Help with making claim against debt collector

by s_wan28 Sun May 29, 2022 1:59 pm

Hi

I submitted court claim forms against a collector near the start of this year.

There's been a lot of back and forth, meaning the court has not served the defendant yet.

The sticking point is the court doesn't feel they can serve the director from his address per Companies House.

I don't know his personal residential address, but I've been addressing the notices to him at his company's address.

The court replies talk about CPR 6.15, which I previously wrote to them saying CPR 6.15 states the defendant may be served at their place of residence or place at which they carry out business, implying the Companies House address was sufficient.

They have since said this only applies if CPR 6.9 is inappropriate.

Having looked up CPR 6.9, I cannot formulate an argument around the main gist of this rule - which I understand to be the steps I took to ascertain his personal address.

Can someone suitably experienced in these matters point me in the right direction?

Thanks

by flyingfish Mon May 30, 2022 7:37 am

Are you making the claim against this director personally, or against the company?

by s_wan28 Mon May 30, 2022 10:30 pm

flyingfish wrote:Are you making the claim against this director personally, or against the company?

I'm claiming against a director of this firm.

by flyingfish Tue May 31, 2022 9:48 am

Are you making a claim against him regarding his actions as a director of the company? If so, depending on what you are actually claiming, then you may well be better making the claim against the company itself. There are not that many occasions when an individual would be held personally liable for something he did in his role as director, and in those rare cases it would still start as an action against the company. Without knowing more about your actual claim we can't really be specific.

If your claim is against the individual, for some matter unrelated to his directorship, then the first port of call is CPR 6.9 which specifies service to his "Usual or last known residence." Service under CPR 6.15 requires an order of the court, so you would need to apply for that as described, giving your evidence for why you can't serve normally.

by s_wan28 Tue May 31, 2022 10:53 pm

flyingfish wrote:Are you making a claim against him regarding his actions as a director of the company? If so, depending on what you are actually claiming, then you may well be better making the claim against the company itself. There are not that many occasions when an individual would be held personally liable for something he did in his role as director, and in those rare cases it would still start as an action against the company. Without knowing more about your actual claim we can't really be specific.

If your claim is against the individual, for some matter unrelated to his directorship, then the first port of call is CPR 6.9 which specifies service to his "Usual or last known residence." Service under CPR 6.15 requires an order of the court, so you would need to apply for that as described, giving your evidence for why you can't serve normally.

It's my belief that our actions have a better chance of success under common law, therefore claims should be made against a person and not the company.

As the director of his company, he is responsible for its running, such as ensuring procedures are carried out lawfully. By his company continuing to chase a claim without document evidence (harassment) he is ultimately responsible for the repercussions of the company's actions.

I don't have his residential address, and nor do I believe I have a chance of finding it.

How can I apply for an order of the court under CPR 6.15? Do I simply write back to the court explaining that I cannot find the director's residential address? What type of argument is most persuasive in having a judge side with me?

by flyingfish Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:24 am

I think you may have been misled about common law. If we're talking about real common law then it applies to companies as well as individuals, the same as statute.

Regarding your application under CPR 6.15 all you can do is try. I would suggest starting by writing separately to the company at their registered address, and to the director at their Companies House correspondence address. In each case asking for the director's home address. No chance they will provide it but this will be part of your evidence to the court to show that you can't serve according to CPR 6.9. By the way to keep the rules straight, in your case CPR 6.9 specifies "Usual or last known residence". Place of business only comes in if you're suing them in the name of their business.

One last thought and this might be a real long shot. Have a look if this individual has any or directorships, past or current, and check their correspondence addresses on Companies House. Just in case he own address was ever used, in which case it becomes his "last known residence".

by s_wan28 Wed Jun 01, 2022 10:45 pm

flyingfish wrote:I think you may have been misled about common law. If we're talking about real common law then it applies to companies as well as individuals, the same as statute.

Regarding your application under CPR 6.15 all you can do is try. I would suggest starting by writing separately to the company at their registered address, and to the director at their Companies House correspondence address. In each case asking for the director's home address. No chance they will provide it but this will be part of your evidence to the court to show that you can't serve according to CPR 6.9. By the way to keep the rules straight, in your case CPR 6.9 specifies "Usual or last known residence". Place of business only comes in if you're suing them in the name of their business.

One last thought and this might be a real long shot. Have a look if this individual has any or directorships, past or current, and check their correspondence addresses on Companies House. Just in case he own address was ever used, in which case it becomes his "last known residence".

I understand common law to be determined by past legal precedents, and not statutes. Therefore it's possible to direct a judge to a positive outcome based on citing previous case law.

The key here is that it relates to living breathing persons, and so a limited company cannot be a claimant or defendant.

Please correct my understanding or point me in a direction of research to better understand this for the purpose of winning my case.

I'm thinking this (amending my claim to serve the limited company) might be an alternative to serving the director.

I'll fire off my letters requesting his home address and see where this leads, but I'm doubtful they will reply. I'll also try the longshot.

Thanks,

by **assassin** Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:09 am

I think you are getting slightly confused as it is true a company is a dead entity or corpus and a dead person cannot do anything, therefore a company as a dead entity cannot undertake business and only a person can and as FF has stated you need his business address or registered business address as he/she is the live person responsible for making or seeing the decisions made for, or on behalf of the company and they are now called "persons with significant control".

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