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7. The court send you the CCJ giving you 28 days to pay
***
8. You ignore the CCJ
9. When the 28 days expire, the CCJ will be on your
record for 6 years ****
Notes:
* The demand must say who you are, delivered to where
you live (or work), who the creditor is, their address,
how to contact them, what is owed, what it is owed for,
when you must pay the amount by and what will happen if
you do not pay i.e. “if you do not pay £100 by 12/11/99
we will take legal action”.
** When the Defendant (debtor) does not reply to the
Claim Form (previously Summons) the court enters a
‘Default Judgment’. The term Default means you defaulted
on your opportunity to respond to the creditors claim.
*** If you pay within the 28 days the CCJ is not
recorded if you
contact the court
**** On the sixth anniversary of the date of the
Judgment the CCJ will automatically erase from your
credit record.
Now back to the
credit repair.
The fundamental issue with all credit repair
opportunities is did you receive the Claim Form
(previously Summons). If you did, you cannot remove the
Judgment. However, this is not the end of the matter
with most (but not all) credit repair companies. If you
are prepared to state thatyou did not receive the Claim
Form (previously Summons), and you have a reasonable
reason why you did/could not receive it, you have the
grounding for a successful credit repair. You will
complete a few forms with the credit repair company and
make an application to set aside the ‘Default Judgment’.
You cannot set aside a CCJ that you knew about, did not
pay, but can pay now. However, credit repair companies
may correspond with a company that secured a CCJ against
you, say, 3 years ago, for £7,000 and offer them, say,
£4,000 if they do not object to a credit repair and
application to set aside the Judgment Default of their
CCJ. If you have paid off a CCJ that is 3 years old the
credit repair company cannot use the leverage of paying
the creditor some money not to object to the credit
repair: the credit repair company relies on the creditor
not being bothered to object. Credit repair companies
are most effective if you have not paid any money
towards the CCJ. If you settle a debt after the first 28
days, the CCJ will not be taken off the register. The
file can be marked as ‘satisfied’, if
you
apply to the court for a 'satisfaction notice'.
A further problem can exist on your credit record that
is as destructive as a CCJ: a ‘Default’. If you miss two
to three payments of an agreement (Hire Purchase, Lease)
the creditor can send you a formal default letter. A CCJ
and a Default are both regarded as serious information
by lenders etc. You cannot pay or satisfy a Default: it
is just there! An inexperienced clerk at a finance
company can send a Default to you without any
supervision or serious default.
My Personal Summary:
The credit repair companies are under immense pressure
from government, credit counsellors, finance companies
and institutions: and of course the main credit
reference companies who rely on poor credit ratings to
earn profits – at times it is difficult to see who the
‘goodies’ are! Should someone who went through a very
difficult time in the past have the opportunity to
correct his or her standing in life before a 6-year
term? I know of many such cases where debt had very
little to do with recklessness, and more to do with such
things as poor health, redundancies etc.
Banks and finance companies use computers to sort the
good from the bad. With CCJ’s lasting 6 years (and the
computer treating a 1-month debt the same as a 5 year 11
month debt) the punishment is out of proportion to the
‘crime’. The choice is a personal one: to use or not to
use. Our peers (governments, Lords etc) have been making
laws to abide by, and ethics to follow that they at
times do not abide by themselves – do you think our
peers would use credit repair? |
