It looks like a default judgement was entered due to a lack of response however the defendant has discovered this and has a genuine reason for not responding.

It looks like they obtained a set aside which means they applied to have the judgment overturned due to an error. Such reasons as the paperwork went to the wrong address or the defence was posted but the court lost it would be grounds for granting a set aside.

What happens now is the claim reverts back to the stage of them submitting a defence. It looks like it's going to a hearing.

You'll have to forgive me if i've misunderstood you here...

by default you don't mean automatic do you?

Basically i've been helping my brother with this claim because while i don't have a clue, he's even worse but he wanted to go ahead with the claim. We did contact solicitors for help but they basically just said do it yourself online - so that's what we had to do.

Letters were sent to the company (recorded) to the address they put on their invoice. Thing is it's just like a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Not sure if that matters.

They didn't respond by said date so we manually took it to the judgement phase ... & then waited.


I think i'd filled out the forms correctly for him. Even calculating the interest. I did this from the day he refused the car rather than from the day he submitted the claim (if that matters?).





Frustratingly, i'm not sure how he finds out WHY it's now at this stage. The last time the court was called for what we felt was just a standard question & not actual 'legal advice' they just said - we can't give legal advice, go see Citizens Advice or a solicitor.

Well Citizens Advice wont be able to tell us WHY it's been 'set aside', only like yourself (as in it could be X, could be Y, could be Z, who knows).


So they still have to defend this? Because the impression i got from it was that it's now basically been decided that the company have won, they have nothing to answer to & my brother is just out of luck & forget about it?

The case has gone back to the beginning. You won by default because they did not contest it for some reason. The courts have now decided that they had a justifiable reason for not defending at the time so have put the clock back to give them a chance to submit a defence. In due course you will get notification of the new date.


https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/howtosetasideacountycourtjudgment/settingasideaccj.aspx

Was the letter signed for? Often companies don't sign so then they claim, and have evidence, it wasn't delivered.

Never use signed for post. First class post has a presumption of delivery. This means that have to demonstrate it wasn't delivered, you don't have to prove it was.

You should use their registered address if they are a ltd company. The details are on the companies house website. In saying that it now looks as though they are aware of the claim so should provide their details to the court.

No they haven't won, it's gone back to the beginning.


You will now have to go to court where you both present your case.


The judge will now look at both sides and make a decision.

The first letter was sent via the signed for method. They were given notice that it'd be going this way since he asked for a refund via text message. He mentioned trading standards somewhere along the line (after they refused to refund) and they responded "well go through trading standards then", so they would've had an idea in my opinion that the letter would've been from him.


A further 3 letters (I know most see this as overkill) were sent just via 2nd class but with proof of postage obtained.



The advice was to send a letter asking for a refund & then when this was ignored the advice was to send a letter before court action. He did this but at the halfway point in both stages sent a further 'reminder' letter on the basis that should it go to court then instead of them saying they didn't receive 2 letters they'd then be saying they never received 4 letters - very unlikely.


I'm surprised the court decided they had a justifiable reason for not responding. I would've thought that since nearly 4 months have passed since this began, short of them having a 4 month prison term or something to that effect then they've had ample time to respond, but hey ho the courts do the deciding.


So will my brother get notice to attend court now to put his case forward?

For some reason 2nd class doesn't have a presumption of service. You've managed to avoid the one method of post that would have been of use to you.

At least you know now

Ahh you're joking? That's ridiculous. Surely the only difference is that a second class should get there a little later than first.


I'm just looking at the receipts now...


1st letter: Signed for 1st
2nd letter: Doesn't say what it was sent by. Just says "an item addressed as follows [address] was accepted here today"
3rd letter oh & 4th too - same as 2nd. 2 different post offices too.



Has a session ID & under this a Txn Id.




Hopefully this doesn't prove to be a sticking point.

Use first class post. That way you are covered. You've conspired to shoot yourselves in the foot at all available opportunities sadly.

The good news is at least you get a go at a hearing. Just watch for the dates on the paperwork and use the correct postage sending it back.

This stuff about first and second class post is a complete red herring. It seems we are talking about pre-action letters, not formal court documents. It is a red herring because there is no need to prove service of pre-action letters. The formal rules on service don't apply to pre-action letters. Pre-action letters are supposed to be an informal process before the formal court process starts.

Nor do the pre-action letters have much relevance to your case. Your case will be assessed based on what you have put in the particulars of claim. Not on the basis of the letters you exchanged with the Defendant before starting the claim.

What matters is service of the court documents - i.e. the actual claim form and particulars of claim. If you filed the claim using moneyclaimonline, which I assume you did, the court would have served those for you using first class post - so no need for you to prove service.

However, you should have received from the court details of the set aside application and hearing. If you have not received anything you should contact the court as soon as possible to make sure you have a copy of all the paperwork. Perhaps you will receive something in the post shortly given that the set aside was only granted last Friday.

The set aside order would usually require the Defendant to serve a Defence on you by a specified deadline. You should therefore expect to receive details of their Defence. The court process would then proceed as normal for any contested claim - meaning that both parties would be sent allocation questionnaires; then the case will get allocated to a specific county court; then a hearing will be booked.

It is very normal for set asides to be granted, where a default judgment has been issued and the Defendant deals with it promptly. The general presumption is that people should be allowed a fair chance to defend claims against them - and that litigants in person should be given a bit of leeway to miss deadlines provided they don't take the mickey.

So nothing to be worried about - just follow the normal court process to conclusion.

Well the courts got back in touch to talk about "technical failure". What that means in real world talk i don't know. Their system broke? Someone forgot to post a letter out? The postman realised he'd left it in his back pocket?






I do wonder if the "technical failure" is due to the location. I used Google Maps to find it and it's a bit of a warehouse behind a house on a country lane.






Whether the house itself is linked to the business or not i don't actually know.




What is also concerning is that i've just googled the company name & while their website still shows up in Google it no longer actually loads anything. It just remains a blank white page so makes me wonder whether they're still trading - and could this be the reason there's been a "technical error". Have they closed the business on Friday (only to open up under a new name on Monday) to avoid all this?


While i imagine it doesn't enable them to truly 'escape' should my brother chase them as far as he can, i'm guessing it does make things more difficult.

the technical failure was by the court service , they forgot to post out the original paperwork , the defendant has queried this , courts have accepted non delivery and your letter tells you the day the new papers were posted and the date by which they have to reply .

You're getting confused. Deemed service is first class only but as steampowered already pointed out, this isn't about service of documents.

Also, the presumption of delivery from the Interpretation Act only applies where legislation authorises or requires a document to be sent by post.

It sounds like the court didn't serve the claim on the Defendant like they were supposed to. Basically a mess up by the court.

Chances are that the Defendant doesn't even know about the claim yet.

This is extremely unfortunate. But there is nothing you can do about it until the Defendant has filed a response or they miss the deadline specified in the court's letter.

I'd be very surprised if that was to be the case.


The fact they were warned via SMS text message (& responded to the message) that it would be getting taken at least this far anyway


And unless there literally is no letterbox then the chances of 4 letters talking about taking it this far not making it to them are very slim indeed.



They'll be maintaining their original stance of "its an old car so it doesn't matter whether the consumer rights act 2015 says you're right, i'm still not refunding"

Those were all pre-action correspondence though. It seems the court didn't send the actual court claim to the Defendant until now.

So until now the Defendant only knew that a claim was being threatened, not that a claim had actually been issued.

And without the court paperwork giving the claim number and code needed to file a Defence on the MCOL system, the Defendant wouldn't have been able to file a Defence.