HM Courts and Tribunals Service

5. Mr U complains the HMCTS officer doing an EX324 interview failed to keep to his request for the debtor to give his bank statements in an interview done under an EX140 application, which Mr U had paid for. Mr U applied for the interview with the goal of finding where the debtor had paid the money that was owed to him.

6. Mr U thinks he has wasted time and money in the EX140 application.

7. Mr U wants HMCTS to order the debtor to attend court and supply bank statements from January 2019 to date. HMCTS is now asking that if Mr U wants to have another interview, he should pay a second application fee. Mr U wants HMCTS to review this because he does not think he should be expected to pay again.

8. In May 2019, Mr U got final judgment on his legal proceedings setting out that the debtor was to pay him £6,476. But the debtor claimed he was unable to pay his debt to Mr U.

9. Mr U said the debtor’s claim was not accurate. Mr U believed the debtor was in a financial position to pay the money owed.

10. Mr U applied to the court for the debtor to attend an interview under oath to discuss his financial affairs.

11. Mr U says he asked HMCTS to get the debtor’s bank statements from January 2019.

12. The debtor attended the interview in October 2019. During the interview, the debtor provided a current bank statement. He explained this was his only bank account and he did not have the funds to pay the debt.

13. Mr U got a letter from HMCTS dated 31 December 2020 saying the debtor had attended the interview and provided a statement about income and expenses. If Mr U was not happy with the information in the statement, he needed to make a new application for interview and pay the fee.

14. Mr U made a complaint, writing a letter to the court expressing his unhappiness with how the interview was carried out. In the response his complaint was not upheld and it was explained the interview was done in line with the EX140 record of examination.

15. Mr took his complaint to the next level of the process on 15 April 2021 and got a final response on 31 August 2022.

16. It is important to understand the purpose of the EX324 examination.

The examination (which must be paid for) is not a form of enforcement that will get the creditor their money. Instead, it is a way of getting information from the debtor about their current financial circumstances. The information is designed to help the creditor decide:

• if it is worth taking an enforcement step and, if so • which of the methods available is most likely to get the debtor their money.

17. If a creditor, like Mr U, decides to use this procedure, the debtor will be ordered to come to court to be questioned under oath by a court officer. The sort of information the creditor will get from the questioning includes:

• the debtor’s employment status • if appropriate, details of employer and wages or salary • details of dependants and outgoings paid from income • details of any additional income • details of any property owned (house, car, caravan) that may have a saleable value • details of any bank or building society accounts and the balances.

18. The questions the court officer will ask the debtor are set out in form EX140 Record of examination.

HMCTS’s examination

21. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation, we look at whether there are signs the organisation got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not seen any signs that something has gone wrong.

22. As we have explained, the purpose of this interview was for HMCTS to gather information from the debtor about their current financial circumstances and their ability to pay the money owed. The intention was to pass this information to Mr U to allow him to make an informed decision about what action, if any, he wished to take to collect his money.

23. Our Principles say we expect organisations to act according to their duties. In this case, HMCTS’s duty was to ask the questions set out on the EX140 form. The evidence we have seen suggests HMCTS did this so we are satisfied it acted in line with our Principles.

24. Mr U believes the debtor was not truthful about their financial circumstances. HMCTS’s role in this process was not to interrogate the debtor but to ask the questions stated on the form and record the answers. The evidence suggests it did that.

25. We are aware that Mr U wanted the debtor to provide bank statements dating back to 2019. We also noted he says this is something he asked HMCTS to ask the debtor to do. We have seen a difference between the two copies of the form. We cannot explain this difference or how it may have happened. It means we cannot say that Mr U definitely asked HMCTS to get the debtor’s bank statements from 2019.

26. We do not think this would have made a difference because the purpose of the interview was to find the debtor’s current financial position and current ability to pay the debt. It was not meant to check if the debtor may have been able to pay the debt before.

27. We also note that the debtor’s statement was given under oath. The debtor is also required to sign a statement to say the EX140 document is a correct record of the answers they gave to the questions asked. These includes questions about any bank accounts they may hold (a standard question on the form). If Mr U thinks the debtor has given incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate information, he may wish to get independent legal advice about how to challenge this.

28. Or as HMCTS has already explained, Mr U could make a separate application for examination. HMCTS explained there would be a fee for this. We have not seen signs that HMCTS did anything wrong during the first examination, so we cannot say it is unreasonable for it to ask Mr U to pay for another application.

29. We understand this is unlikely to be the outcome Mr U had hoped for and it may cause more frustration. We would like to thank him for bringing his concerns to us.

1. We have carefully considered Mr U’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS).

2. We are sorry to learn of the events which led to Mr U’s complaint and understand the frustration he feels.

3. We have decided not to take any action as we have not seen signs that anything went seriously wrong.

4. We understand this is unlikely to be the outcome Mr U wanted and hope this statement clearly explains the reasons for reaching this decision.