self employed in Scotland and CCJ in England

[jingscrivens]

Hi,

I've been scanning the forums for examples that might help with my own problem. There was an excellent thread (.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?261004-Sole-Trader-Scotland-taken-to-Court-in-England-Urgent-Help-Needed-Please)

which offered some very useful advice, however, I'm hoping that someone here could give an opinion based on my own circumstances.

 

To summarise:

At the end of December I received notification that a CCJ had been issued against me in Coventry by default. Although I had replied to this it was received 'out of time' - this thanks to the complete standstill in early December caused by the winter mayhem.

I am a self employed/sole trader - the dispute surrounds non-payment for goods (tooling for my business as a cabinet maker). My questions are these: a verbal order was given to the Scottish rep. of this company (at the end of July) who is based in/ have offices near Glasgow. In early August my wife had pre.term twins so I was off work for a number of weeks. In the interim the tooling was delivered to a business neighbour however no deliv. note to this effect was left at my premises. Although I collected mail from time to time I was not sent an invoice and subsequently received a statement which was higher than the reps. quote, which I'd written down when he introduced himself. When I returned to work late Sept I finally uplifted the tooling (my neighbour works erratic hours, we rarely meet)

Whilst I agree I took some time to pay, it was largely thanks to the goods 1) being wrongly delivered and 2) no invoice + incorrect amount shown in their statement. I tried to sort this out with their local office initially however they either didn't answer the phone or the rep. did not return my calls. For obvious family reasons chasing this up was not at the top of my priorities.

In early Jan' 11 the CCJ came through as my response (contesting) this, as mentioned, had arrived too late. In mid-december I had been provided by the company in question, via. email, the missing invoice for which I made full payment (paid mid December the invoice value - not claimed compensation or costs)

If you're still awake, my questions are:

- as a sole trader does the Coventry court have jurisdiction up here, given that the verbal order went through their Scottish rep and was almost certainly delivered from there by their own deilv. bloke who does the 'runs' (hence their informal delivery style)

- there were no t&c's known when I agreed to place the order, and no subsequent advice regarding their slapping on another £40 'compensation'. I should mention that their solicitor did write a threatening letter demanding an aggregated sum however this did not include any invoices and the CCC came through v. quickly thereafter. Should they have supplied anything in writing ie t&c's at a more appropriate time?

- the time frames involved here seem pretty speedy - should this have blown up so quickly?

 

I would accept there are faults on both sides here, however I'm pretty miffed matters have come to this, particularly in light of their own contribution to this mess.

 

Any advice very gratefully received with thanks!

Edited January 25, 2011 by jingscrivens

[sequenci]

If you live in Scotland you can apply for automatic set aside as the creditor has used the incorrect jurisdiction

[jingscrivens]

Sequenci,

many thanks for the swift response -

does this set-aside on the basis of jurisdiction apply even if I am not a 'consumer' ?(Civil Jurisdiction and Judgements Act 1982) - or is it because the contract between both parties was formed in Scotland between myself and the Scottish leg of an English company.

[jingscrivens]

I'm still a bit unclear as to the position regarding correct jurisdiction (or in this case incorrect jurisdiction) as far as this applies to 'non consumers' - in my instance self-employed - as far as this affects a small claim between parties who are both based in Scotland (although the Head Office of one is in England). Would anyone be able to offer more clarification here - I've tried quite a few sources and the expert knowledge tends to involve the position of 'consumers' only.

 

thanks

 

nb. I'm not sure about the forum rules about bumping a thread, hope this post is ok

[sequenci]

Do you know where the contract was to be 'performed'?

[jingscrivens]

that's a good question: the contract was verbal, basically a telephone conversation/order between me and the company rep based in Coatbridge, which followed his verbal quote during a visit to my business premises. There were no t & c's as such, certainly none that I was presented with or referenced too. As far as I'm aware the goods were delivered (to a neighbour) from the local Scottish branch. All very informal

One thing I can be sure of is that there was no contact at any stage between myself and his Head Office in England, all was done and dusted in Scotland - hope this sheds some light

[jingscrivens]

from further investigations it looks fairly clear that the contract was performed in Scotland, no reference at the time of sale to terms and conditions pointing to or incorporating a jurisdiction clause.

Am I being naive?

[seriously fed up]

Not necessarily naive, but since you have paid for the goods - which I dont think you disputed the value of - what is the value of the rest of the "damage"? Remember to get this set aside you are going to have to pay a court fee, perhaps employ a solicitor (English - so difficulties in working things out with him prior to the case) and/or going down to the court yourself for the case which would certainly be one day off work, perhaps longer as the case - turning on where the contract was performed (they will claim England) could be quite complex (dont know - but it might be). I can well see that this is annoying (to put it mildly), but is the value of the remedy to you worth its cost?

Might it be worthwhille to contact the vendor, have a reasonable conversation - perhaps having contacted their Scottish rep first - and perhaps agree to split the costs of a case that really ought not to have been brought (from my reading of the above it looks to me as if you paid up and they still took to you to court!). If they wont, I would imagine you wont be buying from them again, and that you would "tell your friends". I cant see them wanting that to happen.