Took a company to Small Claims Court. Now they won't pay CCJ.

[Oblomov22]

Please can you offer advice on what to do next. I paid a company for braces for my teeth. They then said they couldn't do it because my teeth were too complicated. Weeks and 10's on emails refused to give me a refund, offering me a totally different service I didn't want. They then agreed a refund verbally. Then when I emailed, they with-tracted the offer, denying the verbal agreement the day before. I threatened small claims court.

I did the claim, online, It cost me £70. Told them. Told them they now owed me say £1000 + £70, £1070. They then said they would pay. Me, not the court bit. But only if I stop the small claims court case, which I refused to do because I said they were untrustworthy and they had already retracted on one of their offers to refund before.

If that seems odd. If you think I did the wrong thing please understand that they had promised to pay before, and if I did stop the court claim and then they didn't pay, I would've been left with absolutely nothing, from there I would've had to start a new small claims all over again.

They didn't pay. So in small claims the next step is to issue CCJ. Which I did. They didn't pay.

So now I have to choose the next step. Go to court. Issue bayliffs. Both going to cost me a lot more. I don't think I can recover those costs can I?

Irritatingly the court case online say that it now stops being online and will be sent via post and it's all done by post from now on. Seems archaic! No online, no traceability now.

The letter which I haven't yet received so I don't know what my options are, how much it cost to pay to go to court, or how much it costs to order the bailiffs to collect my money. and I'm assuming like I say that neither of these costs are recoverable. Is that why the company is doing this?

You can recover your enforcement costs. I'd do that OP.

I would write a final demand for payment, including the order. Give 14 days for payment (if you want you could agree to leave off the costs) and be clear you will enforce the debt and claim the further costs if they do not pay. Set out what these will be.
Then you need to pay to enforce ONLY if you are confident they have assets so you are not throwing good money after bad. Really hard to know though- can you check company accounts? Do they have a physical office with goods in? A head office? Names of directors?

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid. But I'm confused as to what to do next.

I clicked on the link they sent me:

Enforce a judgment
You can ask the court to collect payment from the person or business who owes you money (the ‘debtor’) if they do not pay you after receiving the court order.
You must pay a court feee_ when you ask the court to collect the payment.

( I looked this up. I think it is £70. I can do this. Is this best? )

Find out what the debtor can afford to pay ( this is not necessary, get are a big'ish firm, have plenty of money).

Ask the court to order the debtor to attend courtt_ to provide evidence of their income or spending, for example bills and statements.
If the money is owed by a business, you can ask for an officer from the companyy_ to attend court and give details of its accounts.
You can then decide if you want the court to take further action to collect your payment.
You cannot enforce a judgement if you’re told that the person who owes you money has got a ‘Breathing Space’ and is temporarily protected from their creditors. Find out about your responsibilities and what you need to tell the court during a ‘Breathing Space’’_.

Send bailiffs to collect payment
You can ask the court to send bailiffs to collect the money. This is called a ‘warrant of controll_’.

(Or do I do this? And how do I do it? )

The bailiff will ask for payment within 7 days. If the debt is not paid, the bailiff will visit the debtor’s home or business to see if anything can be sold to pay the debt. You can apply to either a county court or the High Court if you’re owed between £600 and £5,000. You may need legal advice if you apply at the High Court. How you apply to the court depends on how you made your claim. You claimed online If your reference number has ‘MC’ in it, download and fill in either: • form N3233_ - to apply at a county court (you must be owed £5,000 or less) • form N293AA_ - to apply at the High Court (you must be owed at least £600) Otherwise, enforce a judgment using Money Claim Onlinee_.

Yes I applied online. I have an MC in my vide.

So what do I do first? I can fill out N23. But I don't really want to go to court and I certainly don't want to fill out and N293A and go to the High Court.

Do I need to do that first? Rather than going to court why can't I just asked for the bayliffs to go in and collect my money?

And also, at the bottom is says enforce a judgement using Money claims online. What is that? What's the point of using that rather than the other services.

I'm sorry if I'm appearing dim here but I am way out of my league here. I'm not stupid woman but I don't know what I'm supposed to do next.

Cornflake, so you suggest I fill in N3233, pay the £70. It gets sent to the court, this is the next step for me?

And yes Flux, they are a medium firm, based in, Head offices in Ireland I think. (Worried that makes it worse, like an Ryan air type, with legal loopholes?).

They have an office in the next town from me. I've looked at their accounts on companies house and they seem fine.

I wouldn’t bother with taking a small firm to court, as the claimant you are likely to win in the case, however getting the money is something else entirely, if they have other debtors they may just go into liquidation and you will become a creditor after, HMRC, bank, staff etc so you aren’t going to see the money. I hope you checked the company’s accounts online, to see how solvent they are, before you took action. Good luck I hope you get the money back.

Another thought, how did you pay for the service they did not supply?

Did you pay by card? I would do a chargeback. Send all evidence to bank etc

I don’t know is if this is any help at all but I was in a similar position but they did pay after the first letter sent through the system.

If they hadn’t, I was going to just let it run to court and represent myself. For them, they have to pay legal representation and so it’s why it’s not in their interest to go to court.

What a dishonourable thing of this company to do to you.

@Roselilly36 to get the cheaper rate you have to pay in one go rather than in monthly installments. You pay for this in one go at the start of the process and then they send you the moulding kit/send you off to a location for a scan.

And also, at the bottom is says enforce a judgement using Money claims online. What is that? What's the point of using that rather than the other services.

As you claimed online, you can use Money Claims Online (the service you used to claim online) to enforce judgement.

Any fees you incur enforcing judgement will be added to the amount the company owes you.

On TV the bailiffs get the goods, if they are dentists they will surely have equipment worth a few thousand? I hope you get your money, they are swines.

Fortunately I deliberately paid on a credit card, which I always do for big payments, holidays etc. Sainsbury credit card have sent forms, which I filled in and sent back. It's all so slow though, and they have no sense of urgency.

I do realise that whilst they now have a CCJ issued, that doesn't mean I'm going to get the money. (In my very limited experience most companies once a CCJ is issues, they pay quickly, within 28 days, to stop it staying on their record).

So they are going to a new level here! One I'm not familiar with.

I will chase credit card side today.
I will fill out the form N322. I'm so fed up. I assume to them it's all game and they like the fact they are playing me?

You have protection paying by credit card, let the credit card company deal with it, usually any refund goes back to the original form of payment. Can’t understand why you bought a claim in these circumstances OP. I hope you get a speedy resolution though.

Right.

1. I have paid £70 to Money claim online.
2. I emailed this PDF to the company.
3. I have rung credit card again. They haven't contacted the company, because the case really hasn't started because they haven't received my declaration form and print outs of e-mails as proof, which I sent in the post, so I have sent them again in the post.

Go with the N293A as this gets a High Court Writ issued and then it gets passed to a High Court Enforcement officer who has a lot more powers than the standard county court bailiffs.

I'm a lawyer. For future reference, if a company offers to pay you on condition that you withdraw court proceedings, the standard procedure is for them to draw up a settlement agreement which says "We will pay you X by Y date and in return you agree to withdraw the proceedings".

Both sides sign.

They pay the money.

You stop the proceedings after the money has been received.

If you went back on your promise and continued the proceedings they would show the court the evidence of the settlement and the proceedings would be stopped.

If they didn't suggest a settlement process like that then they were probably never serious.

Thank you @HaveringWavering. You are of course right. I should've done that. But I don't think they were ever serious.

I am having a nightmare.

I have made mistakes and got nowhere.

@prh47bridge
1)As per your advice, above, I clicked on Money claims online. MCOL. A government agency. I paid another £70. I rang them today. 0300 123 1057. He said I shouldn't have done that, and I have now duplicated my claims and I have 2 cases going on. He said I now have a new 'County Court Business Centre claim number. He said I need to ring small claims to find out why CCJ hadn't been issued. Then discontinue my case with MCOL. Which will cost me £108.

2)So then I then rang Small claims court. 0300 123 7050. I started that in July 22. She says that my CCJ which I applied for on 17th August hasn't actually been issued . I told her I had an e-mail from 28/08/22 which I copied and pasted to you lot above, re my options. She first denied it was sent by them. Then told me that MCOL (above) wasn't a Government agency and would never be listed on one of their e-mails.

I told her I had the email 28.08.22 here in front of me. I asked her if it was spam, not from them. The e-mail ' implies' CCJ has already been sent and what to do next. She finally admitted maybe it was an automated e-mail. That is why there is no record of it on my case.

4 weeks later, after I applied for the CCJ, it hasn't been issued because they are very behind with cases. . She says she will send a letter. In the next 2 days. And only then can I issue a request for warrant of control. EX322. Pay £83. But I cant do that till they actually issue the CCJ and they haven't yet. How poor.

What a mess.

The court service is on it's knees.

For future reference you would find it easier to go after the credit provider, you can't do both.

Ask the bailiffs to enforce the ccj once received.

The person you spoke to at the small claims court gave incorrect advice. Money Claims Online is very much a government service. The fact its website address ends .gov.uk is a giveaway.

I'm sorry to hear you are having these problems.

Have you done a companies house search to check whether this company can pay you?

Did they just not respond to the claim form? Did you get all of their information right when making the claim?

If you've got anything wrong on the claim form and obtained a default judgment because they didn't respond, there is a risk that they didn't receive the claim form and they'll be able to set judgment aside. Check their companies house info and make sure you listed their registered address.

You may have to pay to discontinue the addition claim and I'd do that asap as you don't want that claim to start moving.

Once you've got the CCJ just pay the court to enforce if you think the company has the money to satisfy the judgment.

If they're in Ireland there may be jurisdictional issues (assuming you're not in Ireland). I'm an English lawyer and would potentially need to serve outside jurisdiction. It definitely becomes more complicated.

Do you have any form of contract / terms and conditions?

(If they're in Ireland they probably won't be on companies house).

MCOL staff are crap, they have next to no experience and don't know what they are doing.
I'd get high court enforcement rather than county court bailiff. So much quicker and more powers. Look up DCBL they fill out the forms for you. You need the CCJ first though.

Just about to respond to messages.

Btw I have already claimed on my credit card. It has been very painful as well. I've made more than 12 phone calls sent the documents 3 times. Phoned twice last week and twice this week.

Disputes / charge back raised 2 days ago. They have 45 days or respond. End of October.

Yea I knew it was nonsense prh47.

Yes Kiri I did check on co house. Their registered address is a shut down building in a run down area of shops. He has had 2 or 3 other business registered there aswell.
So no paperwork from CCJ is going to reach him anyway is it?