9 Year old CCJ. Robinson Way help please

b16jsy

Hi all, hopefully someone can help.
I have a ccj from 2008 which has obviously dropped off my credit files some time ago. This was for around £4000 from Intelligent Finance. Now this ccj was marked against me without my defence and in itself was for a statute barred debt. I (wrongly) never got round to getting it set aside.
Now I have had a few letters from Robinson Way debt collectors chasing payment up. Now firstly I sent them the standard statute barred template letter. I didn't realise that a CCJ doesn't become statute barred until I looked across these boards this week. I have now had a response letter from Robinson Way:

'Please note that this account is subject to a County Court Judgement dated xx April 2008, Case Number xxxxxxx, with a balance of £xxxx and is not statute barred.
We trust this resolves your query, we now require your affordable payment proposal within the next 30 days. After this collection activity will resume.'

Can anyone help with a response to this? I have read that if the ccj has not been enforced within a six year period that they would require another court hearing and would need a very good reason as to why it hadn't been enforced? Should I respond and state the the actual debt was statute barred at the time of ccj, and that I want to see proof otherwise?

Thanks

sourcrates

Hi,

You are correct, they will need to go back to court to enforce the CCJ.

Your statute barred defence disappeard after judgement was granted.(unless you had applied for a set aside).

You should write informing them of the above, and invite them to go back to court, because, unless you have lived on the moon for the last 9 years, the court will say they have had sufficient time to enforce it, and deny there claim.

Robinson way may decide it's too much hassle and not bother.

StopIt

A CCJ supersedes any argument about any debt being statute barred, so that wont work. In order for that to work, you would have had to get the CCJ set aside which resets the process.


You should have done this, but now, as you say Robinson Way will have to convince the county court why they took nearly 9 years to enforce a debt. They're perfectly entitled to ask for the money, but can't realistically do much about it. Of course, if they do try to go back to court, you may be able to get the original defence in, but you would most certainly need to seek legal advice if that eventuality happens.


Edit: Cross Posted with Sourcrates. As he said, they can either go back to court, with limit chance of success or realistically, do nothing about this.

b16jsy

Thanks very much for your prompt replies and advice, that makes things a lot clearer for me, and I won't worry as much about it for now.
I may send them a Letter pointing out the above, or I might just leave it for the time being...

Thanks again

National_Debtline

Hi b16jsy

You mention this debt was statute barred at the point the CCJ was made. That would mean there had been a 6 year period prior to the court papers being issued where no payments were made on the debt and you did not acknowledge it in writing. If that applies you could try and apply for a set aside, but the court expects you to apply promptly on finding out about the CCJ. If you’ve known about this a long time it could significantly reduce your chances of success, and the application fee alone is £255.

It is correct that Robinson Way will have to get permission from the court to enforce the debt because the CCJ is over 6 years old, unless you own a property that they can attach a charging order to in which case there is no time limit. We can’t really say whether a court will find it reasonable to allow enforcement action after so long. It’s worth mentioning that you could apply to the court to set up an affordable payment plan now which would avoid the risk of bailiffs or an attachment of earnings order. Or you could wait and see what happens, if action is taken you can apply to try and get it suspended and set up a payment plan at that point.

Susie
@natdebtline