CCJ’s after DRO

MsRose75

I’d be grateful of some advice please. Back in 2017 I had a DRO discharged and this included CCJ’s.  

I’ve recently sent an application to join a professional body and their rules state you must not have outstanding monetary orders, which I don’t, however my credit files shows the CCJ’s as active.

When researching I’ve found that the courts can’t change the status unless it was paid.  This means the information supplied by the courts on my credit file is in accurate.  The Data Protection Act states that all information should be upto date and correct.

I have my DRO paperwork to prove I’m clear, but the active status on my file is hampering my application.

Can anyone clarify exactly what should be done about this please?  

Fighter1986

I have an outstanding complaint with the ICO about this, as the system doesn't currently support a means for the Department of Justice to notify the Registry Trust that a judgement is settled, only satisfied.

What does this mean?

Pay a CCJ in full, and the court update the Registry Trust with a "date of satisfaction" to mark the CCJ as satisfied.

Settle a CCJ by any means other than payment in full, e.g. by way of a successfully completed insolvency, and the court mark their records to show the debt is settled but they do not pass this information to the registry trust. 

I do not agree with this, as I believe the public record needs to reflect when a CCJ has been settled by way of a successfully completed insolvency. 

I'm still awaiting adjudication by the ICO.

I have found the lender involved in a CCJ that remains outstanding following my bankruptcy has agreed that they wouldn't dispute if I applied to the court for a set-aside - you may find the same - but this comes at a cost of £255 per judgement. 

File a complaint with the court explaining that the public record needs to show without doubt, to any interested party, that you no longer have a liability to the claimant, which it currently does not.

They will bat this back, at which point please escalate the matter to the ICO. There needs to be a shift in the way this system works and your complaint will help make it happen.

Even the registry trust themselves are campaigning for there to be a public record of partially-satisfied CCJs but the MoJ haven't budged yet. 

sourcrates

Unfortunately it’s a quirk of the system, although a DRO cancels out any county court judgements related to debts included in it, they will still show for the full 6 years on your credit file, the same as in bankruptcy.

Fighter1986

sourcrates said:

Unfortunately it’s a quirk of the system, although a DRO cancels out any county court judgements related to debts included in it, they will still show for the full 6 years on your credit file, the same as in bankruptcy.

The issue is not that they show w for six years but they still show a full outstanding balance even after the insolvency has completed, whereas defaults are updated to show that they've been satisfied.

It's a quirk I'm not accepting as the public record is entirely misleading and misrepresentative to interested parties like employers in cases like mine and OPs. 

I hope OP raises this with the court and escalates to the ICO just as I have. 

MsRose75

Fighter1986 said:

sourcrates said:

Unfortunately it’s a quirk of the system, although a DRO cancels out any county court judgements related to debts included in it, they will still show for the full 6 years on your credit file, the same as in bankruptcy.

The issue is not that they show w for six years but they still show a full outstanding balance even after the insolvency has completed, whereas defaults are updated to show that they've been satisfied.

It's a quirk I'm not accepting as the public record is entirely misleading and misrepresentative to interested parties like employers in cases like mine and OPs. 

I hope OP raises this with the court and escalates to the ICO just as I have. 

I have written to the Court and now have to wait.  The problem is that this is stopping my membership to a governing body, and will affect my career.  I will escalate this to the ICO if there is no successful outcome 

Fighter1986

Please keep us posted.

I'll keep the forum updated when my progress too but I expect it to be very, very slow. 

It's clearly affecting you quite adversely. The consequences will at least help bolster your case with the ICO. 

sourcrates

Fighter1986 said:

sourcrates said:

Unfortunately it’s a quirk of the system, although a DRO cancels out any county court judgements related to debts included in it, they will still show for the full 6 years on your credit file, the same as in bankruptcy.

The issue is not that they show w for six years but they still show a full outstanding balance even after the insolvency has completed, whereas defaults are updated to show that they've been satisfied.

It's a quirk I'm not accepting as the public record is entirely misleading and misrepresentative to interested parties like employers in cases like mine and OPs. 

I hope OP raises this with the court and escalates to the ICO just as I have. 

Unfortunately a CCJ cannot be shown as satisfied unless you can show the court you paid the balance of the debt. 

Although you no longer owe money on the CCJ, you did not actually pay it, and therefore the court will not mark it as satisfied. 

There is also no option to have a CCJ marked as partially settled.
That been said, if you can get your complaint upheld, then good luck to you.

Fighter1986

sourcrates said:

Unfortunately a CCJ cannot be shown as satisfied unless you can show the court you paid the balance of the debt. 

At the moment

sourcrates said:

There is also no option to have a CCJ marked as partially settled.
That been said, if you can get your complaint upheld, then good luck to you.

At the moment

... Whilst it is true that in cases where a debt that once formed part of a CCJ, which later formed part of an insolvency, haven't been "Paid", they have been "Settled" - in so far as, the balance is no longer owed. The individual no longer has a liability to the claimant.

The data protection act states that data must be adequate for its intended purpose.

The intended purpose of the Registry Trust's register of County Court Judgements is to tell any interested party, e.g. a lender, landlord, employer, or insurer, whether the individual in question has ever had a court liability, and whether they still do.

Of course, once a debt has been written off by way of a successfully completed insolvency, the individual concerned no longer has a liability. Therefore, in order for the records to be adequate, they must be able to show any interested party that the individual concerned, no longer has an oustanding liability towards the claimant.

At present, the current system doesn't support adequate data recording.

The Registry Trust themselves have been petitioning the Ministry of Justice for some time that a record of "Settled / Partially Satisfied" judgements be made available for public view, so it is clearly a recognised industry problem right at the core.

Nobody is asking for a CCJ to show that it has been paid in full when it hasn't, but a mechanism needs to be put in place to show any interested party that the liability has been settled / partially satisfied exactly as is possible with Defaults. When a debtor is discharged from their insolvency, all of their defaults are marked as "Partially Satisfied", as per ICO guidelines, to demonstrate to any interested party that whilst the debt wasn't paid in full, the applicant no longer has any liability to the creditor in question.

I can't see how it can be considered that such a mechanism can be a requirement for the accurate reporting of defaults, but not a requirement for the accurate reporting of CCJs. I consider this a contradiction in requirements, and an oversight by the industry and the ICO. 

The OP's employer isn't interested whether he has paid his judgement in full, just that he no longer has an outstanding or enforcable liability to the claimants. He doesn't. The records need to reflect that in order to be compliant with the DPA.

I'm not resting until this is taken seriously by the ICO. Anyone else in the same position needs to be equally as relentless until this is addressed. 

PixelPound

If the thought of paying £255 is not affordable, then depending on if this is because of your income the costs can be waived
See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-for-help-with-court-and-tribunal-fees

If that does not help then if the lender is not going to object to set aside, then bear in mind if the Claimant consents to the set aside the court fee drops to £100 as it would be done without a hearing.

I suppose if there are several CCJ's this might still be an issue, but it is definitely something to consider, and may help. 

Fighter1986

Well the ICO didn't understand or handle my complaint satisfactorally at all, even after escalation.

They've completely overlooked the key issue raised, being:

"I can't see how it can be considered that such a mechanism can be a requirement for the accurate reporting of defaults, but not a requirement for the accurate reporting of CCJs. I consider this a contradiction in requirements, and an oversight by the industry and the ICO. "

I will raise this to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman, but additionally I will pay the £255 fee to set aside the CCJ.

The crazy thing is, in my case, this is about the value of the judgement in question. I'd pay it, if it wouldn't be a breach of my bankruptcy order to do so. Ho hum. 

OP: it looks like if you want those CCJs marked as satisfied, you'll have to pay the £255 filing fee per order to ask they be set aside.