Associated Installations Limited v All Asbestos Limited

This is the summary of a short ex-tempore judgment delivered by District Judge Worthley on 15 December 2025 in case numberM04YY940.

The underlying claim in this case pertains to a contract (“the Contract”) entered into between Associated Installations Ltd (“the Claimant”) and All Asbestos Ltd (“the Defendant”) on 31 July 2024. The Contract was for the Defendant to undertake the removal of asbestos from a school building in London (“the Works”) for a sum of £41,995+VAT. It is not disputed that the Works were undertaken during an approximately 2-week window in August 2024 by ‘Leesafe Limited’, a subcontractor engaged by the Defendant. A further subcontractor engaged by the Defendant, ‘Nature’s Consultancy Limited’, subsequently conducted air monitoring checks following completion of the Works, and issued a Certificate of Reoccupation on 28 August 2024.

It is the Claimant’s case that the performance of the Works was defective and/or in breach of contract, causing the Claimant to suffer extensive loss and damage flowing therefrom. The £41,995 invoice tendered by the Defendant was never paid by the Claimant.

Upon the Claimant’s grievances being raised, pre-action discussions were entered into during the autumn of 2024. The Claimant put the Defendant on notice of a potential claim. The Claimant also sought the Defendant’s insurance details which were duly shared. No formal Alternative Dispute Resolution or mediation was entered into.

On 24 April 2025 the Claimant then sent a formal letter before action claiming £152,937.28 to the Defendant via its London address (but not its registered office), and in copy to its insurance broker. Neither the Defendant nor its insurer materially responded to the same. The Defendant maintains that it did not have sight of that letter before action but does not dispute it being sent both to its London address and its insurance broker. No explanation is put forward as to the evident lack of communication between the Defendant and its insurance broker.

In those circumstances the Claim was then issued on 14 October 2025 in the Civil National Business Centre (“the CNBC”) and served on the Defendant on 17 October 2025. Comprehensive Particulars of Claim running to 16 sides of A4 set out the case in some detail, including nine detailed heads of loss. The special damages claim alone amounted to £171,500.08.

The Defendant accepted service of the claim form and particulars, liaised with its insurers and subcontractors, but critically failed to acknowledge service and/or defend the claim. For reasons that remain opaque, it failed to instruct solicitors to act on its behalf or to respond, instead awaiting advice as to next steps from its insurance broker.

In light of the Defendant’s failure to respond, the CNBC accordingly entered a default judgment by Form N30 on 17 November 2025. The judgment was for £173,492.30 for debt and interest to date of judgment, and £8,705.01 for costs.

On 21 November 2025, the Claimant’s solicitors Mullis & Peake LLP applied for a Third Party Debt Order by the standard N349 form.

As is standard practice, the case was then transferred out of the CNBC into the County Court at Worthing on 26 November 2025 for consideration of that application. The matter came before District Judge Jenkins (SiR) in boxwork on the same date who duly drew up an Interim Third Party Debt Order for £182,332.31 (“the ITPDO”).

The procedural history narrated so far is fairly typical of the sort of case that routinely comes before the County Court in hearing centres up and down the country. Although there is now ostensibly one unified County Court in England and Wales, there are a number of prosaic administrative quirks which currently prevent the entirely smooth operation of the same. By way of example, when a case is transferred out from the CNBC, the receiving court does not inherit the complete case file. Rather, it receives a skeletal ‘Caseman’ printout which typically runs to a bare 1-2 sides of A4, listing the key dates of the case history and the value of the claim. The receiving court does not automatically obtain copies of the Statements of Case or copies of any substantive orders. The receiving court is then obliged to ‘rebuild’ a paper file from scratch. So it was that on receipt of the transfer-in, the County Court at Worthing had only sparse documents to work from.

It is against that backdrop, and following the making of the ITPDO on 26 November 2025, that the County Court at Worthing received an email from the Defendant on 2 December 2025. That email is set out in full as follows;

“Dear Sir or Madam,

***URGENT***

Reference: M04YY940

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to respectfully request clarification regarding the status of our claim [sic] on behalf of the defendant. 

Under the guidance of the court and the court bailiff Mr Paul White, we acted in good faith to pay the agreed amount of £45,549.00 as proof of funds on 24/11/25, as we have a real prospect of defending this case. This payment was made on the understanding this would be honoured, and the judgement would be set aside and proof of funds returned to us "immediately" or within 2 days.

We have complied with the directions we received from the court in this regard. Please find attached Certificate of Cancellation and Certificate of Satisfaction dated 24/11/25 sealed by the court setting aside the judgement for 28 days, therefore we contest the formal objection from the claimant to overturn this decision.

I would like to bring to the Court’s attention that additional funds have been withdrawn from our business bank account under what we believe to be a third party debt order submitted by the claimant. This has significantly impacted our operating costs, therefore in the interests of justice and fairness, we request that these funds are unfrozen and returned to us so that we can prepare our defence.

Please therefore confirm that in accordance with the directions we were given, any enforcement proceedings in this matter are on hold, and that the proof of funds payment made by ourselves will now be returned.

We respectfully request an urgent update regarding this matter at your earliest convenience, as the situation is having an ongoing impact on our operations. 

Thank you in advance for your prompt attention.

Kind regards,

Harry Drake

Office Manager”

That email appended a copy of a document purporting to be a “Certificate of Satisfaction or Cancellation of Judgment after Suspension Order” (“the Certificate”) dated 24 November 2025, set out on a slightly blurry Form N441A. The Certificate appeared to have 2 ink court seals and one further embossed court seal. However, those court seals featured the old St Edward’s Crown (chosen by Queen Elizabeth II following her Accession in 1952) rather than the current Tudor Crown which has been used in courts seals since the Spring of 2024. The court seals also had “The County Court” curving around the bottom of the seal rather than the top, which is the case on the new seal. The document purported to record that the judgment had been ‘set aside’ and that £45,549 had been paid as ‘proof of funds only’. The payment instructions were purportedly to a UKFOREX account.

That email was reviewed in boxwork and a short 15-minute urgent hearing listed on 9 December 2025 to review the status of the case. There was no documentation received from the CNBC consistent with any of that information, save one event description in the short Caseman chronology dating from 19 November 2025 stating, “11:33 – confirm the date of the judfment [sic] with Deft”.

That hearing came before me for a short hearing on the morning of 9 December 2025 in a busy list. The Claimant had instructed Mr Living of counsel to appear on its behalf. The Defendant - perhaps unusually for a case of this gravity and value - was only attended by its office managers Mr Harry Drake and Mrs Dianne Hutchings on the written authority and instruction of its director and sole officer Mr Stephen Mark Coysh. I permitted Mr Drake to address the court pursuant to CPR r.39.6, there being no objection to the same from the Claimant.

The Defendant had not filed or served any evidence for the hearing but maintained via oral submissions that it had acted in good faith in paying what it understood to be a required ‘proof of funds’ payment to the Court Office, although the recipient had then failed to respond or rebate the monies as had been promised. Its case was therefore that the judgment had already been set aside and as such the ITPDO had been issued in error.

The Defendant’s position was unsurprisingly opposed by the Claimant. The Claimant confirmed at that hearing that it had made enquiries of the CNBC who were unable to locate any copy of the purported Certificate. Correspondence was provided to that effect. The described mechanism of paying in monies as proof of funds to the Court Office so as to set aside a judgment was also unknown.

The oddity of the wording of the Certificate and circumstances surrounding it led the Claimant to doubt its veracity. To his credit, Mr Living observed at that hearing that there were a number of unusual or suspicious characteristics of the Certificate, not least its old seal and its reference to the now non-existent “Northampton County Court.” That said, the presence of the old crown and coat of arms is still erroneously used in many parts of the court estate, including notably on the online “Judicial Case Manager” and also on certain parts of the public-facing online portal. Mr Living submitted that the court should be slow to consider setting aside or discharging what remained on its face a validly entered ITPDO, absent a proper formal evidenced application being made.

The Defendant was nonetheless desirous for the ITPDO to be set aside. Mr Drake submitted that as a small company the Defendant was under grave financial threat with its bank account being frozen, as well as it having paid out such a significant amount of its working capital in what it understood to be a necessary procedural step. He also represented that its financial position had been compromised further by the ongoing impact of the CCJ on its day-to-day operations, with many of its contracting partners having apparently placed the company onto weekly invoices since the publication of the CCJ.

Absent there being any agreement or clarity as to the correct procedural position, and absent there being any formal on-notice application to set aside either the Default Judgment and/or to discharge the ITPDO, I declined to make any substantive order at that hearing. Because I was in the unusual but timely position of having just vacated a case on 15 December 2025 (a successful pre-trial review in a separate case having compromised a case literally that morning), I directed that the Defendant was to make any necessary applications (if so advised) by 4pm on 10 December 2025. I also directed that any evidence upon which either party wished to rely needed to be served and filed by 4pm on 12 December 2025. I then re-listed the matter for a substantive 2-hour hearing on 15 December 2025.

The Defendant duly applied to set aside the default judgment by N244 dated 10 December 2025. A witness statement of the same date from Mr Harry Drake, its Office Manager, was filed in support. The Claimant filed and served a witness statement from its Deputy Managing Director Mr Jamie Bell on 11 December 2025. Crucially, Mr Bell gave evidence in his witness statement that the Claimant had taken no enforcement methods outside of its application for the ITPDO.

The application to set aside the default judgment has therefore proceeded as a contested hearing before me today. Mr Living was once again in attendance for the Claimant and Mrs Hutchings in attendance for the Defendant, with Mr Drake attending as a witness. Mrs Hutchings was permitted to address the court pursuant to CPR r.39.6. I took the unusual step of affording Mr Living the opportunity to cross-examine Mr Drake today in respect of the facts surrounding the Certificate and the Payment. I additionally asked some limited questions of him to clarify the scope and circumstances of the same. This was because it was necessary to establish with evidential certainty the status of the Certificate and the original Default Judgment before the application proper could be determined.

Mr Drake confirmed that the initial approach to the Defendant was from a ‘Mr Paul White’ purporting to be a Court Enforcement Officer. This was by a telephone “cold call” received on 19 November 2025. This date aligned with the event date on the Caseman case history print-out. The consequent email correspondence received from this individual on 21 November 2025 was from the email address judgments.cnbc.justice.gov.uk@hmcts.cc. The email sender header was populated with “Northampton County Court”. Given his previous lack of engagement with HMCTS and the justice system at large, Mr Drake did not consider there to be anything unusual about that convoluted email address. Neither did he realise that the “.cc” domain is the internet country code top-level domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory.

The email signature was from an individual purporting to be a court officer ‘Mr James McGuire’. There was a typographical error in the address of the signature, purporting to be from the “Civils [sic] National Business Centre”, albeit at the correct CNBC address in St Katherine’s Street, Northampton.

The email signature did list the correct switchboard telephone number 0300 123 1056. However, it also listed an additional 2 false numbers not attached to the CNBC. One purported to be a ‘Direct Line’ with the Northampton area code 01604 and the other was for ‘Payment Enquiries’ with a non-geographic 0333 code. A cursory examination of the official gov.uk website entry for the CNBC confirms that the two additional numbers given are not attached to the CNBC. The official gov.uk CNBC website also confirms by way of “additional information’ as follows;

“Scammers are mimicking genuine HMCTS phone numbers and email addresses. They may demand payment and claim to be from HMRC or enforcement. If you're unsure, do not pay anything and report the scam to Action Fraud.”

Mr Drake’s evidence was unfortunately consistent with the experience of litigants reported to this court on a routine basis. Namely that his calls to the switchboard placed him on lengthy hold without being connected to an operator, and that correspondence with the CNBC simply referred him to the County Court at Worthing which no longer has public-facing telephone accessibility. This is because all telephone communication to local court centres is now routed through a contact centre in HMCTS National Services. His view was that this inability to speak to a genuine court officer with knowledge of the case file left him uniquely vulnerable.

Upon conclusion of Mr Drake’s evidence it was clear that this preliminary issue as to the validity of the Certificate could be resolved by consent between the parties. Namely, that this was a scam whereby an unknown third party bad-faith operator had approached the Defendant, impersonating the CNBC, in order to coerce a substantial payment on a fraudulent pretext of a temporary payment into court.

Needless to say, the £45,549 was not paid into court. The payment instruction given was for payment to an account purporting to be a UKFOREX LTD bank account. There is a high probability that the £45,549 payment has already been transferred out of the jurisdiction and will not be recovered directly by the Defendant, other than possibly via its bank or other independent mechanism. The Defendant has now approached its bank to investigate the possibility of recovery of the sum and is reporting itself to be the victim of a fraud. No approaches have yet been made to UKFOREX LTD. There is no certainty that UKFOREX LTD is even the genuine firm operating this account, there being a notice on the Financial Conduct Authority website documenting,

“Individuals are using the details of this firm to suggest they work for the genuine firm. We call this a cloned firm and it is typically part of a scam.”

It is the identification of this scam that has led me to assemble my oral judgment into writing for publication. There is a public interest in highlighting the vulnerability of parties against whom a judgment has been entered, to fall prey to such fraudulent approaches. I neutrally observe that there is a broad societal trend away from the personal face-to-face service interactions and toward online automated service provision, increasingly via AI. Many predatory practices have emerged to fill the space that has been created. The National Crime Agency reports that 41% of all crime in England and Wales is estimated to be fraud, andthat 67% of fraud reported in the UK is cyber-enabled. (Footnote: ¹) At this time of year, there are plentiful societal alerts to be aware of false ‘cold call’ approaches from scammers impersonating the Royal Mail or reputable delivery companies, who fraudulently seek payments for the purported delivery of Christmas parcels. The public at large are probably better appraised of such risks than they are of similar practices in the sphere of court judgments.

It is therefore wholly understandably that any small company or unrepresented individual unfamiliar with the court system might erroneously make a significant payment when faced with a sophisticated and aggressive approach. That was the case here. After all, legitimate regulated enforcement officers are correctly empowered to act swiftly and efficiently to enforce court judgments. A desire to avoid the same is readily exploited.

This judgment does not serve as formal guidance regarding such scams. Rather, it simply highlights some obvious common-sensical cross-checks for litigants to conduct if concerned about the veracity of any enforcement approach which may benefit the public at large;

Had the Defendant followed any of these safeguards in this case, it may well have avoided falling prey to this particular fraud.

It having been evidentially clarified that the Certificate is a fraudulent document with no legal effect, the Defendant has proceeded today with its application proper to set aside the Default Judgment under CPR 13. That application was opposed by the Claimant through comprehensive submissions advanced by Mr Living in a written skeleton argument and further oral argument.

The court has a discretionary power under CPR 13.3 to set aside or vary a regular default judgment. There is no dispute that this judgment was correctly entered. In deciding whether or not to set aside a judgment under this power, the court will need to consider three related stages:

I conduct my analysis of the parties’ evidence and submissions in application to each of those three stages as follows.

It is trite law that the court must consider whether the defendant has a "realistic" as opposed to a “fanciful” prospect of success per Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91. A realistic claim is one that carries some degree of conviction; it must be more than more than merely arguable.

The Defendant is in some difficulty with regard to this limb of the test because it has failed to file and serve a draft defence with its application. Compounding that is the fact that the witness statement of Mr Drake refers largely to factual matters surrounding the formation of the Contract and the later difficulties with the scam and the Certificate. There is precious little evidential engagement with the circumstances surrounding the alleged breaches of contract and/or the damages claimed. It is only for the first time in submissions today that Ms Hutchings makes criticism of the heads of loss and notes the failure of the Claimant to set off the (unpaid) contractual sum against the significant damages claimed.

Mr Living very fairly argues that the prospects of success must stand as put today, and not how they might be put in the future. He says that the Claimant has contested this application on the basis of the application notice and evidence submitted. It is not for the court to cure the evidential defects or lack of draft pleadings, and it is not for Ms Hutchings to cure those lacunae via submissions today.

Accordingly, I am unable to fairly determine that there is any Defence that is more than merely arguable on the evidence and application set out by the Defendant today, without inferring matters beyond the scope of the written application and evidence proper.

Although I am unable to determine that this defence has real prospects of success, largely in part due to the procedural deficiencies of the Defendant’s application, I nonetheless am satisfied that there remains ‘some other good reason’ why this matter should go to trial.

In Fox v Wiggins and others [2019] EWHC 2713 (QB), Knowles J was unable to find that there were real prosects of defence to a claim for defamation and harassment because (a) there was no draft defence, and (b) the witness statement from the Defendant’s mother did not adequately address the matters going to a claim, there being no statement from the Defendant herself. That judgment reads at §108 as follows;

“I accept the Claimant's submission that I cannot reverse the default judgment based on real prospects of successfully defending the claim without such serious actions and allegations being addressed in evidence. The fact is that the Sixth Defendant and Ms Lawrence have ignored these matters, despite having had a significant period of time to address them. I agree that the Claimant is entitled to know what the Sixth Defendant's defence is likely to be and to have the opportunity to address it before I can be satisfied that any defence put forward by her has a real prospect of success. I also note that no draft Defence had been served as at the date of the hearing even though the Sixth Defendant had had a litigation friend and legal assistance for a significant period of time before then.”

Despite that finding, Knowles J went on to conclude at §112 that;

“Although, for the reasons that I have given, I cannot find on the material before me that the Sixth Defendant has a realistic prospect of defending the claim, I can ascertain that her defence will include a plea of truth under s 2 of the DA 2013. Eady J's principle is therefore engaged. I consider that allegations of such seriousness as are involved in this case cannot be allowed to go by default…I am satisfied that the nature of the claim and the allegations involved, and the nature of the suggested defence, are such as to satisfy the test in CPR r 13.3(b)”

I am likewise satisfied here that the seriousness of this claim and the ‘nature of the suggested defence’, namely that there will be a counter-claim for set off of the original contract sum, along with the potential for additional claims against the sub-contractors who carried out the works and the air monitoring checks. It would be wholly unsatisfactory for the court to countenance the Defendant issuing separate stand-alone litigation suing the Claimant for the original contract sum and/or stand-alone proceedings against its subcontractors. These are serious matters with a significant financial value (for a County Court claim). Proportionality would indicate that they should be heard together under one global claim rather than be split of inefficiently into a separate number of proceedings.

As to promptness, both parties are in agreement that this application has been made promptly and that the test is satisfied in the Defendant’s favour in this regard.

The test having therefore been satisfied under CPR r.13.3, I am still obliged to apply the relief from sanctions test under CPR r.3.9. The first two limbs are dealt with simply and are construed against the Defendant. This is the most serious of failures; a failure to defend a claim. The consequence is significant, the entry of a judgment and the subsequent ITPDO for £182,332.31. Likewise, the breach occurred for no good reason. A company when sued must act properly with alacrity. It is not enough to simply notify a broker and hope for the best. It was incumbent on the Defendant to acknowledge service and defend the claim if that was its intention. It is naïve at best to abdicate responsibility for acting to an insurance broker who is not a lawyer on record as acting for a company.

However, it is when I evaluate 'all the circumstances of the case’, so as to enable the court to deal justly with the application including factors CPR 3.9(1)(a) and (b), that I conclude that the test for relief from sanction is also satisfied. There is a need for litigation to be conducted efficiently and at proportionate cost.

This application has been dealt with very promptly and proportionately. Unusually so. Had the Defendant acknowledged service and defended the claim within 28 days of service, the Claimant would have been in possession of a Defence (and, if forthcoming, Counterclaim) by 14 November 2025. The case is now scarcely a month past that date. The prejudice suffered by the Claimant in that window has been the procedural, administrative and modest financial cost of (a) making its ITPDO application, and (b) responding to the Defendant’s application to set aside. It has served an N260 setting out legal costs of that entire period amounting to £4,980.60.

That minor prejudice can largely, if not entirely, be addressed by way of a costs order against the Defendant to be assessed on the indemnity basis pursuant to the court’s discretion afforded under CPR r.44.3. An order for the swift filing and service of the Defence and – if so advised- Counterclaim/Additional Claim(s) will effectively get the case ‘back on track’ to the position where it would have been had there not been a default. When contemplated against the average timescale for a case of this sort, a delay of one month is not of any great litigation significance.

I am also alert to the requirement to enforce compliance with rules, practice directions and orders. The Defendant will suffer a sanction of a not insubstantial costs award against it today, assessed on the indemnity basis. The costs schedule as drawn shows costs reasonably incurred in the sum of £4,980.60. There is no need for me to go on to consider whether they are proportionate in circumstances where I have determined that the Defendant’s conduct took it ‘outside the norm’ in effectively choosing not to defend the claim, per Excelsior Commercial and Industrial Holdings Ltd v Salisbury Hannah Aspden & Johnson [2002] EWCA Civ 879.

The Defendant is now fully aware of the need for future compliance with the rules of court. It is gravely unfortunate that as a corollary to its failure to comply with the timely filing of a Defence, the Defendant has already suffered such a disproportionate further penalty of the loss of £45,549 as a victim of fraud. Although not by design of the court, it is a salutary reminder that the issuing of a County Court Judgment is a significant thing which can have profound consequences. I am satisfied that the net effect of this whole sorry affair will encourage future compliance from the Defendant to ensure that there is no further default.

As such, my order today will be as follows, with the timescales for filing and service having been agreed between the parties:

I have also notified the parties that it is my intention to gather the notes of my judgment into a short written judgment for publication on the National Archive. A draft version will be circulated first to the Defendant’s lawyers for review before publication.