My rights regarding a High Court Enforcement regarding an unknown debt

Manxman_in_exile

MT1966 said:

Just to add to my original post, this all relates to a car accident in 2018 and the subsequent injury claim for her son, 6 at the time, who was injured in the crash.

@MT1966 -  as others have said, you really need to give a lot more detail about this so others can understand what has actually happened and try to give you the best advice.

How does the debt "relate" to a car accident in 2018?

Who is the creditor?

Did your daughter start a "no win no fee" court claim and then try to withdraw from the case?  (In which case she will be liable for any expenses and costs already run up by her lawyers).

Also, as others have said, High Court Enforcement Officers are not debt collectors - they have real legal powers.  They are usually only employed when a civil court case has run its course and a judgment (against your daughter) has been made by a judge who has read all the evidence.

For a court case to have gone that far without the defendant ever being aware of it is very unusual.  There would have been an awful lot of correspondence sent to her.   

Has she changed address a lot?  Or  - sorry to ask this - if she's had mental health problems is she in the habit of just ignoring correspondence?

MattMattMattUK

Manxman_in_exile said:

MT1966 said:

Just to add to my original post, this all relates to a car accident in 2018 and the subsequent injury claim for her son, 6 at the time, who was injured in the crash.

@MT1966 -  as others have said, you really need to give a lot more detail about this so others can understand what has actually happened and try to give you the best advice.

How does the debt "relate" to a car accident in 2018?

Who is the creditor?

Did your daughter start a "no win no fee" court claim and then try to withdraw from the case?  (In which case she will be liable for any expenses and costs already run up by her lawyers).

Also, as others have said, High Court Enforcement Officers are not debt collectors - they have real legal powers.  They are usually only employed when a civil court case has run its course and a judgment (against your daughter) has been made by a judge who has read all the evidence.

For a court case to have gone that far without the defendant ever being aware of it is very unusual.  There would have been an awful lot of correspondence sent to her.   

Has she changed address a lot?  Or  - sorry to ask this - if she's had mental health problems is she in the habit of just ignoring correspondence?

To work it's way all the way through without acknowledgement from the defendant would have involved the court serving the documents by a court bailiff both before the hearing and after the judgement would it not?

Manxman_in_exile

If you mean physically serve in person, I don't think that would be necessary.  Isn't snail mail all that's required?

It may not be the best course of action for a claimant to follow, but I'm fairly sure it's possible to raise a claim using a defendant's last known address, and papers can be deemed served by posting them to that address.  It can happen that the first time a person discovers they have a "back door" CCJ against their name is when they check their credit score.

That's why I'm wondering if the OP's daughter has changed address since they last had any interaction with the claimant creditor, and the daughter has never notified them of her new address.

But if she hasn't changed address then it would seem that a lot of mail has either gone astray or been ignored...

MattMattMattUK

Manxman_in_exile said:

If you mean physically serve in person, I don't think that would be necessary.  Isn't snail mail all that's required?

I know when at a previous employer someone raised a claim as a high court claim (rather than normal CCJ) the documents were served by a court bailiff in person because I had to sign for them, I am not sure if that is standard though. I do not knows what happens after a judgement/absentee judgement as it never went to court as they were trying it on.

Manxman_in_exile said:

It may not be the best course of action for a claimant to follow, but I'm fairly sure it's possible to raise a claim using a defendant's last known address, and papers can be deemed served by posting them to that address.  It can happen that the first time a person discovers they have a "back door" CCJ against their name is when they check their credit score.

That's why I'm wondering if the OP's daughter has changed address since they last had any interaction with the claimant creditor, and the daughter has never notified them of her new address.

But if she hasn't changed address then it would seem that a lot of mail has either gone astray or been ignored...

I have seen in the past that often this can be a case of not opening post, when I used to help out at Citizen's Advice (not in an advice capacity, just general admin stuff) many people with random mystery CCJs were people who never opened their post and that was especially prevalent in those with mental health issues. Out of sight, out of mind is a very powerful way to hide from issues, until it finally fails when the bailiffs arrive.

MT1966

Thank you all for your previous comments, I realise I was probably a little vague, but I didn't want to put a big long post. So, to be clear (and as brief as I can).
2018, my grandson was in the back of a car driven by my youngest daughter, I will call her A, his aunty. They had an accident and my daughter informed her insurers, her policy included legal cover. The insurers must have instructed the law firm to commence injury claims for both of them.
As my grandson is a minor, his mum, my eldest daughter, who I will refer to as D, was his "litigation friend", their words. Shortly after they both received appointments through for medicals and then nothing was heard at all from the law firm. When D moved address at the end of 2019, at which point "A" informed the solicitor of "D"'s change of address as D did not have any contact details for them.
Skip to the end of 2021, "D" moved address again. Still, at this point she still had heard nothing at all from them. In the interim, "A"'s insurers informed her they had decided on joint liability with the 3rd party's insurers.
Feb 2023, D receives a Haigh Court enforcement notice through the post, in which she is given 7 days to pay. of they'd send in the heavy mob. She had to Google the law firm as she had no clue as to who they were. She phoned the HCE and tried to explain but they weren't bothered.
"D" finally managed to speak to someone at the solicitors and they just emailed her original copies of the final bill which was dated July 2022, and the final demand dated Sept 2022, which basically told her they were going to court to obtain a CCJ, which they did in her absence. I'm not a legal expert but these so called original letters were so badly written that I contacted Fraud Action, they were that bad. They ascertained that it appears she has been the victim of identity theft and gave me a crime reference number which I passed onto the people at the HCE. Still weren't interested even though she was the victim. Ultimately, to preserve her mental health, I paid off the HCE just to get them off her back.
I'm not letting it drop and I have contacted (a very good) solicitor who is taking a look at my case.

I know people will say it's easy to say 'I didn't receive your letters' etc, but if you can put that thought out of your mind for a moment and just consider it as God's honest truth.
If you'd like to Google the law firm, they're called CAPENTERS GROUP, based on Merseyside. I would urge you to read some of the reviews left by people and let you make up your own mind.
 Apologies for the length of this post, but anyone who has read it, thank you for taking the time to do so.

Undervalued

MT1966 said:

Thank you all for your previous comments, I realise I was probably a little vague, but I didn't want to put a big long post. So, to be clear (and as brief as I can).
2018, my grandson was in the back of a car driven by my youngest daughter, I will call her A, his aunty. They had an accident and my daughter informed her insurers, her policy included legal cover. The insurers must have instructed the law firm to commence injury claims for both of them.
As my grandson is a minor, his mum, my eldest daughter, who I will refer to as D, was his "litigation friend", their words. Shortly after they both received appointments through for medicals and then nothing was heard at all from the law firm. When D moved address at the end of 2019, at which point "A" informed the solicitor of "D"'s change of address as D did not have any contact details for them.
Skip to the end of 2021, "D" moved address again. Still, at this point she still had heard nothing at all from them. In the interim, "A"'s insurers informed her they had decided on joint liability with the 3rd party's insurers.
Feb 2023, D receives a Haigh Court enforcement notice through the post, in which she is given 7 days to pay. of they'd send in the heavy mob. She had to Google the law firm as she had no clue as to who they were. She phoned the HCE and tried to explain but they weren't bothered.
"D" finally managed to speak to someone at the solicitors and they just emailed her original copies of the final bill which was dated July 2022, and the final demand dated Sept 2022, which basically told her they were going to court to obtain a CCJ, which they did in her absence. I'm not a legal expert but these so called original letters were so badly written that I contacted Fraud Action, they were that bad. They ascertained that it appears she has been the victim of identity theft and gave me a crime reference number which I passed onto the people at the HCE. Still weren't interested even though she was the victim. Ultimately, to preserve her mental health, I paid off the HCE just to get them off her back.
I'm not letting it drop and I have contacted (a very good) solicitor who is taking a look at my case.

I know people will say it's easy to say 'I didn't receive your letters' etc, but if you can put that thought out of your mind for a moment and just consider it as God's honest truth.
If you'd like to Google the law firm, they're called CAPENTERS GROUP, based on Merseyside. I would urge you to read some of the reviews left by people and let you make up your own mind.
 Apologies for the length of this post, but anyone who has read it, thank you for taking the time to do so.

Whilst it may be "God's honest truth" a civil court works on the balance of probabilities. Because the vast majority of correctly addressed mail is delivered, that is what the court will accept unless there is some strong evidence to the contrary.

bris

If it's a high court enforcement order then the reality is nothing else matters.

Whether the person knew it or not is irrelevant, They would have sent multiple notices about every step taken all the way to the high court.

Judgement was by default and the enforcers wont care either way they have heard it all and never accept excuses.

The have the power to enter a premises so telling them to go away wont work and they can use local police to help if they feel threatened.

DullGreyGuy

MT1966 said:

Thank you all for your previous comments, I realise I was probably a little vague, but I didn't want to put a big long post. So, to be clear (and as brief as I can).
2018, my grandson was in the back of a car driven by my youngest daughter, I will call her A, his aunty. They had an accident and my daughter informed her insurers, her policy included legal cover. The insurers must have instructed the law firm to commence injury claims for both of them.
As my grandson is a minor, his mum, my eldest daughter, who I will refer to as D, was his "litigation friend", their words. Shortly after they both received appointments through for medicals and then nothing was heard at all from the law firm. When D moved address at the end of 2019, at which point "A" informed the solicitor of "D"'s change of address as D did not have any contact details for them.
Skip to the end of 2021, "D" moved address again. Still, at this point she still had heard nothing at all from them. In the interim, "A"'s insurers informed her they had decided on joint liability with the 3rd party's insurers.
Feb 2023, D receives a Haigh Court enforcement notice through the post, in which she is given 7 days to pay. of they'd send in the heavy mob. She had to Google the law firm as she had no clue as to who they were. She phoned the HCE and tried to explain but they weren't bothered.
"D" finally managed to speak to someone at the solicitors and they just emailed her original copies of the final bill which was dated July 2022, and the final demand dated Sept 2022, which basically told her they were going to court to obtain a CCJ, which they did in her absence. I'm not a legal expert but these so called original letters were so badly written that I contacted Fraud Action, they were that bad. They ascertained that it appears she has been the victim of identity theft and gave me a crime reference number which I passed onto the people at the HCE. Still weren't interested even though she was the victim. Ultimately, to preserve her mental health, I paid off the HCE just to get them off her back.
I'm not letting it drop and I have contacted (a very good) solicitor who is taking a look at my case.

I know people will say it's easy to say 'I didn't receive your letters' etc, but if you can put that thought out of your mind for a moment and just consider it as God's honest truth.
If you'd like to Google the law firm, they're called CAPENTERS GROUP, based on Merseyside. I would urge you to read some of the reviews left by people and let you make up your own mind.
 Apologies for the length of this post, but anyone who has read it, thank you for taking the time to do so.

If A's Motor insurance had legal cover and the solicitors were instructed under this cover what are the monies in relation to?

What is on the invoice for D?

Where does the identity fraud come in?

Carpenters are a massive law firm used heavily in the insurance industry for providing services under LE policies and wider claims services... they've about 1,000 odd employees. They're based over the river from Liverpool in Birkenhead but do have offices in Liverpool and 4-5 other places. 

user1977

MT1966 said:

Thank you all for your previous comments, I realise I was probably a little vague, but I didn't want to put a big long post. So, to be clear (and as brief as I can). [snip]

You still haven't explained what the amount being pursued is actually for?

MT1966

DullGreyGuy,

The monies are related to unpaid legal fees that she never even knew about.

The invoice was actually addressed to D's son, who is under 18.

The fact she never received a single letter, invoice, final demand, nor any notification from the solicitors or the court that they were taking the matter to court. After speaking to Fraud Action, they came to the conclusion she has been the victim of identity theft.

Yes, they are a large company but just because they are a large firm, doesn't necessarily mean they are a good one. Just look at the reviews online. I am still waiting for them to email me original copies of all the letters they claim to have sent to D, but as yet I've had no response.