Debt collectors after previous tenant

Brightspark87

I have always been told that debts are not registered against your address? The previous tenants of our flat had CCJs etc and the landlord evicted them and it didnt seem to have any effect for either of us! When letters were sent to us we just returned to sender and when we had a bailiff arrived we didnt open the door and said not known at this address check the electoral role as we not the previous tenants live here. After that they never turned up again.

sourcrates

dktreesea wrote: »

Bailiffs (sherriffs up here in Scotland) can be a real pain. We've been living at our current address over a decade. Annoyingly, when we came here, BT just assigned to us the phone number that was previously used for this flat, as the previous guy had moved out of the area.

Every now and then we get letters for this guy, which I send back "not at this address" and unopened. Then we got one "To whom it may concern", opened it, and lo and behold it was a CCJ against this guy! It seems one of the debt collection agencies had gone to court and of course, the previous tenant wasn't represented, unsurprising, considering he had never received the relevant mail, which I had sent back unopened.

Then we applied for credit for some purchase or another and to our surprise it was turned down. We enquired as to why and it turned out it was because there was a recent CCJ recorded against our address! Even though it wasn't in our name and had nothing to do with us, somehow it impacted on our address and therefore on us.

Then we had sheriffs (like bailiffs down south, basically they are officers of the court up here) turn up with some kind of documentation against the previous tenant, saying it gave them the right to enter the house and seize our goods. So I gave the documents back to him, saying the person in question didn't live here and hadn't lived here for some years.

The sheriff was quite unpleasant. He said he didn't believe me. I was at home with young children and he kind of forced his way in. I opened the door, and didn't give him permission to come in, but he came in anyway. I should have been scared, but I felt icy cold with rage. I said again this was nothing to do with us and asked him to leave. He refused. He was clearly power tripping. I got his ID off him, to check he was who he said he was, then called 999 in front of him, saying a man had broken into my house and was refusing to leave and he was trying to steal our stuff and he had someone else with him (who, interestingly, didn't come in). He obviously thought I was bluffing and had just pretended to make a call or was calling a mate, pretending they were the police. All the time he was talking to me like I was the debtor. I have a phone with a record button which at some point I pressed.

The police came straight away, so quickly in fact (only about 5 minutes) that I thought they must have been sitting around the corner having a cuppa. They asked the guy to come outside, but he refused saying he was an officer of the court and we had had plenty of time to comply and now he had no choice but to seize our goods. They asked him to step outside again and when he didn't move said if he didn't come outside they would have no choice but to arrest him.

He then went downstairs with one of the cops while the other one stayed behind and took a statement.

Don't keep us hanging on a thread..........


what happened next ????

dktreesea

katejo wrote: »

sounds unpleasant! Did you try to show him an ID document such as driving licence or perhaps your tenancy agreement to prove that they had the wrong person? Did you hear back from the police afterwards ?

It was unpleasant, but would have been much worse if i had been scared and let the guy intimidate me. I wasn't scared as it happened, I was furious, but in a really calm, cold way.

I told the policeman who stayed behind that I wanted the guy prosecuted, for trespass and attempted theft. I also let him listen to the recording, which fortunately started off with me informing the guy I was now recording the conversation. Apparently it's an offence to record people without them knowing!

I did show the sheriff letters addressed to us. He didn't want to know. As far as he was concerned this proved nothing, i.e. the person in question was still living with me. I don't know how many times I told him this person is not known at this address and we had lived here for years. It was obvious he had heard all this before and didn't believe a word of it. He said it would be better if I called my partner (i.e. he was convinced he was the debtor) and asked him to come home urgently.

I did follow this up with the police, in writing, because I wanted him charged, with unlawful trespassing and harassment. It turned out they hadn't prosecuted him, but had made a recommendation to the Principal Sheriff that his licence be revoked.

dktreesea

Brightspark87 wrote: »

I have always been told that debts are not registered against your address? The previous tenants of our flat had CCJs etc and the landlord evicted them and it didnt seem to have any effect for either of us! When letters were sent to us we just returned to sender and when we had a bailiff arrived we didnt open the door and said not known at this address check the electoral role as we not the previous tenants live here. After that they never turned up again.

Yes, I realise in retrospect I shouldn't have opened the door. But the guy was being really loud and disturbing our neighbours and our children, who weren't very old at the time.

terryw

I am puzzled by this. The county courts have no jurisdiction in Scotland. They would not accept papers to issue a summons against someone at an address in Scotland. They would not record a ccj at an address in Scotland. They would not send papers addressed to whom it may concern in England or Wales never mind Scotland.

dktreesea

terryw wrote: »

I am puzzled by this. The county courts have no jurisdiction in Scotland. They would not accept papers to issue a summons against someone at an address in Scotland. They would not record a ccj at an address in Scotland. They would not send papers addressed to whom it may concern in England or Wales never mind Scotland.

Up here it's the sheriff's court. This was for a debt incurred in Scotland, so under Scottish law the sheriff is the officer of the court, so acts in the place of bailiffs. There's no such thing as a bailiff in Scotland. I don't think it's called a CCJ either. This seems to be an English term that is widely used in the UK, but the legal term up here, I think (?), is an attachment order.

Having said that, just over the years of enduring phone calls and letters regarding this guy, I think one of his debts may have been for something incurred down south.

If a person incurs a debt in England and then moves to Scotland how do the English courts recover the debt? Bailiffs can't operate north of the border. Does the county court go through our sheriff's court and get them to execute the summary warrant?

I didn't just leave this at the time. Even after the police told me that he wasn't being prosecuted, I still wanted to know how it was that someone could force his way into my home and act the way he did. I wanted to know why he hadn't been charged with trespass and harassment. This wasn't a polite "Yes, I see. The person doesn't live here anymore. That's fine. We'll get this updated with the court so you won't be bothered anymore." The guy was quite intimidating and threatening me, ironically, with "getting the police out". Hence my call to the police.

I did receive a full explanation in due course. The police, when they prosecute, are not acting for the victim but rather on behalf of the crown. And they are, believe it or not, reluctant to bring prosecutions. They try to get the outcome they want the best way that is available. If it had gone to prosecution, this guy would have just carried on, behaving like he was, over the months it would take for the court to hear the case. The way they did it, recommending to the principal sheriff that his licence be suspended, got him off the streets, so to speak, much quicker. I'm not even sure that it was actually suspended. That's a very rare outcome, as I understand it. It could just be that the court didn't give him any more work - these guys up here tend to be self employed.

dktreesea

I just asked my OH. He said he thinks the guy's debt was subject to a CCJ in England, and that the creditor had then engaged the sheriff up here, to enforce the order in Scotland. He says that's not unusual. I'm not sure of all the ins and outs, but the creditor down south, having obtained the CCJ, then gets some kind of certificate from the court which enables them to register the judgment in Scotland. After that, the creditor can engage the sheriff to collect the debt.

But the paperwork I saw, from memory, was an attachment order. Which is what made me think this particular debt was a Scottish debt.

sourcrates

Have never had any dealings with bailiffs or sheriffs, but the guy you mentioned certainly did himself no favours.
I expect he will of heard what you told him 1000 times before (even though you were been truthful) I would recon many are not, so he was probably thinking it was someone else just trying it on, not that it gives him licence to behave like he did, from what you say be deserved all he got, there are rules to be followed, and clearly this guy did not do that, it would have infuriated me as well, had I been in your shoes.

terryw

OK. Thanks. My puzzlement was over the use of ccj. I think the word attachment refers to an order seze goods- English warrant of Execution.

In theory, English court orders can be enforced abroad but the procedure is cumbersome that few creditors bother with it. If it gets to that stage it is a professional debtor who will, it is likely,move on again.

English county court bailiffs would be extremely unlikely to act the manner of your caller _ they are civil servants who have no financial interest in collecting debts. They carry out the orders of the court. Private bailiffs (and, I suspect , your caller) are a different kettle of fish as they are paid by results and the fees can be very costly.

Well done for getting some result with this.

dktreesea

terryw wrote: »

I am puzzled by this. The county courts have no jurisdiction in Scotland. They would not accept papers to issue a summons against someone at an address in Scotland. They would not record a ccj at an address in Scotland. They would not send papers addressed to whom it may concern in England or Wales never mind Scotland.

I don't recall getting anything from the county court in England. By the time we were getting stuff, the judgments were either for debts incurred here, or CCJs that had been transferred here.

The "To Whom It may Concern" letter was from a debt collection agency. It was obviously intended for us to open it, was stamped urgent, and addressed to "The Householder". When we opened it -I thought it might have been something to do with the flats, i.e. some urgent repair work that needed to be done, or a gas leak - the letter itself was addressed to our previous tenant. It also had a note, (hence the To Whom it May Concern), requesting that the person who opened the letter pass it onto the previous tenant, if they were not the person the letter was intended for.

What concerned me out of all of this, is that even though we don't have any judgments against us, there was a record for this address, detailing previous judgments against people residing at this address.