Case against me taken to County Court

From your description of the court documents that you have received a judgement has been entered against you. In this particular case the amount of that judgement is yet to be determined which is why the court has set a further hearing date.

It is very unfortunate that the documents were served at an old address, but it would seem that the judgement is regular as the court rules do allow service at an old address if a current address is not known. However the court would look very sympathetically upon an application ( which you must now make) to set judgement aside. The court can provide you with the relevant forms and provided you act quickly will possibly list your application on the same date as the coming hearing. Your application must state that you did not receive the documents and must give a clear indication of what your defence is and give as much detail as you can as the court will have to be satisfied that you have a reasonable prospect of defending to set the judgement aside.

If you do not attend the hearing the court will decide how much you have to pay and the claimant can thereafter enforce the judgement against you. Even if you can sort it out later on it could leave you with more explaining to do and a visit from Bailiffs. It is better that it is sorted now.

The fact that the claimant is an over stayer might go to the credibility of his evidence but it is unlikely to have any other material effect on the case. 

I agree with Nick - sorry, Richard.

Use this form.

Hello Richard

Many thanks for your reply. That has been really helpful. I am now preparing the application to set the judgment aside, however before I do so I would be most grateful to find out answers to 2 more questions I have.

Number one - The letter from the court does not specify what the claimant claiming for. It only says that during the Case Management Conference the Court will consider the Claimant's evidence in support of his claim for DAMAGES.

Is there a way to find out what case has someone brought against me? Should not I be entitled to know? Tried to contact the Court but with no luck. Is there perhaps a specific form I need to fill in and send to the Court?

Also, how can I properly prepare to have the judgment set aside if I do not know what is the case against me?

Hi

Many thanks for your reply. I am not looking forward to the moment when I have to go to discuss this non-sense case but it would help me to find out how such meetings take place.

How does such CMC normally proceed? Claimant and Defendant discuss the case the the Judge or everybody show their support evidence to the Judge privately or something completely different?

The problem I have is that the claimant behaved psychopatic towards me in the past and I would not like to face this person again. Could I ask for a police protection during the CMC as I fear of my safety.

The basis of the english legal system is that you have the right to know the case against you.

This is set out in the claim form issued by the claimant in the county court.

This should have been served upon you. You would then have a certain amount of time in which to file your defence.

In your case as I understand it you did not receive the original claim form and judgement has been entered against you by default.

I am surprised that the court is not co-operating with you.Go back to the court office. Ask for a copy of the claim form. They must give it to you.

You will then see what the claimant is alleging.

This will enable you to complete your application.

You will have jump two hurdles.

1. You must have a proper explanation as to why you did nothing. You will have to convince the judge that you did not in fact receive the claim form.

2. You must convince the judge that you do have an arguable defence to the claim. This will entail setting out what your defence will be.

As stated previously there is no time to delay. At this point every day will count against you.

Sorry for the delay in replying. We appear to have had some network problems yesterday.

The type of applications in which you are involved are generally heard in private in a normal office environment in the presence of both parties.

If you are attempting to set aside the judgement the district judge will hear your evidence first.

He will then hear the claimant's comments on your case after which a decision would be made as to whether you will be allowed back into the action. If the judge agrees with you, he will lay down a strict time-table ordering you to file your written defence in a certain period of time. If you lose then the claimant's judgement stands and you will have to pay damages the amount of which still has to be assessed. An appeal will lie from the district judge to the circuit judge.

In the case of a CMC the judge will have to decide the manner in which the claimant is to produce to the court evidence of his alleged losses.

All courts these days have security so that I doubt you will need a police presence.

Hi. Once again many thanks for your replies. The Case Management Conference date is approaching fast and I still have not applied to have the Judgment Set Aside. The reason for my hesitation is because this whole case seem lunatic. How would you go about this: Someone I met 2 years ago asked me to pay for something so he/she transfered GBP3000.00 into my bank account. The deals did not go through and after few weeks I withdrew the money and returned to the individual. It is bizzare that now, 2 years later, he come come forward and it looks like made a claim in county court against me for not returning his money. There is no way to proof whether it has been returned or not. I am not a company either to be keeping records from years back of when someone paid something to me. Obviously this guy spotted an opportunity, came to court made a claim, court sent CCJ to my old address from 2 years ago and I just found out about this now by accident. Casued me a big headeache as I have no experience dealing with issues like this.

Are you saying that you withdrew the 3000 from your bank and returned it to your "friend" in cash without getting a receipt?

Unfortunately, yes. That is exactly right. I withdrew the money and gave it back to my ''friend'' without a receipt.

Unfortunately you do have a problem.

I have heard judges say - "If you do not have a receipt then you have not paid".

In your statement in support of your application to set aside you will have to set out in as much detail as you can the full circumstances of the case and in particular the circumstances when the money was handed over.

Were there any witnesses? Did you tell anyone what you were going to do? A bank statement showing you withdrew all the money at once might lend support to your case. 

Yes, I appreciate that it will be difficult for me to proof such circumstances, particularly as this occured a while ago. I might argue why the claimant has not come forward earlier? Why only now, 2 years later? I also could say, I do not remember, perhaps there was a receipt and perhaps not. The court should appreciate that I am not a company to be keeping books or receipts and this was just like if someone asked you to pay something for him and you did not and then gave him money back. At the time, you would not even dream about receipts. There is a chance that I might get a witness statement, but again, given the period of time, I might have difficulties to find the witness. Even if I got a statment, still, there is no receipt.

You have to try even if there is no receipt.

I agree that the claimant in waitng a number of years before seeking payment is a point in your favour.

The court will consider all of the circumstances of the case if they are presented with the information by you. You will need to detail why you received the money and why it was subsequently returned to your friend. Explain why he needed you to make the payment.

 You should gather together as much evidence as possible to show that the money was paid back. You need to obtain all of your bank statements from around the time that you paid the money back which should show a large cash withdrawal.

It is an unfortunate and unfair situation in many respects but you must deal with it and do so quickly. If there were any witnesses you must locate them immediately and you will need to make reference to them in your evidence and perhaps present statements from them.

You should also gather together any old letters and correspondence that you have which were sent to you at your old address as well as letters that were sent to your new address when you moved. These will show that you did not reside at the old address when the County Court claim was sent there.

You must act quickly and apply to have the judgement set aside immediately.

Hello everyone!

I am glad to be back and report on the latest developments in this bizzare case. So we went to the Case management conference on 09/06/2010 to hear what the judge and the claimant have to say.

The conference took 30-45min and the judge hardly allowed anyone to speak. He made us aware of the procedures and suggested that we should go out to a cafe and talk it out between each other. What a brilliant idea, yet the claimant had no interest in it and just run away.

The case has been moved to August now when my application to set the judgment aside will be considered. However, one of the most important points in this case so far has been the following: it was ordered that the claimant shall file with the Court and serve on defendant the bundle of documents on which he intends to rely at the adjourned case management conference. This had to be done by the claimant by 4pm,  16 June.

According to my knoweldge the claimant has  not done so. At least I did not receive anything.

I hope this will go down really well with the judge at the next hearing and the case will either be dismissed or set aside.

Any suggestions or thoughts are much appreciated.

The failure on the part of the claimant to file the documents on time may be a good sign for you. The Judge will still consider why there was delay in your early response but this failure may assist you, if assistance is needed in satisfying the judge that you have reasonable prospects of defending the matter, as might the claimants failure to discuss possible settlement.

I would check with the court that documents have not been filed there, and sent to the wrong/old address again.

The most telling point is the judges suggestion. You and the claimant are entitled to have your cases heard, but the judge has given a clear indication that the time effort and money involved in unravelling the different versions of events far outweigh the value of the dispute. If the claimant refuses to discuss matters it will bode ill for him.