CCJ in old address and never got papers!

Sparkle85

Hello all, I took up a membership with credit expert just to see what was on my report and after an advisor updated my old addresses for me, a CCJ has come up. This was issued in Northampton in March this year, but to my previous address which I moved from in September last year, so obviously didn't get any paper work. It's for £560 and I don't even know what that was for, but I'm scared I'm going to get arrested for not paying something when I only found out about it today.
Does anyone have any advice? Thankyou x

Tixy

Hi

I assume that you didn't give you new address to this creditor?
If you had given your address to the creditor and could prove it you might be able to get the CCJ set aside and then negotiate to pay the creditor which would remove the CCJ from your record. But if you didn't then you won't.

However nobody will come and arrest you. What I would do is contact the court and explain the situation and ask for a copy of the judgement. Do you agree that you owed the money? Are you in a position to pay the £560? If you are then it should be fairly simple to sort. If you are not then you might need to apply for a redetermination to allow you to pay in installments - in a redetermination you would need to supply the judge with an income & expenditure account and they will decide how much you can afford to pay each month. A redetermination usually costs a fee (although I think it may be waivered if you are on certain benefits).

A word of warning though, as you have recently requested your credit report this creditor (and any others that show on there) will now know your new address, so it would be usual for them to contact you soon. There is also a chance they could instruct baliffs to try to recover the debt, so I would contact the court sooner rather than later.

This factsheet may be of use to you depending on what the court tells you and whether you can afford to pay the debt in full http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=08_reducing_payments_or_suspending_a_bailiffs_warrant_on_a_county_court_judgment

Sparkle85

Hello, thankyou for the reply, no I didn't have any idea of it so neither the court or the creditor will have my new address. To be honest, I'm not sure at all what the £560 is for, so I'll have to contact the court.
I could afford to pay the money, but it would take me a long time as I'm currently in receipt of Income Support after my partner left me with our 2 young children.
What I do find strange though, is that I put myself on the electoral roll when I first moved in anyway, so surely this company would have been able to view that given there was 6 months between me moving and having this CCJ.

Thanks again

Tixy

A creditor will only send court papers to your last known address, they won't search for you before issuing papers. I suppose they don't waste the man power, they simply send court papers and if they hear nothing back just proceed through northampton court (which is the bulk processing court).

If you appear on the edited electoral register which is available to anyone to see then debt collectors often do use that to try to locate people and so they may have found you eventually but as your credit file has now linked the 2 addresses they will likely find you sooner, so I would expect them to contact you soon. Obviously if you don't appear on the edited register then they couldn't use it to find you at all.