CCJ at 20?!? whilst in DMP!!

ElenorBy

I need advice.

To give a little bit of back story... when I turned 18 I moved in with my boyfriend. I didn’t have a good relationship with my Mum so moving out seemed like a fantastic idea. I was working full time and so was my boyfriend so I thought I could handle the costs. To cut a long story short, I couldn’t. My boyfriend turned abusive shortly after we moved in, and I was struggling to afford my half of the payments. I had nowhere else to live, and no other option but to take out loans to cover living costs. Each month I would take out a new line of credit. By the time my debts totalled 10k and I discovered that he had been constantly cheating on me, I realised I needed to get out. I came crawling back to my mums house, and she begrudgingly let me back in.

Fast forward to now, I’ve been in a debt management plan for about 5 months. And I have just started university. My post has been going to my mums house and as her and I don’t talk, she never informed me of my post. Instead, she opened it. She was shocked to see that I had a letter from 118118 Money saying that I was in arrears and they were going to take out a county court judgement against me. She was unaware of my debts, and now is getting frustrated thinking that a bailiff is going to show up at her door.

I don’t understand why they have said they are going to take out a county court judgement. They have received payment from National Debt Relief (albeit it a lower amount) every month and have not contacted me by phone or email to warn me of this either.

Firstly, I’m only 20 (just turned) and I don’t even know what a CCJ entails. I have no savings or spare money to make extra payments (i’m a uni student so only working part time) and I am already suffering with financial related anxiety, with no one to turn to for advice and support. Especially because my debts were secret (not even my abusive ex knew about them).

Who do I contact? My DMP company or 118 themselves? And can they take a CCJ out despite me being in a DMP? And what does this entail?

I need advice and I can’t stop stressing about it. National Debt Relief are shut on weekends so I can’t call them. And the letter that my Mum opened was a few weeks old so I fear I am running out of time to prevent the CCJ.

Any advice would be much appreciated!!

Davy_Jones_II

I’m not sure that going to university before paying off your debts was sensible, but there’s nothing to be done about that now.

The company that you borrowed from can apply to the courts for a judgement against you, and if you do not clear the judgement within a month it will be recorded on your credit file and can be a barrier to gaining credit in the future and also to being able to do certain professional jobs, so it’s to be avoided if possible.

Are you working to supplement your student loan, and could you manage any more hours, or do you have anything that you could sell?

There are a couple of people who post here who keep telling people that a court judgement against you is not a problem, but they are wrong. While not the end of the world, you do need to try to avoid it if you can.

sourcrates

Hi,

No one can just take out a “county court judgement” against you, first they must send you a letter before action, this is supposed to allow both you and the creditor to come to an amicable arrangement, without the need to progress to court, if that can’t be achieved, then you would receive a claim form in the post next, which would be your chance to defend the claim or otherwise.

Now if your debt is already being paid by a DMP, then that amicable arrangement already exists, I would suspect the exact wording of the letter will be along the lines of “if you don’t bring your account up to date further action may be taken” or words to that effect, chances are it’s just a standard computer generated letter they are obliged to send under the terms of the consumer credit act.

I also note that your DMP company “National Debt Relief” is a debt management company that charges you for debt management plans, we recommend you use a free service such as stepchange or other free to use service, these private companies have a derisory reputation for not making your payment on time, going bust on a regular basis, and of course they charge you a whopping 30 odd % fee for doing nothing basically.

I would seriously encourage you to dump this company like yesterday, contact stepchange, and let them help you instead, this will benefit you in many ways, your payment will be made on time, they are a charity funded by the creditors, so will not go bust, and the best thing is their service is completely free of any charge, so all your money goes towards repaying your debts, and not adding to the profits for some debt management companies shareholders.

D_M_E

You say DMP Company - who is doing the DMP for you?

Did you go for a free one where all your payment goes to your creditos, such as with Stepchange for example, or is the company taking a percentage of every payment you make as their cut - in other words are they charging you for your DMP?

fatbelly

The first stage in court action (at the moment it's all just bluff) is a pre-action protocol letter. If you get one you follow debt camel's guidance

https://debtcamel.co.uk/letter-before-claim-ccj/

There are loads of stages before this gets anywhere near a bailiff. Stop watching junk programmes on the telly about them.

theoretica

If mail sent to your mother's address doesn't get to you then it is worth thinking about changing your address with everyone who has it - it is a pain to do, especially if you are moving every year as a student, but less of a pain than not getting important letters.