I failed to anticipate that he would simply fail to respond at all.
I went back to the county court website, and submitted a request to the judge. I asked him to simply enter a judgement that I won the case, since no-one argued otherwise.
15th July 2008
I received the following:
In accordance with your request, judgement was entered against the Defendant on the 15th July 2008.
I won! Woot! I still had no money though, so the victory felt somewhat hollow. I returned once more to the county court website, where a new button had appeared, inviting me to issue a Warrant of Execution. I felt that Execution was a harsh penalty for simply scamming me, but hey, a button has to be pressed.
29th Oct 2008
After some waiting, I received the following.
EX77 - Interim Return on a Warrant of Execution. Warrant Passed to Bailiffs for execution.
With images in my mind of debt collectors and bailiffs knocking on doors, I went about my daily life and with a smile, waiting for the cheque to land on my doorstep.
3rd Nov 2008
A while later, I received the following, although I would rather have received a cheque.
EX77 - Interim Return on a Warrant of Execution Unable to meet. Soph closed. Visited at 14:55.
Hmmm…. They’ll find him in the end, I thought, they always do. I went and had a bowl of frosties, with an extra sprinkling of sugar.
11th November 2008
Almost seven months after I paid the money to Mr Daly, I received a cheque for the full amount, plus my legal expenses, plug my interest. In the end, failing to accept my offer of 60% cost Maxwell Daly 130 pounds.
I’d managed to learn some valuable lessons about the county court system. If the defendant fails to respond at all, the claimant can simply hammer the system, push a good result through and charge the defendant for the privilege.
I also learnt that there are some right cheeky sods in the various estate agents out there. The good ones are marked by Professional Accreditation badges, such as ARLA. The bad ones will try to scam people wherever they can. In my case, they thought that they could take advantage because I was relatively young and didn’t know much about housing.
