Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
Ms B.I. writes: I had a very minor car accident in 2021 and my insurers, Privilege Insurance, advised that they were sorting it out.
In the middle of 2022, I received an email from solicitors acting for the other driver, saying that Privilege had not paid up and I was being sued.
Privilege told me this was a mistake and they would sort it out, so I should not engage with the solicitors or deal with what happened next, which was a County Court Judgment against me for £3,177.
Privilege even paid me £750 as an apology, but now say that their own lawyers have been unable to get the CCJ cancelled.
Shunt: But the reader ended up receiving a court judgment
Tony Hetherington replies: It is one thing to advise you to ignore the other driver’s solicitors. This would have allowed Privilege and its own lawyers to deal with the accident and any claims.
But it is a completely different thing to advise you to ignore a County Court Judgment, a legal ruling which the other driver’s solicitors would have applied for.
Apart from the fact that this is a legally enforceable debt, CCJs appear on a public register and stay there for years, affecting your credit rating and very possibly barring you from getting a credit card or a mortgage.
The advice you were given by Privilege was shockingly bad.Privilege itself admits this. It told you that the other driver’s claim had been settled, so you should do nothing. It now says that this was ‘a fundamental mistake’. It even admits that the other driver’s solicitors warned Privilege about the court case, but Privilege failed to alert its own lawyers. It confessed: ‘Our lack of urgency and oversight is totally unacceptable.’
So where does this leave you? At age 60, you have never had a CCJ against you – until now. Well, once it began to take the matter seriously, Privilege did manage to have the CCJ concealed from public records. It remained in force, but without damaging your credit record.
That is the good news. The less good news is that Privilege has struggled to have the CCJ completely erased by getting the court to scrap it. Privilege’s solicitors tried to get the other side to agree to a joint approach to the court, but the other driver’s lawyers simply failed to respond – presumably because they believed their job was done.
This left Privilege to go back to the court alone. Two months ago it admitted that ‘this can take a very long time as the request needs to go through the courts, and there is no guarantee the judgment will be removed as this is done at their discretion’.
This really was not good enough, and I am glad to report that after fresh efforts Privilege has now persuaded the opposing solicitors to give their consent so the court can set aside the judgment. Privilege has submitted the necessary papers to the court and is awaiting the judge’s decision.
If you do not hear soon that the court has wiped the slate clean, let me know. It may be time for Privilege to think again whether its £750 is enough to make up for the damage it has done.
Why was my £25k loan note delayed?
K.N. writes: In October 2019, I invested £25,000 in three-year loan notes issued by Urban Village Cap 1 Limited.
My notes matured last October and I requested that my £25,000 be paid back to me. I sent three emails, without reply.
I phoned the company’s business development manager Mr Yakoviev, but he did not answer. Can you help me recover my money?
High rate: Urban Village Group is a property development firm
Tony Hetherington replies: You invested in an offshoot of the Urban Village Group, a property development company based in Sutton Coldfield, and you have been receiving interest at an annual eight per cent without any problem.
Your loan note is signed by the group’s finance director, Peter Steer, so I asked him about his company’s failure to repay you. He immediately told me: ‘We have taken swift action to resolve the issue, and we are happy to report that it has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.’
You now have your missing £25,000, but Steer refused to say why you were not repaid last October, or why his company failed to reply to your emails and calls. He described this as an ‘error’, which is rather self evident, but would offer no proper explanation.
VAT mystery…at my home
Ms M.A. writes: I am sending you a copy of a letter from HM Revenue & Customs, which was sent to my home but addressed to a Mr Grzegorz Plata about VAT.
In 2013, I received a similar letter acknowledging his VAT enrolment, and I notified HMRC that Mr Plata does not live here.
HMRC apologised in 2013 and confirmed that this error had been corrected, but it would seem that this man is still using our address.
Not known at this address: Ms M.A. received a letter from HM Revenue & Customs, which was sent to her home but addressed to a Mr Grzegorz Plata about VAT
Tony Hetherington replies: I checked local records such as the electoral register as far back as I could, and there was no trace of the mysterious Mr Plata at your address or anywhere nearby.
I also reverse-checked the VAT number and found it was still live and still registered to him at your home address. I asked officials at the Revenue head office to look into this.
They told me: ‘We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the customer receiving incorrect post. We have corrected our records to ensure it does not happen again.’
I left it a while and have just checked the VAT number once more, and it now shows in Revenue records as no longer being a valid number.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
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