Is Northern Rock CCJ illegal, please help

nodlets · 6 December 2006 at 2:29PM

Hi all,

First time here and I need advice please. I have a Northern Rock loan and was sent a Letter Before Action in August 2005 because I missed 3 payments. I immediately rang them and paid the money owed straight away (the bank hadn't set up the direct debit and I didn't know). Whilst on the phone we discussed the letter before action and the guy at Northern Rock said thet no further action would be taken and to disregard the letter. He sent me a new direct debit form which I duly filled in and sent to them. With no further correspondence from Northern Rock I was served a CCJ on the 23rd December 2005. I rang them in complete shock and asked what was going on. They said I had not made any payments since 25th August 2005. I asked if they had received the direct debit form and they said they hadn't. Again I immediately paid the amount owed to that day. I then asked the lady if they were allowed to serve a CCJ without notifying me that they were intending to take action. She could not answer this question and got quite irate when I stated that I had not received any notice and could take them to court.

Can somebody please tell me whether they have served this CCJ illegally. The original letter before action had a court date on it of sometime in November. This had been cancelled as per discussion with the guy at Northern Rock, which I assume I can ask for a recording of the conversation. I did not receive any correspondence from Northern Rock or their solicitors after that date and prioir to the CCJ being served. Surely they are supposed to notify you before they take action that they are going to take action so as to give you a chance to represent yourself on or before the day.

To the present day I am still up to date with payments and the direct debit actually got set up. So to sum up, originally I missed 3 payments because my bank did not set the direct debit up, I paid the whole amount over the phone, then, mysteriously the second direct debit form I sent was not recieved by them, I paid the whole amount of 3 misssed payments again over the phone. So I was in arrears twice for 3 months each time in the whole history of the loan of 5 years, but got a CCJ that I wasn't even able to represent myself for because I wasn't told it was happening until after the event. How can I sort this out now and make it right? Do I need to take them to court and how do I go about this and can somebody confirm whether they have acted illegally in serving the CCJ without informing me they were going to take action?

Thanks very much, any help and advice much appreciated.

Nodlets