expensive rescission of judgement

[Pitbull]

Good day,

my wife has a high court judgment on her credit record.

long story short, I googled and researched a bit and found some a couple of lawyers who can get the judgment removed from your name quickly and affordable which ranged between 1500 to 4500 rand.

I picked one, (an advice office with a panel of their own attorneys) made contact and explained everything and they said A-for-away. cost was agreed upon R4500 for rescission by consent from or R10000 for a substantive court application based on merit/reason/etc.

We payed the R4500 but according to them the other party did not want to consent so we forked out another R10000 for the court application.

A few emails later they send us a couple of forms and affidavits that my wife had to complete and then we sent the docs back to the lawyer to submit the application at the high court. and so we waited...

All seemed fine until the lawyer requested another R8500. We queried why another payment and they said the R10000 was only for the court file search and drafting of the application/affidavits. I was like WTF?

We paid the R8500 thinking that all is sorted now and we just have to wait and see what happens now.

2 days went by and I got another email from the lawyer saying that the application has been submitted but in order for them to go to court they need a further R12000.

I'm confused and I starting to think that these people are taking me for a huge ride. We've spend R23000 so far and the bill definitively will not stop at that.

We dont know what to do anymore, all our savings are exhausted and I wont fork out another sent for this.

I feel that the layer did not correctly explain all the costs involved.

please help thanx

4500 then 8000 to make up for the 4500 you already spent. You "invested" 12500 by now. So to protect the 12500 they request another 12500. This is the exact recipe of a scam by the looks of it... /hands out Vaseline

 

[Paul Hjul]

firstly you cannot have a high court judgment rescinded other than if the judgment was erroneously granted, this is different to the magistrates office where a statutory allowance exists for a judgment to be rescinded by consent of the person in whose favour the judgment is made or on an application after giving proper notice. In general this provision is intended to operate to give a creditor in possession of a judgment a carrot with which to entice a judgment debtor to settle the debt, unfortunately the lawyers have gotten in the way of the legislative intent and the section has largely become a mechanism by which attorneys can call in a harvest.

secondly spending R27 000 to have a judgment rescinded is an incredibly large amount of money regardless of what the principal sum is and in my opinion would be overreaching regardless of anything else

thirdly either the judgment (i)follows from a valid debt in which event there is no basis to rescind in the magistrates court until settlement in full and no basis to rescind in the high court ever;l or (ii) was erroneously granted and there is no underlying debt in which event having paid regular instalments after judgment hurts rather than helps the case.

 

[desiganp]

If you truly feel they acted unethically, or even unlawfully and that they mislead you into paying these large sums of money, you may still have recourse which won't cost you anything.

Lodge a complaint with the Law Society of the province you live in (where the attorneys operate from) and if they find the attorneys acted improperly there is a chance you may get your money back.

Make sure you followup with emails or phone calls if you don't get a response or acknowledgement of your complaint. Gather all your evidence and submit it with your complaint, including any adverts etc you responded to.

Good luck.

 

[w1z4rd]

If you truly feel they acted unethically, or even unlawfully and that they mislead you into paying these large sums of money, you may still have recourse which won't cost you anything.

Lodge a complaint with the Law Society of the province you live in (where the attorneys operate from) and if they find the attorneys acted improperly there is a chance you may get your money back.

Make sure you followup with emails or phone calls if you don't get a response or acknowledgement of your complaint. Gather all your evidence and submit it with your complaint, including any adverts etc you responded to.

Good luck.

No, bad advice. The Law Society will do absolutely nothing to any lawyer. They are there to protect lawyer interests, not consumer interests. I speak from experience.

Lawyers definitely need to be held more accountable. One of the industries I believe needs state regulation as theres not a snowballs chance in hell we can expect them to regulate themselves.

This is not to say all lawyers are douches, just large amounts of them are. Some are awesome good people who work hard, but many more are not.

 

[ToxicBunny]

If you truly feel they acted unethically, or even unlawfully and that they mislead you into paying these large sums of money, you may still have recourse which won't cost you anything.

Lodge a complaint with the Law Society of the province you live in (where the attorneys operate from) and if they find the attorneys acted improperly there is a chance you may get your money back.

Make sure you followup with emails or phone calls if you don't get a response or acknowledgement of your complaint. Gather all your evidence and submit it with your complaint, including any adverts etc you responded to.

Good luck.

The law society will do sweet bugger all..

Don't waste your time.

 

[desiganp]

If you don't try you'll never know - it will cost you nothing to lodge a complaint.

 

[OGroteKoning]

4500 then 8000 to make up for the 4500 you already spent. You "invested" 12500 by now. So to protect the 12500 they request another 12500. This is the exact recipe of a scam by the looks of it... /hands out Vaseline

/assumes the Vaseline is free seeing OP has no money left

 

[Joka69]

Dammit!! Thats a lot of coin to just give away.

 

[supersunbird]

Eish, should have asked us for advice first. R23 k would have settled around 30% of the outstanding loan. Once settled one can ask the credit bureau to remove it.

 

[Deadmanza]

Eish, should have asked us for advice first. R23 k would have settled around 30% of the outstanding loan. Once settled one can ask the credit bureau to remove it.

With new new Credit act that recently came out, do you still need to ask?

I thought that they have 2 months to remove any negative rating against your name, once the account is settled?

 

[chrisc]

I got judgement on a debtor for R85k for goods not paid for. It was my 3rd court appearance, since he did not turn up to the first two appearances and the magistrate would not grant judgement. On the 3rd appearance I instructed the advocate to tell the magistrate that the defendant was just wasting the court's time and to ask for judgement, which was given

Two days later I discover that this judgement had been rescinded. The defendant merely went to the magistrate and told him that the reason he did not attend court was that he did not know of it

So 3 months later we go to court again, having this time served a summons on the defendant. He was not in court again and I was granted judgement. I warned the advocate in writing that the defendant was a ducker and a diver and to beware of any tricks he might play

Sure enough, he got judgement rescinded again, this time since he called his attorney on the morning of the trial and told him he had no money to pay him, so the attorney told the court that his client could not attend

By this time I was calling my attorney twice daily asking what he had done about my written and verbal warning, which turned out to be nothing. By this time I had spent R60k on legal fees

Despite 44 emails, phone calls and letters to the attorneys, they did not respond once. I wrote to the managing partner and he said he would look into it, but nothing happened. I wrote to the Law Society and they did not respond. On enquiry with them, they denied having received any correspondence, so I copied it all again and hand delivered it, on signature. Still no response. So I called them. All they would acknowledge was receiving an envelope. Nobody had opened it it seemed and I was told that I was wasting my time, they would never act

A complete waste of effort. About 5 years after the last court appearance I went to see the managing partner again and he offered R 2000 as an "ex-gratia" payment, as he said the files could not be found. I walked out

 

[Paul Hjul]

If you don't try you'll never know - it will cost you nothing to lodge a complaint.

actually it will cost a person a considerable amount of time and energy and cause considerable strain on the person

I wouldn't ever recommend against making a complaint and if I was the OP that is exactly what I would do under the circumstances (although same circumstances wouldn't arise) however to claim "it will cost you nothing" is misguided and gravely wrong. Further complaining to the Law Society is likely to result in your conceding to their jurisdiction, which could simply lead to an even more despondent person. To overlook failures in specific self-regulatory bodies and shrug it off as "well it costs nothing to complain" is in my opinion a major problem in SA.

If there is a suit in progress at the relevant high court (I am assuming an application to rescind the judgment) one option would be for an affidavit to be filed setting out the process by which the suit has been brought and the expenditures incurred and acknowledging that there is no case for the rescission and to let the ire of the judge deal with the matter - a costs order against the attorney de boni proprii could certainly be considered by the bench.

An alternative complaint avenue if you have the appropriate documentation, and it is actually steadily put together, is the National Credit Regulator. If the representations made by you concerning judgment rescission was patently fraudulent it really is in their domain to ensure that such criminal acts are dealt with.

 

[chrisc]

The Law Society is an old boys network specifically aimed at deflecting critisism of their corporate members. A good friend who is a (conveyencing) attorney told me this

 

[Carol35]

4500 then 8000 to make up for the 4500 you already spent. You "invested" 12500 by now. So to protect the 12500 they request another 12500. This is the exact recipe of a scam by the looks of it... /hands out Vaseline

Sounds scammish to me too...keep asking for more money and higher amounts each time. And scammers just love vunerable and desperate people, they can smell them a mile away! Sorry OP, you've been had imo.

 

[HavocXphere]

actually it will cost a person a considerable amount of time and energy and cause considerable strain on the person

I wouldn't ever recommend against making a complaint and if I was the OP that is exactly what I would do under the circumstances (although same circumstances wouldn't arise) however to claim "it will cost you nothing" is misguided and gravely wrong. Further complaining to the Law Society is likely to result in your conceding to their jurisdiction, which could simply lead to an even more despondent person. To overlook failures in specific self-regulatory bodies and shrug it off as "well it costs nothing to complain" is in my opinion a major problem in SA.

If there is a suit in progress at the relevant high court (I am assuming an application to rescind the judgment) one option would be for an affidavit to be filed setting out the process by which the suit has been brought and the expenditures incurred and acknowledging that there is no case for the rescission and to let the ire of the judge deal with the matter - a costs order against the attorney de boni proprii could certainly be considered by the bench.

An alternative complaint avenue if you have the appropriate documentation, and it is actually steadily put together, is the National Credit Regulator. If the representations made by you concerning judgment rescission was patently fraudulent it really is in their domain to ensure that such criminal acts are dealt with.

Huh? I didn't know law societies have any jurisdiction over anything?

 

[Paul Hjul]

Huh? I didn't know law societies have any jurisdiction over anything?

jurisdiction of an arbitrator to a dispute ...

 

[Fulcrum29]

I got judgement on a debtor for R85k for goods not paid for. It was my 3rd court appearance, since he did not turn up to the first two appearances and the magistrate would not grant judgement. On the 3rd appearance I instructed the advocate to tell the magistrate that the defendant was just wasting the court's time and to ask for judgement, which was given

Two days later I discover that this judgement had been rescinded. The defendant merely went to the magistrate and told him that the reason he did not attend court was that he did not know of it

So 3 months later we go to court again, having this time served a summons on the defendant. He was not in court again and I was granted judgement. I warned the advocate in writing that the defendant was a ducker and a diver and to beware of any tricks he might play

Sure enough, he got judgement rescinded again, this time since he called his attorney on the morning of the trial and told him he had no money to pay him, so the attorney told the court that his client could not attend

By this time I was calling my attorney twice daily asking what he had done about my written and verbal warning, which turned out to be nothing. By this time I had spent R60k on legal fees

Despite 44 emails, phone calls and letters to the attorneys, they did not respond once. I wrote to the managing partner and he said he would look into it, but nothing happened. I wrote to the Law Society and they did not respond. On enquiry with them, they denied having received any correspondence, so I copied it all again and hand delivered it, on signature. Still no response. So I called them. All they would acknowledge was receiving an envelope. Nobody had opened it it seemed and I was told that I was wasting my time, they would never act

A complete waste of effort. About 5 years after the last court appearance I went to see the managing partner again and he offered R 2000 as an "ex-gratia" payment, as he said the files could not be found. I walked out

Bad, we had a run in with 3 customers. Valuable lessons learned on payment terms, and tricks by the customer to avoid (methods in postponing) the 30/60/90 credit terms, long story.

 

[kianm]

Too much spent on lawyers instead of actual debt , sorry bud

 

[Sonic2k]

The Law Society is an old boys network specifically aimed at deflecting critisism of their corporate members. A good friend who is a (conveyencing) attorney told me this

Too true.. a good South African publication whose tagline is "news you're not supposed to know", holds the same view.