A Tale of Financial Woe

…… which will be long and boring and involve legal stuff so if you want to skip it feel free but if any of you have been in similar positions I’d be grateful for any advice because I’m not sure how to proceed with this.

I’ve done another long and boring entry that way <—- to give the background story and to show it wasn't exactly a fly-by-night encounter.  Mind you, you might think it still was and that's certainly your perogative of course but anyway but it gives the details leading up to Shaun the bathroom guy fleecing me out of over 2 grand if you want to see how it all evolved.

So we’re at the point where he said he was going to refund me all the money and I’d accepted that.

A week later I realised he hadn’t asked me for any bank details for the transfer – no doubt deliberate – but I supplied what was needed and waited.

Nothing.

Got in touch with him and he said he was being mucked about with getting a refund for the vanity unit but he had some of the money so did I want him to refund what he had?

????

I politely said yes please.

Nothing.

Chased him up and got no reply.

Gave him a date to transfer the money by and if nothing was forthcoming I’d take legal action.

In the meantime I saw my solicitor who advised me to send him a letter recorded delivery asking for £50 now and proposing an agreement for monthly instalments for the rest which I could draw up and extend depending on how long I was prepared to wait.

Nothing came back from my text so sent the letter giving him a date to reply by.

Nothing.

Researched small claims procedure which involved wading through loads of legal jargon and gave me a huge headache but eventually completed the correct form for an action against him and paid the fee.

The court sent 2 recorded delivery citations in August last year and both were marked ‘not called for’ – I don’t even know what that means.  Anyway it went to court after that although I didn’t have to attend.  He didn’t show (he could have responded to the summons to save it going to court but didn’t do that either).  A new hearing date was set – same thing happened then a decree was issued in December and an Extract for Payment appeared through the post.

I had no idea what that was so got in touch with the court office and was told it’s just a court order saying the defender owes me a specific sum of money so that will now have a negative effect on his credit rating.

And?

And nothing apparently.

He doesn’t automatically get a copy – that’s up to me to do – if I think it might have any effect.

And if I don’t?

Well then I have to get in touch with independent Sheriff Officers and get them to take further action.  And obviously shell out more money.

So at that point as far as I can see everything had been a total waste of time, money and stress and resulted in absolutely no progress whatsoever.

Anyway Christmas intervened and it was left until the New Year but in January I got in touch with 3 Sheriff Officer firms and one appeared slightly more efficient than the other 2 so I went with them.  They said there were several avenues we could go down but there was still no guarantee I would get my money back.

Great.

I was advised the best course of action would be a bank arrestment as the only details I had for him were his address, bank account number and sort code.  I mentioned that I thought it was probably inevitable he’d changed his bank account by now but was assured that wasn’t always the case and it was worth pursuing.

An Arrestment in Execution was served to his bank and I forked out £90 for the privilege.  I was told he had 3 weeks to respond to that and if he didn’t it would be assumed to be ineffective so the bank would send the amount after 14 weeks unless Shaun signed a mandate which was unlikely.

This made no sense to me.  Why would the bank cough up money he owed and take on the headache of trying to get him to pay it back?

However I duly waited the 14 weeks and no money appeared.  Not surprisingly.

Got back in touch with the Sheriff Officer and he said

Margaret
The most likely reason that you have not heard from the bank is that the arrestment has not attached any monies which means that there was insufficient funds at the time of the arrestment. I am not familiar with the level of information or intelligence that you have on the debtor which could result in alternative enforcement action and unfortunately more cost. I have attached a list of actions for consideration.

I would be looking at Inhibition of his property if he is the owner, attachment of a vehicle if he owns it, arrestment in the hands of a 2rd party that owes him money (maybe a contract he has) or exceptional attachment order to get into his house for attachment of his household goods.

Kind regards
Ronnie

Well I’m sorry Ronnie you can take your kind regards and shove them where the sun don’t shine because this just seems a farce to me.  Obviously there’s going to be insufficient funds if the bank account even still exists which I highly doubt – I mean if the guy’s fleecing folk he’s going to be wise about still having bank accounts which he’s given details of to someone and if he’s not and it’s genuine dire straits then he’s not going to have any money in the first place is he?

I just feel like I’m getting shafted all over again.

You probably all think I’m mad.

Why am I even dithering about it?  It’s two thousand quid right?

Well the spanner in the works is that that was part of my Aunt’s estate left to me after she died – a substantial amount of cash and shares which made it possible for me to leave Boyd amicably and get this house.  What I mean is I never worked for that money – it was dropped into my lap buckfree – it wasn’t there one day and next day it was so to speak.

Now that may still not make one iota of difference to many of you and I understand that but it does alter the dynamics slightly for me.  I would definitely feel more hard by if I’d spent months scrimping and saving for that money for the sole purpose of getting the bathroom done for sure.  But then there’s the other old chestnut.  I don’t have the money now to dole out on this – I’m £146 down already with nothing to show for it.

The solicitor who dealt with my house purchase, separation agreement and will is a lovely lovely woman – professional, helpful and efficient throughout, she gave me a wealth of advice through e-mail before, during and after all our legal transactions and didn’t charge me one penny for it.  I know – a rare breed.  Anyway I e-mailed her to see what she thought knowing she would tell me realistically whether it’s worth pursuing or not and this was her reply:

Hi Margaret

These situations are so difficult – you are in the right, and have an order from the court which allows you to pursue Mr Ellington for the funds due. However, if he has no funds in the bank then the bank can’t pay out.  Having an inhibition attached to any house he may own would mean he could not sell without making the necessary payment to you. However, you would have to confirm he owned the house in the first instance.

Would I recommend you continue further – don’t know to be honest. You could well be throwing good money after bad. Having a right to refund of the funds does not necessarily mean you will be successful in recouping your loss as you have found to your costs to date.

I am happy to have a chat with you if you wish Margaret. Let me know if you wish to make an appointment.

Kind Regards
Margaret

So no further on.

Dull as ditchwater I know and I apologise for that but here in case anyone has been through a similar episode and can tell me what they did – tuppence ha’penny contributions also welcome of course!

I asked Snarf what he thought.  He adopted his ‘thinking’ pose ……

3 seconds later I looked up to this ……

I need to review my support network I think.