A CCJ against my name/property - total surprise, how to resolve pls?

[JandLandG]

I wonder if anyone can help here.

Currently trying to rent a property prior to downsizing. Own own home outright. No debt, good salary, pay credit cards off in full every month.

Went to sign a rental agreement but it was withdrawn after letting agency said was found there was a CCJ against me.

A total surprise.

Cannot find details (they gave me a reference number but no idea how to access info), but I suspect it might relate to a parking fee charged by a private company that my work was supposed to pay and never did. I remember just ignoring in the end and it went away.

Or so I thought.

£200 owed, apparently.

Not in a massive rush to rent, but thought I had all my ducks in a row - paperwork, finance stuff, self-employment invoices/remittances etc etc and then this came up.

How do I proceed?

Can I not rent until this is resolved?

How on earth do I resolve?

Any thoughts/info/experience would be greatly appreciated .

It seems crazy that some piffling little "debt" scuppered/delayed my plans...

You need to find all the relevant info.

A CCJ stays on your credit file for 6 years, while you have a CCJ you’re going to find it incredibly difficult to get approved to rent.

you need to sign up to a credit reference agency and look at your report. Clearscore is a good one that is free. you can see your full credit report and if there is one on there you will find a case number. you can then contact the court which is usually the business centre and ask them about it and arrange to pay. The CCJ will stay on your credit file for 6 years from the date it was received but if you pay it off you can apply to have it satisfied so although it will still be on there it will show as paid

Thanks so much for this...

This all seems a bit absurd, tbh...I surely would have known if I had to go to court???

I have zero idea about the details of this, but the search comes up with an amount of 277£ at Northampton court.

I haven't been to Northampton in about 10 years, tbh, but there we go.

I have a reference number too.

So...the business centre at Northampton court?

I occasionally see adverts for credit reference agencies...I have no idea of who would use them or whatever...not my world at all.

Until 2 days ago, all I knew was that I owned a 600k house outright, paid off my credit cards in full every month and hadn't had a loan for decades. I bought a 25k car cash a couple of years ago...petty debts is not my world, thank god...

Except now that it seems to be...

Hope ppl can help me sort - but surely a 200 quid debt would stop me from signing a rental agreement? I'm obviously no asking for credit or anything...just to pay in advance the rent as I did 15 years ago, the last time I rented...

Yes CCJ's are often dealt with by the the northampton business centre. Companies have to send letters and/or other correspondence to 1. ask you to pay the debt or arrange to pay, 2. warn you that they are going to take further action, 3. tell you that they have applied to the court. Once this happens the court will write to you and tell you that they have issued a CCJ against you, tell you what you need to do to pay or set up a payment arrangement. If you pay within 28 days of issue it gets wiped from your credit record.

I would set up an account with clearscore first and foremost and see if it is listed on there. If you haven't received any correspondence for a CCJ it could well be a mistake on the estate agents part

For a rental you will need to declare the CCJ and pay the rent upfront. You can still rent, but you won’t be seen as favourable as other applicants who don’t have a CCJ.

One of the problems could be that with a tenant with CCJ probably means you can't get some sorts of landlord's insurance (e.g. rent guarantee).

We rented out a house temporarily after the sale fell through. We did accept a tenant with a minor CCJ (similar amount to yours l), but that was because everything else made them low risk and it was in a part of a country where there isn't a shortage of rental accommodation. If there had been other potential tenants without CCJs, I suspect we'd have gone with them, the CCJ is there on paper and most other things about someone's circumstances you have to take their word for.

This is how you set aside a CCJ

https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/ccj/set-aside-ccj.aspx

A CCJ will automatically mean you fail credit checks done by the landlord/agent, which usually means landlord insurance is rendered invalid.

Northampton is where a lot of County Court process is handled. In particular it's where traffic related stuff like parking fines are handled.

Can you contact the office there and see if the reference number you have means anything to them?

The above isnt quite correct.The court would have written to you first and asked you if you want to defend the claim.If you just ignored the letter , a judgment would have been issued by default. If you defend it then you can go to court and argue your case.

In ordinary debt cases, including parking on private land the court will send you a notice, what used to be called a summons, and give you the chance to defend.

OP suggests it's parking which, if on street or a council car park is not the same.

If it was an infringement on street or in a Council car park you cannot defend it on the facts in the County Court. Instead disputed cases go a tribunal where they're dealt, efficiently and fairly in my personal experience, with by independent legally qualified adjudicators.

After a ticket on the windscreen you get a Notice to Owner sent to the Keeper. If there's no response to that it escalates to a Charge Notice.

The Charge Notice is enforceable as though it were a County Court judgement.

You'll get a notice from the Traffic Enforcement Centre and have the opportunity to make a Statutory Declaration but this is a back stop for where the process has gone awry.

OP needs to contact Northampton Court and see what they say.

Take a look here - https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/borrowing-money/county-court-judgments-and-your-credit-rating/

I use Credit Karma for my own credit report monitoring.

This link tells you what to do with it, especially if it is wrong.

Thanks again for everyone's contributions here.

Hmmm...a bit stumped as to what I might do now...do all letting agents check CCJs?

Could I pay in advance?

What else could I potentially do?

Bit of a bugger this about something I was genuinely unaware of...and am amazed a three year old 200 quid 'debt' has scuppered a 20k a year rental agreement.

All my paperwork in place ofc - I thought I had all my ducks in a row - but that seems to count for nothing. Computer says no.

There are plenty of nice flats coming up where I'm looking. At least 1 or 2 a day. Pretty expensive, but I can pay ofc - I'm not about to move into a place I can't pay for...but maybe some people do????

It's another world, it really is...

Hey ho - lucky I'm not in a rush atm...will stay put for a while longer...

Thanks again

If you are not in a rush then try to get the CCJ set aside first. If you don't know anything about it, were you properly served with the proceedings? It sounds like you were not.

Thanks, EC...

I'm absolutely certain I didn't know - I've heard of CCJs before, a chap in work mentioned one once and I know I'd act to avoid one.

I've kind of half-heartedly looked into it these last couple of days and still don't know how to challenge/set aside/pay...

It all seems a bit confusing and hard. I emailed Northampton Court but haven't heard anything.

Surely I can just log in, bung my credit card in and hey presto.

I don't even know what i'm paying for...

I'm an ordinary person and have been lucky enough to do reasonable well for my family, but I suppose I'm a bit flakey, freewheeley...I just thought this potential move would all be easy, like everything else, but now it seems hard - maybe I''l just leave it...a shame, cos I was getting excited and looking forward to it...just changing things up as I get older - might get me out of a comfort zone/rut.

Still, I had a nice productive day today in the sun.

Saw a couple of v nice flats (probably pointlessly) had a lovely coffee in the sun in this ace Italian deli I'd often seen but never visited, tidied up most of the garden for winter, made a decent pumpkin thingy and bunged out a box of sweets for the young revellers (it was empty within 45 mins, cheeky beggars!), took my boy to a halloween party, drove home and enjoyed seeing youngsters going round the streets for sweets while Belinda Carlisle was on the Spotify, used some nice new conditioner on my hair again (I think it's working) and now i've had a glass or two of the ol' vino collapso by candlelight. In fact, I'm gonna bring the pumpkin thing in here now too.

The only downside today was that I was going to phone my sister for a nice chat...but she was unavailable bc she was, well, I won't mention, it'll take too much explaining.

Anyway, what a waffle - fairly usual from me...I was going to mention the possibility of my sis being my guarantor - one of the letting agents mentioned this. This could solve it - she knows I'm good for a few quid.

Thanks again for your help - v ,much appreciated.

If you fail the credit checks you can pay the rent upfront - that’s what I do with my tenants

I'm a LL and I get EA to do full credit checks. I would not rent to anyone with a CCJ because I get so many applications from people without them.

You will have to pay to get the judgement set aside I think its £245 from memory, and the judge will correspond with the company that issued the judgement to make sure that you have paid the initial debt.

Obviously you need to have good mitigating circumstances as to why you wish the judgement to be removed.

We had a client at work want the judgement to be removed and we had to have a 3 way conversation with the judge, myself and the client who I had put the judgement on, and then the judge made his decision.

Did you not receive any paperwork from the court relating to the initial debt, as they send out paperwork that you have to complete and send back, and if you had paid the debt to the company not the court at that time, the judgement would have been set aside.

The debt is not due to the court it must be paid to the company who issued the judgement, so you need to find out who they are and speak to them.

I wonder whether @JandLandG had moved house and not updated the address on their car's V5.

As pointed out in another thread on a similar theme the Council or Car Park operator can only send the notices to the address they get from DVLA. When the Notice to Owner etc is met with silence they'll pass the same address to to the court who will issue the proceedings. It's the Keeper's responsibility to keep their paperwork in order and not for the Council or car park operator to set Private Investigators on the case of those who do not.

If, as a householder, I was getting official looking correspondence for a former owner I'd pay attention and let the Council etc know they were 'gone away'.

My son and his fiance rented a flat in a former large house that had been subdivided. The pile of letters for (presumably) previous occupants by the communal front door had to be seen to be believed.

Good thought and much appreciated, but no - not moved house for 15 yrs.

Thanks for this

This all seems so bloody complicated...ive e mailed someone at Northampton court this week, but I wouldn't expect to hear back tbh...they're usually useless those kind of council places, aren't they?

they may prove me wrong.

I've absolutely no idea of any details...companies, judge, anything...

this is probably for parking at a Travelodge for 6 hours or something after I got in from work at 1 am and left at 7 am...possibly.

there seems to be so many ways and possibilities that this kind of technology can result in some cost to somebody and mail is sent out by bot...just seems mad...

I have an attitude towards individuals who want something for nothing...might have caught me out...

Thanks for this, CC

So, just wondering what the process is here...the letting agents come to the LL and say, here are they offers, who do you fancy? Is that how it works?

So they wouldn't look past a CCJ?

Earnings, personal references, the fact that the tenant owned their own house outright, that the CCJ was only 200 compared to 1700 ppm rent etc - that wouldn't count for anything?

Just curious as to the actual process.

And how an easily explainable 200 quid bill trumps all other positive details?

Would be grateful if you could explain...need to look into this process more.

CCJs can be appealed. If they have been issued incorrectly.
I had one appealed successfully. The company wrote to me at an address I had not lived in for 8 years or more, and sent all paperwork to that address, despite having my correct current address on file from the original debtor and when I called them to set up a payment plan.
For whatever reason they changed my correspondence address to an old student house I lived in and I never had any further letters from them.
Eventually they got tired of my no response and went to court, got a CCJ and I only found out about it when I failed a credit check for a job.
I was pretty livid. The company apologised, they applied to have the CCJ removed themselves initially but I beat them to it with the court, and they never offered compensation despite their errors costing me money.
Amateurs.

Somebody, either in this thread or another on similar facts, suggested the landlords insurers might refuse cover it there were a CCJ.

Whatever the history here a CCJ is a massive blot on one's credit record. A landlord or a lender isn't being unreasonable in saying that having one is a no no and they're not going to take a value judgement on the amount and your account of the circumstances.

If there's been an error by either the court or the claimant then there's a process, already explained above, to get it set aside. Tough on the OP but that's how it works.

You actually say in your OP that you knew you were being pursued but thought your employer would pay it so you ignored letters chasing the debt.

As you've now found out that was not a sensible course to follow.

Wow you sound incredibly naive. You need to research and fully understand what a CCJ is, this may stop you setting up utilities in the future such as home wifi, mobile contract etc.

You can't just give them your credit card and make it go away. There is a legal process to follow, you will need to pay the court fee to have it set aside and then it resets the debt which you either then need to go to court and defend yourself or pay off the debt. This is assuming the judge accepts you never received it and didnt just ignore 'as it might go away'.