internal offices and that we have not been assigned any legal help as we were not injured in accident (although we pay for legal assistance within our policy),the other party was also uninjured. We are currently applying for a mortgage and are now at a loss what to do.Churchill are passing us from pillar to post.Can a CCJ be issued without any infomation being given to the person involved?

dunstonh

Did you pay for legal assistance cover with your insurance? If so, did you contact the legal team handling your case?

To have a CCJ means a court case must have taken place. You should enquire where all the court documents were sent to as its not just one document but a number in multiple posts.

Jackrussel8

Thanks for reply,we do pay for legal assistance included in our premium.We have asked who is representing us legally but were told that as we did not have an injury claim it was not a matter for legal dept? We have had no court correspondance,the last correspondance was from Churchill asking us to supply diagram of incident (which had already been sent twice at the start of matter).This letter was dated 1 week prior to date on CCJ. Thanks again.

huckster

Normally when a court advises of a CCJ, you have 28 days to pay, to avoid the CCJ being noted on your credit record. As you have cover with Churchill, it would be up to Churchill to pay the CCJ amount. So get on the phone and insist upon speaking to the claims manager. Explain the situation and suggest that Churchill need to resolve this or you would be faced with costs, that you would expect Churchill to cover.

On the basis that Churchill are at fault here and that you might need to resolve if Churchill are not helpful, I would also advise the following, as the CCJ is in your name.

You should request the papers from the court that were used to obtain the CCJ. The court may charge a fee for providing these.

The court that issued the CCJ should be noted on the document you have received, together with the reference number, telephone number etc. If you phone the court to explain the situation that you were not aware of any court case, as no claim or other papers were received by you, they will tell you how to obtain a copy of all the paperwork for the case.

Once you have all the court paperwork, you can hopefully understand what has happened. Normally the court would issue papers to you, setting out the 3rd parties claim and you would have a chance to enter a defence with the help of your Insurers. Then once all the paperwork has been provided, a date for the hearing is sent. It could be that either the court have failed to send you anything or they have sent these to Churchill. You will find out from the court documents.

On the basis that you knew nothing about the court hearing, you can apply to have the CCJ set aside. See this link for the set aside process. http://www.insolvencyhelpline.co.uk/ccj-removal/index.php

If you get the set aside, then the CCJ will be removed and the court process will start again. Hopefully second time around Churchill will step in to assist you.

In summary.

1) Make sure Churchill help with resolving the CCJ as it should not have been issued against you. If Churchill lost the court case, then they have to pay.
2) Get the court papers to see what happened. If Churchill are not helpful, you will need to get the CCJ set aside to re-start the court process.

Quentin

dunstonh wrote: »

To have a CCJ means a court case must have taken place.

It doesn't work like that.

You can get a ccj against you without any case taking place at all.

If you don't get the original summons, you know nothing about the claim being made against you, thus you don't submit a defence.

14 days after the summons has been issued the claimant can write in to the court requesting a judgement on the grounds that the defendant has ignored the summons and this will be granted.

Which is what will have happened here.

The OP should get Churchill to apply to the court to set aside the judgement (which their legal dept should easily be able to do). This has the effect of removing the judgement from the record, and "starting again". Hopefully Churchill will then sort the matter!

Crazy_Jamie

Quentin wrote: »

It doesn't work like that.

You can get a ccj against you without any case taking place at all.

If you don't get the original summons, you know nothing about the claim being made against you, thus you don't submit a defence.

14 days after the summons has been issued the claimant can write in to the court requesting a judgement on the grounds that the defendant has ignored the summons and this will be granted.

Which is what will have happened here.

The OP should get Churchill to apply to the court to set aside the judgement (which their legal dept should easily be able to do). This has the effect of removing the judgement from the record, and "starting again". Hopefully Churchill will then sort the matter!

Bang on. There has either been irregular service of the claim form or (more likely) there has been some sort of error at Churchill's offices resulting in no acknowledgment of service being filed. Either way there should be an application to set the judgment aside if you have reasonable prospects of success (which you actually do need to set a judgment in default aside).