CCJ Issued by Council regarding rental property

jayu619

Hi MSE's,

I am hoping to get some advice on behalf of my dad and am not sure if this is the correct place to contact regarding his issue.

So my dad's been paying a monthly service charge by way of a standing order with Lloyds bank. This has been happening for a number of years since he purchased the property. Only in Aug 2016, someone went and changed the reference of the payment at the bank (my father is adamant it is not him, because he has no reason to go change something that has been in place for more than 6 years prior), so the council were claiming that they did not receive the payments between Aug 2016 and Dec 2016. However, the bank confirmed the money was still going to the council but payments were not being attributed to his account due to the payment reference being deleted. My dad does not recall going to the bank to make a change. As that bank account is only for rental property dealings - service charges, mortgage payments etc.

Unfortunately, the council took him to court and was issued a CCJ against him in June 2017. But he never received the councils letters about being in arrears for payments not being made (even though the payments were still going to the council/beneficiary but not with a reference to identify him). The letters could have been lost as they are sent by standard post as opposed to recorded delivery etc, which happens!

Dad spoke to the bank, they investigated and said someone had changed the standing order and did not put the reference. But he questioned this saying, a bank should be asking for a reference. Any other payments being made, whether one off or not, they always ask for a reference, why not for this standing order? Lloyds Bank admitted liability there that they should have asked for a payment reference.

But with regards to the council side of things, he's not received their letters warning him of arrears, and asked them to confirm address of where the letters were being sent. Council letters were being sent to his correspondence address. But the 2 letters warning of him of arrears and possible court action, were never received at the correspondence address. But as for the official court letters, they were being sent to his rental property address - which he visits every 4-6 months. He spoke to the council last week and when they checked their dealings with their solicitors, the council officer admitted that they had provided his correspondence address to the solicitors but all official court letters were being sent to his rental property address, hence why he's not seen any of the claim forms etc...but the council requested their solicitors send it to his correspondence address. The CCJ was issued in June 2017 and he only found out about this at the beginning of January of this year 2018.

The arrears have been paid in full.

However, upon speaking to the council, they do not want to accept liability nor do they want to remove the CCJ because it is not their problem, even though they knew about his correspondence address. Now he has to waste time and money to remove it.

Where does he stand with this issue with the council to seek compensation? Its caused him a lot of stress and hassle, and is already a heart patient which has not gone down well with his health.

I hope you are able to advise. Or point me in the right direction as to how to go about resolving this.

Many thanks,

JayU

maninthestreet

The CCJ should be marked as 'satisfied' if the monies have now been paid.

BorisThomson

jayu619 wrote: »

Hi MSE's,

I am hoping to get some advice on behalf of my dad and am not sure if this is the correct place to contact regarding his issue.

So my dad's been paying a monthly service charge by way of a standing order with Lloyds bank. This has been happening for a number of years since he purchased the property. Only in Aug 2016, someone went and changed the reference of the payment at the bank, so the council were claiming that they did not receive the payments between Aug 2016 and Dec 2016. However, the bank confirmed the money was still going to the council but payments were not being attributed to my account due to the payment reference being deleted. My dad does not recall going to the bank to make a change. As that bank account is only for rental property dealings - service charges, mortgage payments etc.

Unfortunately, the council took him to court and was issued a CCJ against him in June 2017. But he never received the councils letters about being in arrears for payments not being made (even though they were but not with a reference to identify me). The letters could have been lost as they are sent by standard post as opposed to recorded delivery etc.

Dad spoke to the bank, they investigated and said someone had changed the standing order and did not put the reference. But he questioned this saying, a bank should be asking for a reference. Any other payments being made, whether one off or not, they always ask for a reference, why not for this standing order? Lloyds Bank admitted liability there that they should have asked for a payment reference.

But with regards to the council side of things, he's not received their letters warning him of arrears, and asked them to confirm address of where the letters were being sent. It was being sent to his correspondence address, where the council letters were going. But the 2 letters warning of him of arrears and possible court action, were never received. But as for the official court letters, they were being sent to his rental property address - which he visits every 4-6 months. He spoke to the council last week and when they checked their dealings with their solicitors, the council officer admitted that they had provided his correspondence address to the solicitors but all official court letters were being sent to his rental property address, hence why he's not seen any of the claim forms etc. Nor the official judgement issued against him. The CCJ was issued in June 2017 and he only found out about this at the beginning of January of this year 2018.

The arrears have been paid in full.

However, upon speaking to the council, they do not want to accept liability nor do they want to remove the CCJ because it is not their problem, even though they knew about my correspondence address. Now he has to waste time and money to remove it.

Where does he stand with this issue with the council to seek compensation? Its caused him a lot of stress and hassle, and is already a heart patient which has not gone down well with his health.

I hope you are able to advise. Or point me in the right direction as to how to go about resolving this.

Many thanks,

JayU

I'm lost between the references to you and your dad. Can you explain please?

jayu619

maninthestreet wrote: »

The CCJ should be marked as 'satisfied' if the monies have now been paid.

But this should not have happened in my opinion.
Both the bank and council are at fault.

Council and their solicitors sending legal correspondence to rental property and not correspondence address, which they supplied to the solicitors. And they have on file.

And bank admitting liability that they failed to ask for a payment reference.

My father wants to claim compensation from both especially council. As this has caused considerable amount of unnecessary stress.

jayu619

BorisThomson wrote: »

I'm lost between the references to you and your dad. Can you explain please?

Sorry not trying to be rude, but wheres the confusion? I am referring to my dad's case, whose got the CCJ issued against him. And I am writing on his behalf.

Let me know what exactly you are referring to or wanting to know more about

He basically wants to seek compensation from both the bank for failing to ask for a payment reference to which they admitted liability to. And council for issuing CCJ and their solicitors not sending legal correspondence to correspondence address (they sent it all to the rental property)....even though the council provided my parents correspondence address to council soilicitors. So these court claim letters etc, were not retrieved as my father has no reason to go to the rental property unless absolutely necessary.

bris

Blame the tenant for not passing on the mail, did you ever think of that?


You have no recourse against the council, they did what they do in default situations and any mail they send is considered delivered after 2 days. To lose 2 is unlikely, and not their fault.

jayu619

bris wrote: »

Blame the tenant for not passing on the mail, did you ever think of that?


You have no recourse against the council, they did what they do in default situations and any mail they send is considered delivered after 2 days. To lose 2 is unlikely, and not their fault.

Yes they did - but that isn't the point in our opinion because, the council know of parents correspondence address. They passed this onto their solicitors and asked for all documents to be sent to correspondence address. Council were even surprised as to why the solicitors were sending it to the rental property. They admitted this in an email to my father. Clearly an error on their part or solicitors part, rather.

What are your thoughts on the above?
Thanks

BorisThomson

jayu619 wrote: »

Sorry not trying to be rude, but wheres the confusion? I am referring to my dad's case, whose got the CCJ issued against him. And I am writing on his behalf.

Let me know what exactly you are referring to or wanting to know more about

He basically wants to seek compensation from both the bank for failing to ask for a payment reference to which they admitted liability to. And council for issuing CCJ and their solicitors not sending legal correspondence to correspondence address (they sent it all to the rental property)....even though the council provided my parents correspondence address to council soilicitors. So these court claim letters etc, were not retrieved as my father has no reason to go to the rental property unless absolutely necessary.

Yet you refer to your account, your correspondence address. Why do you have an account with them?

Not trying to be rude but it's a good idea to read your posts before posting!

LadyDee

So money will make the stress better? A mistake was made, the matter's been sorted out, presumably your father is not actually out of pocket? Just how much money will wipe out the stress? I believe there might be a way to have the CCJ taken off his record (Google it) so he'll be back to where he was and he won't have to suffer any more stress.

unholyangel

bris wrote: »

Blame the tenant for not passing on the mail, did you ever think of that?


You have no recourse against the council, they did what they do in default situations and any mail they send is considered delivered after 2 days. To lose 2 is unlikely, and not their fault.

Not just the 2 default letters, there also would have been a statement sent around april 2017.


OP, you seem to be giving conflicting information - not just with references to "my address" and "my account" and "identify me" but also you first said someone changed the reference at the bank, then you say the bank didn't ask for a reference. If your dad didn't find out till jan 2018, how come the only payments missing are aug-dec 2016?

Fosterdog

Banks give an option of using a reference for your own auditing purposes but they are not required to set up a standing order if you don't want to use one. The field can be left blank, so while I agree that the bank should provide a way of you giving a payment a reference it's not up to them to make sure you've put in a reference at all let alone the correct reference, that is up to the person setting it up to check.

You say somebody changed the standing order, who did that? SOs are set up from the senders end so it would have been whoever set up the SO for your parents who should have made sure the details were correct. They also had plenty of time to check their statements for errors.

What makes you think your parents are entitled to compensation for an error on their end? They owed the council money, they failed to ensure the money was paid in a way that the council knew what account to assign it to so the council have taken legal action against them. If the debt is now settled the CCJ should be updated to reflect that, it won't go away for 6 years but will show as satisfied. They should take it as a lesson learned to be more careful with their business accounts in the future.