Backdoor CCJ - Anglian water company - advice needed

[cakebytheocean]

Hi Bankfodder & Andy,

Andy, Yes I had to prove that I was no longer living at the property on the date I said.

 

Bankfodder, wow, that was a long post!! .

 I am guessing you have probably read the thread but to try and condense it down, my relationship broke down and we both moved out of the property. Up to that point, my partner dealt with the utilities and said he would sort it.  He obviously didnt.  I never notified the Company I had moved because it was in his name.  On that point, apparently, they said they added me onto the account when I had a conversation with them 3 years or so ago.  They are also adamant that me failing to notify them I had moved doesnt change anything as the claim was issued correctly and they actually said in the email with the consent order "Anglian Water will not be consenting to your Judgment Set Aside application as we were not advised that you had moved out and as such the claim Anglian Water issued was served correctly under CPR 6.9 to the last known or usual address."

 

The amount they have put on the consent order is the amended amount.  The original claim form which I never received was for quite a bit more as they were claiming payment up until March of this year.

 

The first I knew about the claim was when I received a letter from High court enforcement co at my new address saying that if I didnt pay the judgement, they would apply for a warrant of execution I think it was.

 

I phoned them straight away and explained the situation and they told me that a judgement had been made against me and that if I couldnt pay the amount due I needed to speak to the water co and arrange a payment plan and put a holt on enforcement proceedings.

 

I called them straight away and they said that as I had moved out some 18 months earlier, they needed to adjust the amount actually owed and to do that I needed to email proof of when I changed address, (which I did immediately), and they would be in touch with an amended figure.

 

After a week or so, I still hadnt heard from them and was concerned about the deadline from the enforcement co so phoned them again and the long and the short of it after being passed from one dept to another was that they couldnt adjust the figure whilst there was a judgement and they told me to make an application to the court to get the judgement set aside so they could then adjust the amount.  This is what I did.

 

Then when a hearing date had been issued, I got a letter from the water co legal team saying that they would  challenge the application as the claim was issued correctly and it doesnt matter how many times I tell them I only did it because I was told too, they are just not listening!

 

I ended up speaking to them last week as my father has just passed away which has devastated me and the funeral is within a couple of days of the hearing and my head is all over the place at the moment.  I havent done a statement yet and just felt that if I could have it moved a bit I might have a better chance of dealing with it bearing in mind i have no idea what I am doing.

 

So I received a letter from the bailiffs not a visit.  I applied to get it set aside the same day as they told me to do it.

 

I have received a SAR but there are no transcripts for the conversations that were had which I asked for as this would prove what I am saying.

 

I dont want to sign the Consent order if its not the best thing for me to do.  It would mean that if I couldnt make all the instalment I would be in deep trouble.

 

I did get a copy claim form from the court eventually, I will post up asap.

 

They have now come back to me and said the court has moved the hearing to April which I am pleased about.

 

It was during this conversation that the legal team said that they were trying to find a way to sort it without me having to go to court and suggested the Tomlin order but when I said that I couldnt pay in full, they said that wouldnt work.  They then emailed me with the Consent Order to sign.

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

I haven't read entirely through your long post, but I do see that at one point you appear to be saying that it was they who put your name on to the account .

 

It was not you who took on the responsibilities of the account .

 

Is this correct?

 

Do you have any evidence of this ?

 

If this is what you are saying then I think you should send them an SAR immediately. Don't hang around

 

 

 

 

[cakebytheocean]

No Bank fodder, the account was set up in my ex partners name but they said they added me on when I spoke to them once.  My ex had a habit of always passing the phone to me when he didn’t want to talk to people.

 

I have a copy of the SAR already.  What should I look for?

[BankFodder]

We want to know anything which suggests that either you didn't put your name on the account, or you did put your name on the account, or somebody else added your name to the account .

 

For instance, if you could find that your name was added at a date which was different to the date that the account was set up. That would be interesting

 

 

 

You say that you spoke to them. This was on the telephone. What date was that? Does your SAR disclosure include telephone records? If it doesn't then it is incomplete.

You should understand now that if you can discover evidence that they added your name to the account then not only are you probably not contractually bound, but also they have committed a serious data breach and we may as well think about making a counterclaim. £500 seems a reasonable amount to me.

[cakebytheocean]

Ok Bankfodder, I will look through SAR.  There are no transcripts

of conversations

which I wanted because it would prove that ANGLIAN water (by the way) told me to get it set aside!

 

I have just gone through the SAR and it basically a load of rubbish.

The covering letter has a couple of interesting statements the first “Please note that some material has been redacted because it contained the personal data of third parties which we are not permitted to disclose.  Some material has also been withheld from disclosure due to legal privilege”

 

what is legal privilege?

 

and the other “ Anglian Water record calls for quality and training purposes, not all calls are recorded and of those we do have a recording of we only keep for approx 12 months.  Having checked our systems I am unable to locate any recorded calls from yourself to Anglian Water.

 

How convenient for them!

 

out of all the calls I made to them, they don’t have at least 1 recorded? Really?.

 

It says in the notes “Mrs added to account - liable and lives at property -

spoken to me & Mrs to confirm this”

 

Just seen entry not sure if it is 8th or 9th Feb, 2022 and it says:

 

”Advised the customer needs to apply for JSA as claim issued correctly - advised agent needs to notify HCE and the customer needs to advise they are applying for JSA”

 

Im

[dx100uk]

post up the account comms log please from the SAR.

 

1 hour ago, cakebytheocean said:

It says in the notes “Mrs added to account - liable and lives at property -

spoken to me & Mrs to confirm this”

 

 

interesting point they are WRONG....water is NOT like gas/electric/CTAX, whereby if you were living at the property you are jointly responsible.

 

Water debts are treated the same as a consumer credit debt, thus it's a county court CCJ. a contractual issue.

 

you cannot become liable for someone else's consumer credit debt unless you were a joint card holder or jointly (both) signed say a loan credit agreement....you did not

 

dx

 

[cakebytheocean]

8 hours ago, cakebytheocean said:

Quote

It says in the notes “Mrs added to account - liable and lives at property -

spoken to me & Mrs to confirm this”

Bankfodder, this is all I have.

 

They only provided data from that point on as it was my ex who registered with them online when he opened the account.

[BankFodder]

Firstly, I should point out to you that we have an occasional glitch on this forum and it seems to have popped up here.

Some threads suddenly and mysteriously become locked and nobody seems able to unlock them or to post anything.
 

The solution seems to be to go back to the first page of the thread and it then becomes possible to post.
We have no idea why this happens but it may be associated with title changes.
It happens quite rarely – but it has happened on this thread. 

 

[BankFodder]

Next, I'm not entirely certain that I understand what my site team colleague @dx100uk is saying. I'm going to send him a note anyway and asking if he can explain to me.

In terms of your SAR, please can you tell me the date of the disclosure.
Another thing you should look for is anything which is obviously missing. This means that you have some record yourself of a message or a reference to something and yet that message or the referenced item is not included in your SAR. This is good evidence that the SAR is incomplete – not simply because data has been destroyed.

Also, I'm going to say to you now that you've been here since 2020. We've helped you with a couple of other things. You don't seem to have read our customer services guide – why not? If you have read it then why haven't you followed the advice there?

You would scarcely be in this kind of position if you actually put some work in to finding what advice we give about how to protect yourself and then implementing it.

Slapped wrist?
Yes.

 

Another question which occurs to me – from a comment you have made –
you seem to be referring to "Mr" and "Mrs".

Who are you? Who is it that's being referred to?

It would be helpful if you could make these kinds of things clear

[cakebytheocean]

No Bank fodder, the account was set up in my ex partners name but they said they added me on when I spoke to them once.  My ex had a habit of always passing the phone to me when he didn’t want to talk to people.

 

I have a copy of the SAR already.  What should I look for?

[Andyorch]

Quote

Water debts are treated the same as a consumer credit debt

 

Afraid not DX,  it's a service contract debt unregulated...as for liability it can sometimes be treated as a mixed occupancy use but only providing, they have details of other occupants. The DSAR confirms that a Mrs was added to the account without her consent but possibly added for this very reason I refer to above.

 

With regards to the Consent Order point 1 it simply amends the particulars of claim dates in which they state you resided and are responsible for the charges IE 1st April 2018 - 31st Aug 2020 and not 31st March 2022 along with the amended value of the judgment ...it does not set aside the judgment so therefore I would disregard it and continue with your set a side on the grounds that you did not receive the claim you are not party to the contract that your name was added without your consent or signed agreement.

 

Andy.

 

 

 

.

[cakebytheocean]

Bankfodder, 

 

Thank you for the slapped wrist, not really sure I deserve it but heyho!

 

I suffer with really bad anxiety and depression.  I am not saying it as an excuse but a fact.  I have also recently been diagnosed with Autism which I am astonished at given my age but most of the time I find it really difficult to deal with things, especially complex things like this and more often than not I dont see things that are under my nose.  

 

I am also going through a bereavement at the moment which has knocked me for six so please cut me some slack here and dont judge me without understanding daily issues I face.

 

That being said, I really appreciate anyone here that takes the time to read my thread and offer help in any way shape or form.

 

I havent read the customer services guide, I didnt know it existed.  If I was made aware of it previously I apologise but as I said before, my brain doesnt always process things right in front of me.

 

I came here because I try do the right thing in life but have been taken advantage of many times and I just wanted to see if I signed the consent order I would be shooting myself in the foot because I dont understand it apart from the fact that if I do sign it and dont keep up with payments I will be in trouble but there again I dont want to go to court if I am never going to win.

 

With regards to your question about Mr & Mrs, I am Mrs but was quoting some of the comments on the SAR.

 

What do you mean by the date of disclosure?

 

Andy,

 

Thankyou for your info above.

 

Having read the comments on here I was beginning to think also that I should continue with the hearing, especially now that it has been moved to April on the grounds of my bereavement.

 

The legal team for Anglian Water are adamant that the fact I didnt receive the claim form is not a reason to get the judgement set aside because they said it was my fault I didnt notify them i had moved.

 

Should I include this in my statement before the hearing along with the fact I was added to the account without consent?

[Andyorch]

Quote

The legal team for Anglian Water are adamant that the fact I didnt receive the claim form is not a reason to get the judgement set aside because they said it was my fault I didnt notify them i had moved.

 

Should I include this in my statement before the hearing along with the fact I was added to the account without consent?

 

legally they are correct the CPR and legal procedure states that the last known address held by a claimant is considered good service of a court claim....I would consider this a grey area as it's not always applicable to certain unknown debts or or whether there is still a viable relationship with creditors or service providers so you wouldn't necessary inform all previous of a change of address...therefore I would encourage anyone to set a side on an unknown claim.

 

Yes, it's vital that you inform the court that you were not party to the agreement and that you were added to the contract without your consent or notification and that you can provide the necessary evidence to support this.

 

 

Post your draft statement here for further opinion. 

[BankFodder]

Certainly if it can be shown that you were not a party to the contract and in fact they added you unilaterally, then clearly there is absolutely no kind of duty for you to keep them informed as to your latest address .

 

Also, although the rules apply to what amounts to good service of the proceedings, the set aside rules also refer to the fact that the defendant has not come to know of the action .

 

As my site team colleague @AndyorchI said, this is a grey area, but frankly not very grey, in my view .

 

Definitely worth pursuing the set aside .

 

Work at the same time reminding the court that their primary duty is to reach a just decision according to CPR1

 

I'm quite sure that this means that in cases of doubt, the court must make a decision which allows a proper trial to go ahead rather than allow things to reach an abrupt conclusion.

Especially where the defendant is a private individual and being sued by a well resourced corporation.

 

I would also make it clear that if the set aside is allowed, that you will be adding a counterclaim for a serious data breach .

 

I think that I have always suggested that it must be worth £500 in damages and frankly I would start the bidding at much higher than that.

[cakebytheocean]

I am having trouble replying to my original post on this matter, it wont let me type anything so not sure what the problem is but I was wondering if one of the admin team would merge this on for me please?

 

My court date is approaching and I am now in the process of preparing my statement.

 

I have this week received an email from Anglian Waters legal team asking me if I had read the Consent order and wanted to know what I wanted to do as I hadnt been in contact since before xmas.

 

I did email them back saying that I was worried I couldnt afford the monthly payment due to my current situation and they have come back saying that they are prepared to reduce it and if I go to court, they are still going to oppose the application to get it set aside.

 

They have also said that their skeleton argument and schedule of costs will be with me in due course which may fall payable by myself.

 

Now, I have explained until I am blue in the face that I have only applied to get this set aside because I was instructed to by AW because they said they could not adjust the balance due with a judgement in place, ( I also have this in writing on the notes of the SAR), but they are ignoring what I am saying.

 

I know Bankfodder you thought it was worth me continuing with the court date and I am guessing they dont really want me to go to court so they are turning the thumb screws. 

 

Just want to make sure I make the right choice and I really dont have a clue!

[dx100uk]

continue with the set aside

you have them worried here

could be a win win on compo

[dx100uk]

we seem to have our bug back

 

to post go back to the 1st page (hit previous<<)

then hit the green reply to this thread box

[cakebytheocean]

Ahh I am back :).

 

Thank you dx100uk, I will get my draft statement together and post here.  I have printed off one that another cagger recommended would be useful in terms of layout.

[cakebytheocean]

I have today received the skeleton statement from Anglian Water's legal team, together with their statement of charges.

 

They have twisted it and lied but I am not surprised.  I have attached it (hopefully!)  

 

I am in the process of getting my statement together.

 

 

CAG Anglian water statement.pdf

[cakebytheocean]

I am not sure if my posts are visible to others.

 

I have been having problems posting due to a "bug".

[BankFodder]

We can see your posts