Letter Before Action But Address Was Wrong

Gwalker

Has anyone been in similar situation please? Where you sent Letter Before Action but the defendant has never received it because the address was wrong?

We sent one a while ago and the address that he put on his business page seems fake. We can always re-send the letter by email or even send the pdf to his Whatsapp. But if he doesn't respond to that either, how we suppose to fill the claim form if we doesn't know his correct address?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Undervalued

According to some recent posts on here, it response to similar threads it is apparently possible to successfully serve court papers to the defendant's Twitter user ID and similar in such situations. Whilst this is not commonplace it may be worth researching if your really can't find a valid physical address.

Is the defendant an individual or a business?

user1977

Why does it "seem fake"? What methods have you used to try to find their correct address? Is it an individual you're suing? You might need a tracing agent - often pretty cheap.

Gwalker

Undervalued said:

According to some recent posts on here, it response to similar threads it is apparently possible to successfully serve court papers to the defendant's Twitter user ID and similar in such situations. Whilst this is not commonplace it may be worth researching if your really can't find a valid physical address.

Is the defendant an individual or a business?

We got his Twitters ID but it just has one post and it was 7 years ago. We got his Facebook ID though. The defendant is an individual but he has business account. When we sent him payment it was sent to his business account.

Gwalker

user1977 said:

Why does it "seem fake"? What methods have you used to try to find their correct address? Is it an individual you're suing? You might need a tracing agent - often pretty cheap.

We got his address from Yell. It has phone number which is the same with the one that he gave us. Yes it's an individual but he has business account. 

Undervalued

Depending on how much money is involved I would consider getting some professional advice. There are options but they are not straightforward and are likely to be resisted if he has a mind not to pay so you need to "dot the i's and cross the t's".

Jenni_D

Does the business have a company number? If yes, have you checked it at Companies House?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=

If the company exists then you can serve an LBC and court papers at the registered address.

Bear in mind though that serving a claim and winning does not mean you get your money back - you'd still need to enforce the claim (methods for which depend on the claim value). So it's very important to understand exactly who you're claiming against. (A claim against a limited company may not be worth the bother, depending on value and the company history. A claim against a sole trader/individual means you have more chance of getting your money back as you can lodge a claim against assets owned by the individual, or even against their bank account).

Gwalker

Jenni_D said:

Does the business have a company number? If yes, have you checked it at Companies House?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=

If the company exists then you can serve an LBC and court papers at the registered address.

Bear in mind though that serving a claim and winning does not mean you get your money back - you'd still need to enforce the claim (methods for which depend on the claim value). So it's very important to understand exactly who you're claiming against. (A claim against a limited company may not be worth the bother, depending on value and the company history. A claim against a sole trader/individual means you have more chance of getting your money back as you can lodge a claim against assets owned by the individual, or even against their bank account).

I have tried to check whether his company is registered, but there are more than 8 thousands company with the similar names. I don't think so I can check the list.

We claim against individual, but all this time the payment sent to his business account, so does this mean we are claiming against the company? He is the owner. Now that I think about this, his company is probably is not registered too. He does have several vehicles with his company name written on them.

Sorry for silly questions!

Undervalued

Gwalker said:

Jenni_D said:

Does the business have a company number? If yes, have you checked it at Companies House?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=

If the company exists then you can serve an LBC and court papers at the registered address.

Bear in mind though that serving a claim and winning does not mean you get your money back - you'd still need to enforce the claim (methods for which depend on the claim value). So it's very important to understand exactly who you're claiming against. (A claim against a limited company may not be worth the bother, depending on value and the company history. A claim against a sole trader/individual means you have more chance of getting your money back as you can lodge a claim against assets owned by the individual, or even against their bank account).

I have tried to check whether his company is registered, but there are more than 8 thousands company with the similar names. I don't think so I can check the list.

We claim against individual, but all this time the payment sent to his business account, so does this mean we are claiming against the company? He is the owner. Now that I think about this, his company is probably is not registered too. He does have several vehicles with his company name written on them.

Sorry for silly questions!

If it is a limited company, registered with Companies House, then it is a separate legal entity and you can't (normally) claim against him personally.

If it is just Joe Bloggs trading as, for example, Bloggs and Co (or Dodgy Joe of Toytown!) but not Limited, then he and the business are one and the same thing however much he may try to pretend otherwise.

MarvinDay

Gwalker said:

We claim against individual, but all this time the payment sent to his business account, so does this mean we are claiming against the company? He is the owner. Now that I think about this, his company is probably is not registered too. He does have several vehicles with his company name written on them.

It depends on what the status of the company is.
If it's a limited company then you have to take action against that company but if the individual concerned is operating as a sole trader then you can take action against them directly.

Jenni_D

What paperwork (email is OK) have you received from the "business"? That should be your starting point - if the company is registered then the company number (and registered address) should be on all paperwork.