Twenty years ago my now husband was living in a flat. The flat was included in the lease of the cafe below, and the housemates were sub tenants, paying rent to the cafe owner. He was told the rent included utilities and is certain it was in the tenancy agreement. I was there when he first viewed the room and vaguely remember the housemates saying utilities were included.
The cafe was replaced by a hairdresser then another cafe opened. He notified the landlord in writing, etc, security deposit refunded etc and we moved abroad.
About 2008 we ran into one of the housemates by chance. The housemate mentioned that the landlord had chased the housemates for the gas bill, and had obtained court judgements against those who didn’t pay. This was the first we knew about it. We looked online, and there was a court judgement from the landlord from 5,5 years earlier. My husband took legal advice about getting it set aside etc, but as he’d shredded the original tenancy agreement, it would be tricky to prove. We were living abroad and in a tough place financially at the time (job loss, behind in mortgage, mental health breakdown etc). The solicitor we spoke to said it was close to falling off my husband’s credit record in the UK. He said to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ as we had settled abroad with no intention of returning to the UK.
Fast forward to now and my husband wants to apply for citizenship in Canada. The form asks if he’s had any civil judgements and if so, provide evidence the debt was paid. The cafe and hairdresser are not listed on Companies House, and the building has been knocked down and replaced with housing. The names on the old and new land titles aren’t familiar to him.
We’ve checked his credit record, and the debt isn’t showing any longer. When we started looking further, we found this;
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1129955/county-court-rrds.pdf
To us, it reads that the records (paper and electronic) relating to debt (parts 13 and 14) are destroyed anywhere from 3 to 6 years after judgement. As the CCJ was in 2006, any record of the debt will have been destroyed by the court. After reading the above PDF on data retention, he’s tempted to feign ignorance and not mention it on the form since he’s never received any paperwork. Are we reading the data retention schedule correctly?