To think there should be tough punishments for people who ignore county court judgements

[ReallyTired]

My brother is an electrician. He did thousand of pounds of work on customer's house. The woman has not paid him a penny. He spent a lot of money taking her to court and won his court case. He is finding next to impossible to enforce the court ruling as he cannot afford the cost of baliefs. He is close to bankrupty himself.

I feel there should be tougher penalties for people who ignore county court judgements. There is no excuse, even if you are benefits and have kids. You should at least make an effort to pay something. Or they should learn to live within their means and not pay for housing improvements they can't afford.

Prehaps if people who ignored county court judgments were sent to jail then the court system would be fairer.

People get sent to jail for shoplifting and why is refusing to pay an honest tradesman any different.

what sort of work was it? was it anything on the outside of the house?

my dad was a builder and has a lot of trouble extracting money from a doctors whose french doors and windows he replaced as teh doctor believed that because my fathers firm was very small there would be very little he could do to get the money back so he just kept saying that he had no money he was waiting on a cheque.

he suddenly found money when he arrived home from work to find his french doors had gone walkies. he paid immediately after calling the police who informed him that if he had not paid for the doors then they were not his and as my father had the invoice for the work and the factory recipt for the doors they were in fact his to with what he saw fit!

if there is anything outside the house could your bro remove it and sell it on?

Good point shesells. That's the kind of language the woman might understand!

Oh for gods sake this is stupid, most sensible peole will differentiate between a payment to an individual and to that of a multinational organisation, a ccj will not.

I have had difficulties in paying my debts and actually have 1 ccj, should I go to jail? I've never gained the services of anyone. I currently pay into my shitty IVA which basically pays the wages of the evil debt marketeers.

My brother is an electrican. He rewired a house. I do not think that someone should go to jail for purely having a CCJ. However I think that people should go to jail for totally and uttterly ignoring the decisons of the court.

In general judges make reasonable decisions. These decisions just need to be enforced.

Sending round balifs is just more expense and can you imagine how terrifying it must be for a small child to have their household posessions including toys sold to pay the mum's debt.

I think a short spell of prison and criminal record for mum would be a lot simpler.

Oh I see Abstractmouse, you were held at gunpoint and forced to spend money you didn't have, well then of course it wouldn't apply to you then

There's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. not paying a ccj does not automatically make you bankrupt, it leads to the creditor enforcing the debt in different ways (for a creditor to make someone bankrupt costs £750 - a waste of money if they don't have it to pay.

1. You can't just sell your half of the house to anyone to avoid paying your debts - if made bankrupt or enter an iva and you fail to pay the official receiver can reverse any property decisions you have made if you are trying to hide assets.

1. Thankfully they do not sell normal household items (like childrens toys) in bankruptcy - you are permitted to keep normal goods just not big screen expensive tv's/cars above approx £2000 unless

needed for work/fancy jewellery and electrical items

Katiedd - i did not have the opportunity to explain to the courts as the ccjs were applied for and granted without my knowledge.

The ex had done all this at an address we had lived in together for a short while before i left.
As i had very little to do with him after that and certainly didn't apply for any credit for a number of years i had no inkling of what had gone on.

Agree with Lauriefairycake about the misinformation on this thread. Not everyone who has a ccj is a bad person who deserves to go to jail. Ridiculous concept in my opinion.

Dh has a CCJ against him - it was a fine from the DVLA for not renewing the SORN on his old car. He had changed his address with the DVLA and had a re-direction of mail from the Post Office but all the correspondence went to his old address. The amount was £100.

We knew nothing about it until we applied to rent our current house and it showed up on our credit check. It's not buggering up our chances of getting a mortgage. The amount is now paid off and a notice of correction put on but try explaining that to the bank, when all they see is CCJ. All too often CCJ's are applied for due to incompetence on one side or the other, and because of the way credit is granted in this country it really buggers you up in later life - and they're ineffective to people who know how to play the system anyway (which we don't, unfortunately).

I feel bad for the OP's brother, but sending people like his customer to prison is not going to help anybody!

Sorry - "It's now buggering up our chances of getting a mortgage..."

Lauriefairycake,
My husband and I once went to an auction in St Albans which was advertised as auctioning good lost at an airport. He was hoping to buy a secondhand mobile phone. There were some quite large and nice second hand toys, computers, TVs and all kinds of household goods.

I am sceptical that someone would take a playstation to an airport. Prehaps the toys were goods from someone's bankcrupt business. I have no idea.

What really confirmed my suspicions that the goods were really from raids done by balifs was that I met someone who was trying to buy back a bit of jewerly with sentintmental value for his friend. I was relieved that no one bidded against him.

My husband and I chose to buy nothing as we were sceptical where the good had come from.

"Oh I see Abstractmouse, you were held at gunpoint and forced to spend money you didn't have, well then of course it wouldn't apply to you then"

She may not have been held at gun point, but if she was living on benefits/low income and something HAD to be paid for - going into debt may have been her only option.

I don't think anyone said that people with a CCJ should be sent automatically to jail. What the OP was questioning was those who ignore a ccj.

Really tired I hope your brother gets something sorted and manages to keep his head above water

Bronze - agreed op didnt say all should be sent to jail, katiedd however appears to think that anyone in debt or with a ccj is an irresponsible lush who deserves a few days in prison.

This simply isn't the case.Some people get into debt unavoidably through a sudden redundancy/loss of partner/husband etc etc. Yes there are some who are in debt because they do not have any intentions of paying their way but that is a small minority in my experience.

Or like the OPs brother who may end up with ccjs himself through no fault of his own (fingers crossed not)

I have to agree that the big companies do little to help people. One day they may realise that they will make more money if they manage to keep customers

"This simply isn't the case.Some people get into debt unavoidably through a sudden redundancy/loss of partner/husband etc etc. Yes there are some who are in debt because they do not have any intentions of paying their way but that is a small minority in my experience. "

The very small minority who diliberately make no effort to pay bill certainly do exist. There are people who are blatently dishonest. They tarnish the name of all people who end up with a CCJ.

I would hope that an honest person with a CCJ would be making as much effort as possible to pay off the debt. Even if its a nominal amount like £1 a week.

I never suggested that all people with CCJs should be sent to prison. Just those who totally ignore the CCJ and make a mockery of the court system.

Many people end up in debt because they are robbing Peter to pay Paul and are just trying to survive. Add to that the ease with which companies have given out credit cards and loans and it's not surprising that the debt problems are as they are.

People's circumstances do change - I have a CCJ (which I am paying) because my income dropped massively with maternity leave. Before you all scream "YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE A BABY" let me say that I was told 15 years ago that I was infertile - my pregnancy came completely out of the blue years after I had resigned myself to never having children (and believe me I went through hell to come to terms with this). So when I very unexpectedly and amzingly found myself pregnant do forgive me if I did not give bloody Nationwide (who I had a car loan with)a second thought - I kept them informed all the way I negotiated and paid what I could afford - they went to court anyway and the court fixed my payments - at the amount I was already paying - no benefit to Nationwide at all - all they did was add legal costs that I frankly did not need and the court froze any interest they might potentially have got. I have never missed a payment and - credit record or not they will get exactly the agreed amount until the debt is paid off.
My son is now 5 (and I have NO regrets about being a Mum) - no more children have ever made an appearance though and are not likely to now.
By the way I could probably up my payment to Nationwide now but am as bloody minded as they were when I asked for understanding - therefore I won't.

"Oh I see Abstractmouse, you were held at gunpoint and forced to spend money you didn't have, well then of course it wouldn't apply to you then"

No of course I wasn't held at gun point, I had debt which I was perfectly able to pay until I was off sick for 6 months with PND. Not that I have to explain myself to you.

Of sick with PND ? sorry but that's bollox, if you thought you were off to prison you'd have got your ass back to work.

shows how much you understand about depression, katiedd

like prison is such a deterrent anyway, for murderers, rapists, thieves, muggers etc

stupid, facile and frankly, idiotic attitude to the realities of life, debt, and living on a knife edge where one unexpected expense can make the difference between managing and sinking into a quagmire of debt

get real

Sorry Katie - you have clearly shown you know nothing about PND.

And jail for those who ignore CCJ's? That'll be dh off to prison then, he didn't ignore it, he just didn't receive it, but that doesn't matter in the joy of bureaucracy.

Can you read ?
CCJ against people who purposely rob others of their living should be sent to jail, not those who get a bit disorganised or behind.
As for PND, yes it's an illness and it's treatable, somebody with cancer has all my sympathy, somebody who can take tablets and it has been proven that continuing with normal life and routine aids recovery has none.

Katie - you are showing your ignorance. I couldn't take AD's for my PND because I am breastfeeding my ds, and there are no AD's which are proven to be safe for a nursing mother.

And as TenaciousG points out - there's no way of proving who was being purposefully callous and who was disorganised! People very rarely put their hands up and say, "Yep, it's a fair cop, I cheated that electrician out of his fee, PUT ME IN JAIL NOW!!!"

and besides - just taking AD's doesn't make you feel better and able to work just like that - god the ignorance of some people still astounds me.

If I thought I'd have been sent for prison because of a CCJ (I don't have one) when I was suffering from depression I probably wouldn't be typing this to you now.

katie, i took ADs for years, kept to a routine, went to wrok, had counselling, went to the gym etc etc etc but it did not cure my depression

glad to hear you know more than all the psychiatrists and doctors

i suggest you stop digging a deeper hole and i pray neither you nor any of your family ever suffer from a mental illness if that is your attitude