5. Mr O complains that HMCTS failed to seal an order that was sent to the debtor’s bank account. Mr O also says there was a delay in the court correcting this mistake.
6. As a result, Mr O says the debtor was able to empty his bank account of funds and he suffered a financial loss of £7550.52. (excluding interest and legal fees)
7. As an outcome he would like a financial remedy.
8. Mr O made an application for a third-party debt order for money he was owed, this was received by HMCTS on 5 August 2022.
9. Following the application a Judge decided that an interim debt order should be put in place, an order was drawn and sent to Mr O and the debtor’s bank.
10. As the initial order HMCTS sent was not sealed the bank were unable to freeze the accounts until this was corrected by HMCTS.
11. The order was eventually corrected and sent to the bank and the debtor’s bank account was frozen. A final hearing took place in January 2023 where a third-party debt order was then made.
What Mr O told us
16. Mr O tells us he was owed a total amount of £33,077 from the debtor and so he made an application with HMCTS to retrieve the amount owed to him.
17. Mr O says that HMCTS failed to seal the original interim debt order that was first made on 2 September 2022, this meant the bank was unable to freeze the account at the time.
18. Mr O says that to make matters worse HMCTS did not correct this for months despite being chased by the bank.
19. The sealed order was then received by the bank on 24 November 2022. However, Mr O says that this mistake and delay meant that in the intervening period the debtor was able to remove money from his bank account and this meant that he later did not receive the full amount he was owed.
20. Mr O also informs us that although the bank received the sealed order there was then a further delay in them freezing the account, the bank has acknowledged this and provided Mr O with a payment of £4644 to compensate for the period where it should have frozen the account upon receipt of the sealed order. This amount is separate to what the judge ordered at the final hearing.
What HMCTS said
21. In its first contact reply dated 17 October 2023 HMCTS apologised for the initial human error which resulted in the order being sent out unsealed.
22. It said that once Mr O had notified the court of the mistake via a letter it received on 22 November 2022, it then sent sealed copies out to all the relevant parties on 24 November 2022.
23. It apologised for the delays in responding to the complaint due to limited resources at the time.
24. It said that the mistake was human error, and it took immediate action once it was aware of the issue. HMCTS then explained that the issue of any enforcement is never a guarantee that the money will be collected and for that reason it rejected the request for costs.
25. HMCTS provided a review response on 22 November 2023. This response makes reference to the solicitor not notifying the courts of any discrepancies that required amending.
26. HMCTS said that the solicitor should have checked the contents of the order prior to it being forwarded to parties in the case. It said that it cannot accept liability in these circumstances as, had the information of changes being required been brought to the attention of the court, the Court Order would have been sealed prior to the claimant or his solicitor sending the document to the bank and the Judgement Creditor.
27. In its appeal response dated 1 March 2024, HMCTS apologised that Mr O was unhappy with the responses so far and acknowledged he was concerned about the delay of the bank freezing the debtor’s account due to the unsealed order.
28. It apologised that he was previously informed it could not consider his complaint, having looked at it again, it was something it could investigate under the administrative process.
29. It said that it could see that the Interim Third-Party Debt Order (ITPDO) was typed and sent out to the parties on 2 September 22022. At the hearing on 14 October 2022 the Judge adjourned the matter to 16 January 2023. In the meantime, the claimant requested a sealed copy of the Order and it was sent out on 24 November 2022.
30. The bank also froze the account on 24 November after receiving the sealed order of 14 October adjourning the hearing to January. It said despite requests for copies of the sealed ITPDO the bank did not receive this.
31. It said that this was not the level of service it expected from the court, and it was sorry that it had caused delays in the case progressing. It would remind staff of the importance of carrying out follow up action and quality checks to prevent it from happening again.
32. It offered a £500 ex-gratia payment for the unsealed order being sent out and the delay in dealing with the ITPDO in recognition of the delay its mistake caused and that the hearing had to be moved to January.
Our view
33. When we decide whether to take action on a complaint, we firstly consider whether there is any evidence that the organisation did anything wrong. To do this we look at what happened and compare this to what should have happened. HMCTS acknowledged the errors it made with Mr O’s case during the complaint responses.
34. We have considered all the information Mr O provided and obtained additional information from HMCTS. HMCTS provided the below timeline for Mr O’s case.
• 1 September 2022 application received and referred to a Judge, who directed that an interim debt order should be put in place and set a hearing date for 17 October 2022. This order was drawn on the same day and copies sent to Mr O and the debtor’s bank, but the copies sent out didn’t contain the court seal.
• An order was made on 14 October 2022 and a sealed order sent out to all parties on 17 October 2022 and the case was then adjourned.
• 24 October 2022 HMCTS received a call from Mr O’s solicitor asking for a sealed copy of the interim order. A sealed copy was sent following the call. The bank also froze the debtor’s account on this date once it received the interim order made on 17 October 2022.
• 25 November 2022 hearing set for 16 January 2023.
• 28 November 2022 debtor called HMCTS to say he was unhappy his bank account had been frozen and updated his address.
• 5 December 2022 email received from Mr O’s solicitor asking for a copy of the interim debt order. A sealed copy was sent out on the same day.
• 8 December 2022 email received by HMCTS from the debtor advising he was unaware of the hearing on 14 October 2022. HMCTS responded to inform there was no hearing on that day and enclosed a copy of notice for the hearing in January 2023.
• 16 January 2023 both parties attended a hearing, and a final third-party debt order was made.
35. We can see from the information provided that the original order sent out on 2 September 2022 should have been sealed and we can see that HMCTS have agreed there were some delays in getting this resolved and in total it was around three months before the sealed order was received by the bank.
36. We have considered the financial remedy offered by HMCTS in recognition of the mistakes it made with the order and the delay in correcting it.
37. In our view, the amount offered by HMCTS is in line with its own Complaint Handling Guidance regarding the rage of payments it offers in situations such as this. This is also in line with our own guide on remedy. This states a level 2 injustice will typically arise when what has gone wrong has had a relatively low impact on the person affected. This will often result in a degree of distress, inconvenience or minor pain. This could also include instances where justice was more serious but only took place once or was of short duration. In these cases, we consider that an apology is not suitable by itself.
38. We understand that the delay in getting the mistake correct will have caused Mr O additional stress during this time but as we go on to explain below as there is no way to guarantee how much money would have been in the account at the time of the original order it is not possible for us to say that this delay contributed to Mr O not receiving the entire amount he had been owed.
39. Mr O says that the impact of this error meant that he did not receive the full amount of money he was owed and that it allowed the debtor to empty his bank account. Mr O provided us with a page of the debtor’s bank account dated July 2022 to show how much money was in the account.
40. We can see from information provided to us by Mr O that the bank did not immediately freeze the account when it received the sealed order, and that money was withdrawn during this period however Mr O has confirmed that the bank paid him £4644 as this was the amount the debtor withdrew in between the period where the bank failed to freeze the account. This is separate to HMCTS’s complaint process.
41. We understand that whilst this was separate to the process it was in addition to the amount on the final order and HMCTS confirmed there is no record of this being shared with the court before the final judgment was entered.
42. We understand that it is frustrating for Mr O given that he had sight of how much money was in the account in July 2022. The application was received by HMCTS on 5 August 2022. As there was no order in place at the time in July 2022, we cannot hold HMCTS responsible for any amount the debtor withdrew prior to the order as he would have been free to do so in this time. He would also be free to withdraw any money added to the account after the date of the account being frozen.
43. HMCTS also told us that the courts are not made aware of how much is in the bank account until the account is frozen, so there is no guarantee that the full amount would have been in place at the time the original order was made, even if it had been sent sealed.
44. Furthermore, having reviewed the guidance online for third party debt orders, whilst the applicant can state an amount on the application, it is not decided until the final hearing by a Judge how much is awarded on the final order. This means the Judge can award less than the amount frozen at the time if they wish, therefore there is no guarantee that even if the full amount Mr O believes was in the account had been available at the time that it would have been awarded at the final hearing.
45. We cannot comment or speculate on judicial decisions that are made as they are not within our remit to consider. This is outlined in Schedule 3, paragraph 6A of the Parliamentary Commissioners Act 1967 states we are unable to investigate ‘action taken by any person appointed by the Lord Chancellor as a member of the administrative staff of any court or tribunal, so far as that action is taken at the direction, or on the authority (whether express or implied), of any person acting in a judicial capacity or in his capacity as a member of the tribunal.’
46. In this case we understand that Mr O is unhappy that the Judge did not award the full amount of the debt that Mr O was claiming. The Judge awarded £21500.16, this was a judicial decision and not within our jurisdiction. For reassurance to Mr O,the guidance for third party debt orders state that the court cannot order a third party to pay you an amount greater than that originally frozen. If this is less than a person is owed, they may wish to consider other enforcement procedures to get back the rest of the money, which is an option open to Mr O in this case.
47. We appreciate that Mr O feels that this error led to him not obtaining the full monies he was owed at the time. Whilst we can see that HMCTS did make some administrative errors during the case we cannot link the impact Mr O is claiming as a direct result of these for the reasons above.
1. We have carefully considered Mr O’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). We appreciate that this matter has caused Mr O a considerable amount of stress, and we are sorry to hear about his experience.
2. In considering the evidence submitted to us we can see that whilst HMCTS did make an error by not sealing the order, in our view it has provided sufficient remedy to put right the impact of its error.
3. We understand that Mr O feels that because of the error this allowed the debtor to empty the account and therefore, he lost out on money he was owed. We have explained our reasoning below for why we cannot consider this.
4. We will explain our decision in detail below.