Unfair CCJ

natashabray

Firstly some background:


I was sued for the price paid for a car I sold to a gentleman,


It turns out the car was clocked and false service history was given (I did not know of this as the car was sold to me in this way). I received the claim form, I sent in my acknowledgement of service, expecting to hear from the court that they had received it, I also thought that the period of time that I had to send in my defence in did not include weekends. As a result of this my defence was received around two days late. As a result of this judgment was made against me.


I applied to have the judgment set aside as myself and the claimant believed the case should be heard by a judge so we could be advised on whether the car would need to be given back to me, we did not want to transfer the ownership of the car on paper until we knew for sure it should be transferred.


Neither of us wanted the decision on the matter to be based on late documents rather than the facts of the case. We had no guidance on whether the money and car needed to be passed over at the same time.


We both attended a hearing on this matter and the judge told me he would not set the default judgement aside because the result would have been the same had the case gone through to a hearing normally and I hadn't filed my defence late. I was therefore ordered to pay the claimant the full amount of money and he was ordered to pass the car back over to me (despite the fact that the MOT history proves that the car was clocked when I did not own it).


I was placed under the impression by the judge that this was a final decision and that action should be taken from this point. He did not say anything about the fact that the money had not
already been paid. I therefore acted on his decision from this point. I paid the full amount of money to the claimant two days after I was ordered to and he gave back the car around the same time.


Myself and the claimant were under the impression that because I applied to have the judgement set aside that neither the money or the car should change hands, we thought it would not make sense to take anyaction outlined in the default judgement because we did not have a final decision or any guidance on the matter at this point.


The claimant believed this so much to the point that he said he would not even try and to get the money back from me until we had been seen by a judge.


We both therefore waited until the hearing to find out the proper action we needed to take. When we let the court know that payment had been made and that the car had changed possession they told me that my payment did not fall within the month deadline (If you pay within this time you can have the CCJ removed from your name). I found this extremely confusing because of the aforementioned points, therefore I
confronted the courts to explain my issue. Because they can't give "legal advice" (even though it isn't strictly legal advice) they told me that the month to pay runs from the original default judgement not from the hearing we attended.


There is no guidance to be found anywhere on how the payments work if your are applying to have the judgement set aside, this is assuming that a lay person would even think about this situation before it happened. There was no way for me to know that the month wouldn't run from when we had a final decision and I think it makes perfect sense for someone not to hand over a substantial amount of money without
having a final decision or any guidance from the court.


I wrote a letter to the court (on the advice of the court) for the attention of a district judge explaining my position and asking them to consider my situation and provide guidance. This letter was intentionally not passed on to a judge because the administration staff thought that because my case had been decided there couldn’t be anything a judge would do for me, even though I was told to do this by the court.


I rang the court system and after a massive battle I was rung back by the southend court manager, I explained my situation and she apologised that the letter wasn’t passed on and that she would personally pass it on to a judge for consideration. I later received a reply to my letter that didn’t answer my queries what so ever it actually didn’t even look like the judge had read my letter to reply.


Therefore I am in the same position as before and do not have any further clarification on this matter. I have subsequently informed the ombudsman and written a letter to my local MP. I have been advised to follow the courts complaints procedure and intend to do so. I also have been advised to write an email letter to the court to let them know that my letter wasn’t adequately answered and I need a more thorough answer. I intend to do this.


Now I am in the position where I have a CCJ against my name which I never had an intention of getting, as you can tell from the fact that I paid two days after the hearing. I made a huge effort to get the money together from friends and family so that it could be paid off as soon as possible and made sure it was paid in two days.


I feel that I have been wronged in this situation as I did everything I could do to make sure I co operated with the claimant and the system. I now have a CCJ, lost all of my
savings, have to take the person who sold the car to me to court to recover the money I paid for the car.


The court have told me there is nothing I can do about this, however I feel there always has to be a way to rectify an injustice.

I feel that the court forms need clarification on the matters I encountered and that the people at the court should be more helpful and to actually think about whether someone is asking a general question or a legal question, because they wouldn't answer anything for me.


I know this is really long, but id really appreciate if someone could help me with this?

Tixy

In terms of your CCJ then perhaps see if one of the debt advice charities are able to advise you on this. Maybe national debtline free helpline would be a place to try.

techspec

You keep saying the other person did not want this or did not want that - they sued you didn't they? They don't do that if things are all pally, as you suggest.

It about time courts stuck to dates and deadlines - most don't and allow people to flaunt the law. A lot of people received rulings in bank charges cases - only for the banks to get them set aside for no valid reason.

That said, if this was a private sale - then surely its buyer beware. Arn't buyers supposed to check the cars documents authenticity before buying - or are you trade?

CKhalvashi

techspec wrote: »

That said, if this was a private sale - then surely its buyer beware. Arn't buyers supposed to check the cars documents authenticity before buying - or are you trade?

I thought this, too.

Although a car I've previously owned went through the auction with about 175k on it then came up privately showing about 58k (although in fairness it was absolutely immaculate).

As far as I'm aware, that would be a buyer beware situation (although I did telephone the seller, who claimed to know nothing of it, despite the cars first MoT 9 months before showing 150k-ish), but unless it's a trade sale/the seller knew, I'm not sure it should have gone that way at court.

The above car was later sold as 'true mileage unknown', but did you not check the documents when buying the car?

CK

MrSilk

Don't think it's the court you should to be angry at, it should be the buyer. After all, he did sue you, although now he's you're best pal, I can't make it out.

If you can't get the CCJ removed than it shall stay on your file for 6 years.

waamo

techspec wrote: »

That said, if this was a private sale - then surely its buyer beware. Arn't buyers supposed to check the cars documents authenticity before buying - or are you trade?

It generally is but if you don't enter a defense of any kind the judgement just gets rubber stamped without a judge even seeing it.

Also why on earth would the claimant want this heard if they had a default win?

techspec

waamo wrote: »

It generally is but if you don't enter a defense of any kind the judgement just gets rubber stamped without a judge even seeing it.

Also why on earth would the claimant want this heard if they had a default win?

Exactly - but apparantly the judge then allowed the hearing and came to the same decision - despite the claimant and OP now being best buddies and not wanting the judge to rule - but just let them know what he thinks.

Very odd indeed.

Thrugelmir

Prior to receiving the CCJ you were aware of the buyers issues. As appears you sold a car on most likely in the knowledge that the service history and mileage were false.

You failed to file a defence in time. So judgement was made against you.

You were granted a hearing and failed to convince the judge. Who on the balance of probabilities considered that you weren't being totally honest. Given the evidence presented.

What's unfair?