Won a Court Order, but defendant not paid!

wilkies5

I won a hearing in Small Claims (County Court) to retrieve the cost of a vets bill for the damage the defendant's dog inflicted on mine. After 9 long months I won in full - the costs plus fees totalling £541.
He had 28 days to pay on the Court order. He hasn't paid.
I understand from the courts that I can't escalate this for enforcement because the value is less than £600.
If this is true, how can I get my money??

:mad:

pinkshoes

Watch 'the sheriffs are coming'!

I think you need to appoint a court bailiff to collect the debt, and their fees are added to the debt.

Does this person have any assets?

Shaka_Zulu

pinkshoes wrote: »

Watch 'the sheriffs are coming'!

I think you need to appoint a court bailiff to collect the debt, and their fees are added to the debt.

Does this person have any assets?

Was that not the Ops point though? OP suggests under £600 your on your own.

(That's how I read it anyway)

sjbrun

High court enforcement charge £60 which is added to the debt which will take it to over £600. Just make sure he has assets like a car otherwise your just throwing good money after bad.

wilkies5

From the Enforcement pack I was sent by the court (because obviously lots of people choose NOT to pay up) they state the court order must be in excess of £600! This is really frustrating!
I will probably have to trawl through debt recovery agencies locally to see if anyone will take it on.
:mad:

shaun_from_Africa

sjbrun wrote: »

High court enforcement charge £60 which is added to the debt which will take it to over £600. Just make sure he has assets like a car otherwise your just throwing good money after bad.

That won't work.
The £600 minimum figure that can be escalated to the High Court is based on the County court judgement figure only and not the CC judgement + costs incurred afterwards.

If the CC judgement was £601 you could then escalate it and add the £60 fee to the money to be recovered (£661) but if the CC judgement was £541 then even though the enforcement fee would take it over the £600 figure, this still couldn't be escalated.

steampowered

You can't use High Court Enforcement Officers.

But you can use use county court bailiffs. The procedure is different.

So use county court bailiffs.

daytona0

Could always try a little bluff of sorts....

Write to the person and offer them a payment plan (like £50 a month for 10 months) to clear the CCJ. Give them 2 weeks to correspond and, if they do not reply, advise that you will be instructing county court bailiffs to recover the debt in full.

That way you are sort of giving them an option if the reason for non payment is linked to lack of money.

You could still go on to use the bailiffs where possible, but I just think that this could turn into a "throwing good money after bad" situation.