money claim online judgement in abscence

dominic_d

Hi,
Sorry new here and if posted in wrong part please feel free to move.

A company I am a director of is in dispute with a supplier over their substandard services.

This company decided to issue a small claims court claim against me personally on December 15th, we broke up for xmas on the 18th and recieved this notice when returning to work on the 3rd January, we replied within 24 hours but today judgement has been awarded against me as I didnt reply in time,..... it wasnt possible to reply in time as we didnt receive any paperwork until after the cut off date.

apparently i have now got to pay to `set aside` the judgement.

Its not my dispute and havent been able to respond in time due to the date it was sent ( I think this was deliberate)

now it seems there is no way to call the court(money claim on line) directly just a series of menus to get your answer without talking to anybody.

any advice please.

its not my debt,

its a business dispute and we have witheld part of an invoice until they sort out substandard works or a discount as we had to sort them

I could not defend this as it was filed just before we closed for two weeks and not received until after the time limit

sourcrates

Hi,

Unfortunately this is the sub standard, shoddy system we are stuck with.
The government is looking into the problem of debtors not receiving court papers prior to judgement, but that won't help you just now.

The only way now is to fill in form N244 and apply for the set aside, at a cost of £255.00.

I would double check with Buisness Debtline, but as far as I know, that's your only option.

jonesMUFCforever

Why were you liable on a personal basis for a company debt?

fatbelly

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Why were you liable on a personal basis for a company debt?

He wasn't. But if you do not respond to a court claim within 14 days of service, judgement is automatically awarded against you.

OP - it sounds like you missed the timescale by one day and, yes the timing would have been deliberate. I explained this to someone once who was considering making a claim against another individual. He said 'well I'll find out when he's going on holiday and time the claim so it's 15 days old by the time he gets back!'

You do now need to act as Sourcrates said. Because this is not consumer credit act, and the person has a grudge against you, and (I presume) it's for more than £600 I can see this being escalated to High Court, where everything gets more difficult. You have a defence but you need to nip it in the bud with a N244 and get this before a County Court District Judge.

The system has problems, as we know on these boards, but I don't see anything changing soon.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/howtosetasideacountycourtjudgment/settingasideaccj.aspx