CCJ unpaid, 6yrs nearly up - what happens?

LJP29

Hi, someone unbeknown to me took out a store card in my name & I only discovered this when I applied for my mortgage & our mortgage advisor saw the CCJ on my credit file. It’s for £350 total & was issued Dec 2018. It was issued despite the debt being 14 years old & the payments ceased well before that. I tried unsuccessfully to get this wiped from my file due to the age of the debt, but was just passed from pillar to post by Lowell & Argos, who advised a payment had been made on the account & therefore the CCJ was raised lawfully - although when I requested to be sent all info relating to this, the only section that wasn’t there was the date of this alleged payment as that had ‘gone missing’ from the file, coincidentally. Anyway the above is for context. The CCJ is due to drop off my file Dec 2024 if the 6 years is honoured, but my question is, what happens then? The CCJ hasn’t been paid. I didn’t specifically acknowledge that the debt was mine when in communication with them re the unlawful raising of the CCJ (because it actually isn’t my debt although it’s in my name), but would this be classed as acknowledgment? I haven’t received any communication via telephone or letters or otherwise from the debt company at all, & I am on the electoral so can be easily found. My next question is, will it definitely disappear once the 6 years is up or can it be extended on my credit file? Is it worth just paying the £350? I have only not paid it as it’s not my debt in the first place so I begrudge it but this has massively affected my mortgage interest rate & I can’t get credit anywhere, not that I want it but just to try & build my credit score back up again. Sorry for the long post! Any advice would be much appreciated. 

EdwardB

What happens is it falls off your credit record.  Others will confirm but I understood the acknowledgement applies to the debt before the CCJ, not the CCJ itself.

As far as I understand they would need an extremely good reason to extend a CCJ, but they can pay £90 to escalate for High Court Enforcement which you can resist by not engaging or leaving any door open, but if you have a car, not on finance, worth more than £1500 and in your name then beware. Some might view a mortgage application as a signal that the debt is worth chasing.

This is the classic trick, the so called backdoor CCJ, the payment on account was probably made by them and I very much doubt it would reactivate a debt over 6 years, which is probably why they omitted it the CCJ achieved at an old address.  You can apply to the Court to have it set aside but that costs about the same, which is why they pull this stunt. 

First step is a Subject Access Request on all of them.

If you can prove it was not you then you can use the ICO complaint to get it removed from your credit record.  You have to first put in a complaint to the Credit Ref Agency and if they will not do it you raise complaint to ICO via their website.

If your name is John Smith and they wrongly assigned the debt of another person then relatively easy to prove by DOB which would have been on the original Argos Application.  If your name is unique and it was identity theft then a bit more work, someone tried it on me when I moved, I had redirected post but some still went to old address, new occupant tried it but made some fatal mistakes.

LJP29

Thank you for your advice. It was a subject to access that I requested from both Argos & Lowell when they gave me all info except the last payment date. Are they allowed to make a payment themselves to then allow them to take it to court for a CCJ then? That’s crazy. As they’ve already falsified/lied about the last payment so they could initially raise the CCJ I am concerned they will extend it or take further action if the CCJ isn’t paid. They threatened me with bailiffs when I requested the subject to access 2 years ago but they backed off when I said I had a solicitor looking in to things. I think it’s odd how they haven’t tried contacting me about it at all
since that communication. It was 2 years ago I applied for my mortgage & I have remortgaged recently, again with horrific interest rate & limited to one lender due to the CCJ. Unfortunately I can’t prove that it wasn’t me as the card was taken out by a relative so they had all of my info but applied for it under a different address to myself. I’m not sure whether to pay it or not. It might be worth it in the long run but times are hard in the current climate so if I don’t have to pay the £350 that wasn’t mine to begin with then I’d prefer not to. 

fatbelly

It drops off your file in Dec 2024, whether you pay it or not. The only difference is that it would be marked settled if you did pay it

If they haven't enforced the ccj by now they are unlikely to try. After Dec 2024 they would need express permission of the court, and a good reason for the delay.

You could try set-aside but it's probably not worth doing and you may struggle to convince a court that you have acted 'promptly'

sourcrates

Unfortunatly the time to try and rectify this has long since past, and it is what it is now basically.

As fatbelly says above, once it drops off your file, its very unlikely anyone will try to resurrect it by taking enforcement action, six years is usually deemed to be long enough, and really that should be the end of the matter.

stewartwilliams

I had a letter today saying that Lowell had, from Oct 2022, taken over Hoist who had a CCJ against me for a HSBC credit card.  The CCJ dropped off 5 months ago as that was the 6 years point.  Never acknowledged or paid anything (card apparently taken out in 2007 even though I was with Lloyds only since 1994).
Anything to worry about?

sourcrates

stewartwilliams said:

I had a letter today saying that Lowell had, from Oct 2022, taken over Hoist who had a CCJ against me for a HSBC credit card.  The CCJ dropped off 5 months ago as that was the 6 years point.  Never acknowledged or paid anything (card apparently taken out in 2007 even though I was with Lloyds only since 1994).
Anything to worry about?

See above advice, applies to you too.