CCJ at old address

JohnNada80

Today I received a knock on the door by the woman who now lives at my old address. She came to drop of a pile of letters addressed to me at the old address. One of them is a CCJ from Northampton County Court Business Centre, ordering me to pay £907.89 in monthly £50 installments to Lowell Portfolio, the first of which is due tomorrow. Some of the letters are from BW Legal, threatening to commence court proceedings against me if I don't pay Lowell the alleged debt. Obviously I never received any of these, so I was unable to respond to them in time. What should I do? I can't really afford to pay back £50 a month, and I never had any agreements with Lowell. They must have bought the debt from Vanquis, for an old £500 credit card I had a few years ago. What will happen if I don't pay the £50 a month? I wouldn't even know about this if the woman who now lives at my old address hadn't dropped off the letters today... I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks

sourcrates

Hi,
If you fail to pay a CCJ, the creditor can instruct bailiffs to attend your property, if your working, they can apply for an attachment of earnings order, they can summon you to court for questioning about your finances, they can apply for a charging order, if you own a property, in short, they can make your life hell, if they so wished.


You have two choices, you can apply to have the CCJ set aside, as they sent the court papers to the wrong address, or, probably a better option for you, apply to change the payment amount, by filling in form N245, there may be a £50 fee for this.


https://www.gov.uk/county-court-judgments-ccj-for-debt/if-you-dont-owe-the-money

fatbelly

If you are going for set-aside you will also need a 'defence with a real prospect of success'

You could vary the order - for a £1k debt the court would be receptive to a £20 per month offer if that was supported by the figures.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/08%20EW%20County%20court%20-%20suspending%20a%20bailiff%27s%20warrant%20or%20reducing%20instalments%20on%20a%20county-court%20judgment/Default.aspx

You could chance it and see what happens - it appears that they do not have your present address and some of those enforcement options may not apply to you.

Or if you have other debts, now may be the time to sort them all out with a suitable strategy.