being taken to court...for £4.38...??

[glasgow guy]

we got a letter this morning not addressed to us but to ' the occupier ' at our address stating that we owe a company in london £4.38 (yes you have read it right) for land rent at our house in clayton ???..and if not they will take us to court for the sum noted.
now we binned the letter cos if they know we bought our house in clayton then they should know our names also..(true ?) and whats it got to do with some mob in london ?..and I think its a con and just someone trying to get cash from us...came on a bit of paper headed from a company called ' centurion debt agencies'.???..I would happily go to court if they want to argue for their £4.38 as it will cost much more for them to bring it to court (even a small calims one)...so until it comes addressed to us by name they wont get a penny...

anyone else had something like this or heard of it before...

[andrewb]

No but this has reminded me to go and pay my orange contract bill which I canceled... or else they'll be taking me to court for £80

I hope I don't forget again before monday

[Mick]

I was on jury service in Preston and got called up to a case there.
we were all swarn in and went through all the legal stuff to get the court ready.
The accused was brought in to court and the charge read out " You have been charged on such a date at such a time you stole 1 can of larger how do you plead ? it got thrown out of court but all the expence of taking this to crown court makes you think.

[Neil]

It sounds like your house is leashold and you owe the ground rent. This should have been sorted by your solicitor when you bought the house. How long have you lived there? I assume you own the house.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by mick

you stole 1 can of larger how do you plead

I thought you were not allowed to talk about the case

[Mick]

it was years ago i dont think the guy will bother now
and that is only while the court case is still on going
i have done jury service 5 times now 2 in Preston and 3 in Burnley
and ended up as jury forman 2 times which is not a nice job.

[glasgow guy]

Originally Posted by Neil

It sounds like your house is leashold and you owe the ground rent. This should have been sorted by your solicitor when you bought the house. How long have you lived there? I assume you own the house.

yes we bought the house and have lived here for 4 years...

[BLACKBURN RAVER]

been receiving phone calls for months off a so called debt agency claiming i owe in the region of £45 - £78 (they couldnt even remember the price they tod me ) for an outstanding mobile phone bill even though i use pay as you go...firstly they said it was orange then vodafone and that if i didnt pay it i would be taken to court.......my reply was...."see you there"....i asked for them to send me a letter of agreement with my signature on as to prove what they were saying and guess what ...they couldnt...stating that they were only the debt collectors and as such they didnt have the agreement....as yet nothing has materialised..

just wonder how many other people would actually pay it as theye were scared of being taken to court...

[jambutty]

Ignoring demanding letters is not the best way forward Glasgow guy even if they are not addressed to you personally.

You might be better retrieving the letter from the bin and replying to it although it does sound like a con.

If it is land rent that you owe you should have known about it when you bought the house and had details of how and when to pay the rent.

In any case if you owe money to someone they have to prove it and must make attempts to collect BEFORE putting the issue in the hands of some debt collecting agency. A debt collector’s letter out of the blue like that could be classed as harassment and that is not allowed by law.

I would write back and demand irrefutable proof that you owe £4.38 and keep a copy of the letter.

[lettie]

It is highly probable that this is a genuine demand for ground rent. I received one several years ago from a London based company saying that I owed 15 years worth of ground rent (about £20). I wrote back to say that I had only lived in the house for 5 years and that I would willingly pay that 5 years. They replied to me by name with a revised bill. My solicitor said that most of the ground rents up here are owned by southerners. I sent a cheque and have never received another bill.

Your solicitor will know who you should pay the ground rent to. My advice would be to reply to the letter, let them know how long you've lived there and check it out with your solicitor.

[chav1]

dont pay the £4.38

if they want it they will have to go to the small claims court and it will cost them around £40 to take you to court

they cant claim back expenses but you will be made to pay the £4.38

if they want to spend money on a solicitor and then court costs let them go ahead because they cant get the costs back from you

i recently had a conversation with trading standards and was told that although ime not sure on teh court costs but either way you only pay what you owe

in reality i cant see somone paying a solicitor to regain £4.38 especialy when there is no name for the person to persure or even attemt to claim costs back

thats my theory and ime sticking to it until proven wrong :-)

[katex]

Agree with Lettie, will be a demand for ground rent and if I were you, would pay up. I have just got mine for £ 20; a Ltd. company in East End of London operating from a private house and hand-written by, what I suspect, is an elderly person.

Every now and then I get an invitation to go Freehold so that I would own the land my house is built on, just never seem to have to money at the time.

They don't seem to bother too much, even if it gets to 3 years before I pay. (I'm bit lazy).

They do have the power, however, to ask to you to tear down any extensions you may have built without their permission, even though passed through the Planning Department at the Council .. so take care.

[Madhatter]

Whatever you never throw a letter away alike that. NEVER. you never know if you'll need it in court.