I Was Awarded A Ccj, But The Guy Hasn't Paid.

[sadanorakman]

Your advice please. I was awarded around £400 from a guy in the county court (CCJ). He has failed to pay me. He might own an old caravan and an old car, worth a few hundred quid each, but little else. I don't think he works.
I know that I can pay another £100 or so to have a County Court Bailiff visit him, but I don't think they have much authority. e.g. cannot enter property unless invited in.
Ideally I would employ a Sheriff instead as I believe they have more incentive and therefore greater success in obtaining results but I can't do that unless the claim is at least £600.
Should I just write this scumbag off, or risk another £100 to chase £400. Am I just throwing good money after bad?
Many Thanks

[Bazile]

//I had traveled 100 miles for the sale, and insisted that If the hitch is not included, then I'd walk away. I agreed reluctantly to him sending a stabilising hitch a couple of weeks later, and he wrote accordingly on my receipt. //

Your mistake was trusting him in the first place ....you''ll be wiser in the future . Hard as it may be , try and move on

[Bazile]

murraymints

//alas this happens often..put it down to experience but report it to trading standards so he can be put on a dodgy trader list for the future..I always check with them before I employ a small trader and have been warned off one or two in the past...//

You can just ask trading standards and they will be forthcoming with any info they have ?

[hc4361]

He is a private seller, not a trader.

[sadanorakman]

Yes DannyK... three options as you kindly linked to, but in this case all likely to fail:

1. Pay £100 for a County Court Bailiff to be sent, that can be turned away at the door by the debtor. My £100 gone.

2. Pay the court to ask for an attachment to earnings... Money taken out of pay by employer at source... This order cannot be applied for if the debtor is unemployed, which I believe he is.

3. Pay to have a Charging Order placed on a property owned by the Debtor. I seriously doubt that my debtor is a home owner. most probably a council house, or private rented.

Thanks anyway.

[hc4361]

You can find out who owns the house from the Land Registry - download the Title Register for around £4.

[Hopkirk]

I refer to my previous answer - a bit of sweet revenge perhaps?

[sadanorakman]

Yes revenge is indeed sweet Hopkirk, but being an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, with a full time job, and being a home owner, I stand quite a lot to lose should I be caught doing anything in way of retaliation to this muppet.

Can you see how the law is an Ass? Means scumbags can disrespect law abiding citizens, and not suffer any consequence.

[Hopkirk]

Yeah, I'm all talk but couldn't do it myself.

[sadanorakman]

hc4361... great idea. I think I will explore that avenue... see who owns his house. Thank you.

[ummmm]

He'll suffer consequences if he needs to get credit.

[sadanorakman]

I doubt this fella cares much about that ummmm.

He was probably already debt-ridden, or had a credit score so bad that he wouldn't be offered money outside of pay-day lenders at 1000% apr.

The only thing I can say is that he had the balls to turn up to court in person (ten minutes late), but then lied to me again as we left court as he said 'I'll get that money refunded to you'... ha ha ha ha. Maybe he even believed himself!

[hc4361]

I would send the bailiffs in, unless I really could not afford to lose a further £100.

[Hypognosis]

Thanks for your patient explanation, akman.

I think your problem was that you let slip that you'd driven 100 miles to make the purchase. A six gallon round trip means you can't be at his front door every few days, like a local could, so he knows he has you at a disadvantage.

If it had been an eBay transaction, everything would have had to be in the goods description and the breach of "goods as described" would have meant you'd have got redress from ebay &/or Paypal and they'd have used their considerable resources to pursue him for amounts owed.

In the meantime, it is still disconcerting that the courts are so toothless. I previously believed CCJs were not possible to evade.

[Peter Pedant]

// Would the court have issued a CCJ if they thought he could not pay?//
answer: yes

it looks as tho you have sued a 'man of straw'
someone who has no money

I would leave it if he really has no assets ( rather than says he hasnt or has hidden them ) - the CCJ will affect his credit rating for a longish time - six years I think ....

[Hypognosis]

@Peter

// I would leave it if he really has no assets //

How did the seller dispose of the 2,000 quid so quickly, after the sale, that £175 was too much to ask?

Other debts, perhaps?

[Peter Pedant]

Hypo
we could do a scientific expt

gib me two thousand knicker and I will dispose of it in double quick time
( non refundable of course )

[EDDIE51]

Bailiffs and Sheriffs can not take things that you need for daily living , like clothes, kitchen equipment, washing machine, basic furniture, carpets.
They have to see that there are sufficient 'sizable' goods to cover the cost of the judgement. They sell the items at auction where the goods only fetch a small % of the new price so they have to take enough items to allow for that.
If there are not enough goods in the house they will report back to the court that it is not viable to enforce the judgement due to lack of assets.
I have had bailiffs round in the past, they looked round my house then left in disgust, saying that even if they took everything in the house it would not raise enough cash to pay for the petrol for the van to take it away !

[Hypognosis]

@EDDIE51

//They sell the items at auction where the goods only fetch a small % of the new price//

I don't know what others think but I've always thought there was something suspicious about bailiffs, because of that. To get good sale prices, an auction needs a *crowd*.

If you watch Bargain Hunt, you'll see the big crowd at the stallholder's market and the small crowd in the auction room, so the teams often end up in the red.


Anyway, never mind that, how do I find out where these bailiff auctions are held?

[Baldric]

You could google "sale of seized goods auctions"

[EDDIE51]

Here is the web site for one of the main seized goods auction companies in the UK.
http://sia-auctions.co.uk/about-us/
There is a company 'Bumble Bee Auctions' that specializes in 'Police Auctions' of goods that have been found and not claimed and stuff that the police have seized as' proceeds of crime' it handles stuff from nearly all the police forces in the country .