Attachment of Earnings Order on Sole Trader

ricardovich

Hey everyone

Can you help please?

Last Thursday I received a Notice for Attachment of Earnings Order for a £4000 debt. I had no knowledge of this action nor indeed the CCJ issued on the debt.

Having spoken to the County Court Money Claims Centre I have discovered that this is to do with a Yorkshire Bank credit agreement taken out on 12/01/2000. The CCJ was issued in August 2014 and was sent to, and issued on, a previous address that I lived at 3 years ago and hence I didnt know anything about it.

I am a sole trader and have been for many years. I am currently the house husband bringing up my son and thus only work sporadically and I earn no more than around £7000 per year. My wife has a good income.

I have taken advice from the brilliant National Debt Line but am still confused about a few things:-

1. The NatDebt advise me that this order cannot be served on a self-employed sole trader and is not valid. Therefore, do I have to fill out all the household income expenditure details asked for on form N56?? I have 8 days to reply to this.

2. Can I return the N56 blank with a covering lettering stating that I am a self-employed sole trader and thus this application is not correct?

3. Do I fill out box 10 of the N56 "I would like to suspend the order because..." I am self employed.

4. If I send a covering letter do I sign and date the incomplete N56 form?

In the future I will look to set aside the CCJ (presuming it is statute barred) and will try to get legal advice on this (however a solicitor I spoke to yesterday told me she'd charge £250 plus vat per hour! I just dont have that money). But at the moment it is the 8 day turn round on the N56 that is concerning me. Obviously I do not want to be in contempt of court.

Any help gratefully received

Thanks

R

sourcrates

Hi,

Can't help with the N56, I would ring the court and ask them.

As regards the other issue, you don't need a solicitor for a set aside application.

You simply download the form off the Internet, complete it, send with the £255,00 statutory fee, that's it.

You will then be advised of the hearing date.

ricardovich

sourcrates wrote: »

Hi,

Can't help with the N56, I would ring the court and ask them.

As regards the other issue, you don't need a solicitor for a set aside application.

You simply download the form off the Internet, complete it, send with the £255,00 statutory fee, that's it.

You will then be advised of the hearing date.

Thanks so much for that. Believe me I have phoned the County Court Money Claims Centre, the County Court Business Centre and even visited my local County Court and no-one has a clue what to do about this! I've even emailed my query to them all and they say they may get back to me possibly within 10 days but that doesn't help with my 8 day deadline!! Ask to speak to the Clerk of the Court and you get told that's not possible. Grrr.

sourcrates

Well in the absence of any further information I'd go with your initial thoughts posted above.

As long as you return it, that's the main thing.

Fatbelly is the man for this, hopefully he may pick this up later today.

National_Debtline

Hello ricardovich


Section 3 of the N56 asks you for details of your employment - tick the relevant box to indicate that you are self-employed, and complete the remainder of the form as directed, providing as much detail as possible in about your (estimated) level of income and household expenditure. It should not really matter whether you tick the "suspended order" box in section 10, as the court cannot make the order in the first place without you having some sort of PAYE income.


If you want to emphasise the point, feel free to enclose a covering note but it should not be strictly necessary. Do return it to the court ASAP though, so that you are seen to be doing what is required of you.


Dennis
@natdebtline

ricardovich

National_Debtline wrote: »

Hello ricardovich


Section 3 of the N56 asks you for details of your employment - tick the relevant box to indicate that you are self-employed, and complete the remainder of the form as directed, providing as much detail as possible in about your (estimated) level of income and household expenditure. It should not really matter whether you tick the "suspended order" box in section 10, as the court cannot make the order in the first place without you having some sort of PAYE income.


If you want to emphasise the point, feel free to enclose a covering note but it should not be strictly necessary. Do return it to the court ASAP though, so that you are seen to be doing what is required of you.


Dennis
@natdebtline

Thanks Dennis. That's great. Will do.

One further question though - do you know what will happen next then? I am concerned then that I am sending the Judgement Creditor - Cabot Financial UK Ltd all my household income and expenditure, including, of course my wife's income.

R

National_Debtline

ricardovich wrote: »

Thanks Dennis. That's great. Will do.

One further question though - do you know what will happen next then? I am concerned then that I am sending the Judgement Creditor - Cabot Financial UK Ltd all my household income and expenditure, including, of course my wife's income.

R

Yes, but this is all information that would have been sought in the admission response to the original county court claim form - albeit this did not reach you as you state in your first post.


Cabot will presumably use the info to determine whether there is any value in their seeking any other forms of enforcement - a summary of these methods can be found at


https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judgment


They cannot enforce the judgment against your wife in any way. The logic behind asking for her income is to determine what share of the household bills she should be covering, which in turn helps determine what you should personally have left over to deal with the debt(s).


Dennis
@natdebtline

ricardovich

National_Debtline wrote: »

Yes, but this is all information that would have been sought in the admission response to the original county court claim form - albeit this did not reach you as you state in your first post.


Cabot will presumably use the info to determine whether there is any value in their seeking any other forms of enforcement - a summary of these methods can be found at


https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judgment


They cannot enforce the judgment against your wife in any way. The logic behind asking for her income is to determine what share of the household bills she should be covering, which in turn helps determine what you should personally have left over to deal with the debt(s).


Dennis
@natdebtline

Hi Dennis

I have completed the N56 and sent it registered post today. Thanks for your help.

Looking forward, if I choose to ask for the CCJ to be set aside as I believe that this debt must be statute barred I appreciate that it will cost me £250 plus costs if I lose. With this in mind would the creditor not have done their due diligence to make sure the debt was not statute barred or totally correct before applying for the judgement?

I don't want to waste money that I do not have.

thanks

fermi

ricardovich wrote: »

With this in mind would the creditor not have done their due diligence to make sure the debt was not statute barred or totally correct before applying for the judgement?

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Ummm. No.

Debt collectors skip that step as it costs too much money and effort, and they can make enough money from people who are are unaware of things like debts being statute barred and court procedure to more than offset the occasions when it comes back to bite them.

ricardovich

fermi wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Ummm. No.

Debt collectors skip that step as it costs too much money and effort, and they can make enough money from people who are are unaware of things like debts being statute barred and court procedure to more than offset the occasions when it comes back to bite them.

Wow :eek: that's incredible/ridiculous