Court sent documents to the incomplete address

[Kelera]

Hello,

PPL PRS (music licence) had an incorrect/incomplete address of my company. As a result, we never received anything from them. A few days ago, bailiffs showed up in my restaurant and demanded an immediate payment based on the court order. Based on this fact, I can assume that it went the following way:

- PPL PRS was sending invoices to the wrong address and I never received them
- They reported us to court and provided incorrect address
- Court sent documents to the wrong address
- Baillifs showed up with the papers also showing incorrect address but our company name.

I never had any chance to respond to PPL PRS or court as I wasn't aware of this.

The reason why this is possible is that address mistake would send all our correspondence into residential building next door instead of the restaurant. Basically, they used postcode and street name and number but committed last line of address. Last line would contain info such as Flat 1, Flat 2, Flat xxx, Restaurant yyy (us).

Based on Royal Mail, the way they used our address is not complete and still shows a dropdown to chose out of 30 addresses.

Finally, company name and a restaurant are not called the same (company name is abc and it trades as restaurant def), so postman generally wouldn't care and probably just dropped the mail in residential building. Baillifs did care in order to collect fees so they entered the restaurant and asked "do you know where can we find company called def LTD.

Generally amount was't huge so I went ahead and made the payment as they were very unpleasant and were disrupting guests at my restaurant. However, the issue is that we now have CCJ judgment against us, and since it was over a month ago it can't be removed.

I believe that this is a 100% mistake from PPL PRS (claimant). Generally I never received their invoices and I would have paid them if I did. This way, based on the wrong info, they not only made us pay additional fees, but also provided this address to court which caused us to pay even more fees and now we have a ccj since it took bailiffs about 6 weeks to show up after the order.

Can you please let me know what should I do to remove this CCJ from my account and potentially retrieve back some of the fees? What are my chances of success here?

 

[Gyumri]

- They reported us to court and provided incorrect address

Have you ever seen a copy of the claim form to see how it was addressed?

Can you please let me know what should I do to remove this CCJ from my account and potentially retrieve back some of the fees? What are my chances of success here?

You need to apply for the judgment to be set aside supported by a witness statement which would clarify to a judge and convince him on the balance of probabilities of the reasons why you did not receive the claim form.

That may be evident from the address given on the claim form.

However, it is assumed that you did receive previous communications from the PRS inviting you to apply for a licence in which case it would be more difficult to say that you did not receive the claim form.

If the claim form was correctly addressed to your place of business then it would be deemed to have been served - I don't think you could blame non-delivery on the postman.

The judgment would be set aside only if you could persuade a skeptical judge that you really did not receive the claim (otherwise you would surely have filed a defence etc)

On the other hand a judge may well decide as they have in the past that there would be no point in setting aside the judgment if you are going to need a licence anyway.

If the postman is wrongly delivering your mail to the flats next door then you may need to put up a larger sign to avoid confusion.

I don't think you would be able to wiggle your way out of the liability to buy a licence if you wish to create an atmosphere in your restaurant using popular music, so the end result of setting aside the judgment even if you succeed might not achieve much.

 

[WaveJumper]

And let's hope your utility bills are going to the right address.

 

[Kelera]

Thanks for the responses.

I have googled based on your response and saw that form N244 is the one I should file?

If that is correct (please confirm) then it says that I have 14 days from CCJ. However, I found out about all this only after Bailiffs visit, which was about 6 weeks after the CCJ. Can I still submit this form?

 

[Gyumri]

you can still file the application but ask yourself what would it achieve? You are presumably going to have to pay the licence fee anyway. Once you pay the CCJ you can apply for a certificate of satisfaction.

I would focus on ensuring that the postman delivers your mail properly to avoid any similar situation arising.

If you haven't got a good defence - and it seems you have none - then a judge isn't going to be inclined to set aside the default judgment simply because your post sometimes goes astray. You must have received letters from the PRS and would have known that you needed to deal with their complaint.

I would cough up and get back to running your restaurant.