Dear Ministry of Justice,
My name is Rami Al-Jiab and I am the creditor in a finalised tenancy tribunal case and my debtor is not responding to my texts to pay the debt. I have applied for his contact address through the courts and tenancy services and this application is finalised. But I am struggling with what option to use to recover this debt. I know that the debtor has a lot of assets (many pharmacies and rental properties which I can prove from the companies office register) and is ignoring my texts intentionally to make it difficult for me so I want to use a lawyer a) to make sure this is done properly and b) to deter him from delaying this as each lawyer engagement will increase his debt dramatically (the latter depending on your answers for the questions below). I am thinking of first applying for a warrant to seize property by a bailiff and that if that doesn’t work go down the other options depending on how rigorous they are in really assessing his financial means. To be honest I find this whole process backwards and unnecessarily unfair to the creditor, once an order is issued it should be an automatic jail sentence for the debtor if they don’t pay in time and if they can’t pay it is on them to apply to court and show us they can’t pay and what they can pay, not the creditor chasing them after they have been ripped off already by them. Anyway that is just my 2 cents on this issue which would save everybody including the courts a lot of time.
Anyway below are my questions. Please note that these are not legal questions, I have repeated the term “through the Ministry of Justice” in a way that may seem redundant but this was done intentionally as when I called the Ministry of Justice, staff there seem to think my issues are strictly legal advice, when they are actually not as it is pertaining to what costs the Ministry of Justice allows to be recompensated when enforcing an order, no lawyer can tell me this, this is a Ministry of Justice process that they need to clearly disclose to the clients, especially that legal advice costs money and no one should be obligated to spend money for information the Ministry of Justice should be clearly disclosing to clients regarding processes they have the final say in.
1. Under clause 2(b) of section 146 of the District court Act, it says the notice must be “accompanied by 2 copies of the approved form for a financial statement (1 for the judgment debtor to complete and return, the other for the judgment debtor’s use). Why am I obligated to serve my own copy to myself also if I send it by email will one copy suffice as he can make as many copies as possible or can I simply add two identical copies of the application as attachments to the email just to adhere to that clause. Please also advise whether this is something the court will do on my behalf if only the court have his address and hence I will not be sending anything?
2. How are these three enforcement options: hearing, filing a financial statement and phone assessment, different in terms of the process used to guarantee that court registrar has the most accurate information about a debtor’s assets and hence their true ability to pay in total or not?
3. If there are loopholes in the 3 enforcement options above in terms of the debtor hiding his/her assets, what procedures outside or through the courts can I take to ensure he/she doesn’t hide it like some sort of financial assessment that is through his/her accountant etc?
4. If I or the courts are sure he/she is hiding his assets what action(s) can they do or I can do through them against this type of forgery?
5. What is the best option out of the 3 above, that is not troublesome like a hearing but ensures the debtor doesn’t hide his assets to increase payment time?
6. In an insufficient correspondence with civil enforcement regarding the question above I got “Each application differs and what one is most suitable often depends on how much contact information you have for the debtor.” Please elaborate with examples on how each option is good for different levels of contact info I have?
7. If I use any of the options through the Ministry of Justice to enforce the order, will the fees I pay for this be recompensated from the debtor on top of the debt specified in the order?
8. If I use multiple process options (for example but not limited to a) I start with phone assessment then a financial statement filing etc or b) use bailiff process multiple times as part of other processes or c) start with one process and is unfruitful and then I file a second and or third and so on) to enforce the order through the Ministry of Justice, will all the fees I pay for all processes be recompensated from the debtor on top of the debt specified debt in the order or just the final process, pleas elaborate in you answer your detailed policies on recompensations regarding the use of multiple options, for example maximum MOJ processes fees (whether this is set by a money amount or number of process and whether different processes have different recompensation rules like bailiff versus other options) recoverable from the debtor on top of the debt in the order?
9. If I ask a lawyer or a collection agency to act on my behalf for any of the procedures discussed above (the 4 different enforcement options and any other procedure(s) needed to be taken if the debtor is committing forgery as per your answer for questions 3 and 4), will I be fully recompensated for the lawyer’s and or debt collection agency’s expenses by the creditor on top of the debt itself and bailiff and filing fees when filing through the Ministry of Justice for these processes, please elaborate in you answer you detailed policies on recompensation regarding the use of lawyers and collection agencies i.e. conditions when it is recompensated from debtor and conditions when it is not and how this maybe relating to the issues addressed in previous questions and if it is based on a set total amount of money or number of lawyer jobs or other restrictions?
10. If I apply for a warrant to seize property, does property mean here anything of value, not just land or houses?
11. If I apply for a warrant to seize property what factors apply that allow the bailiff to seize a property i.e. for example but not limited to what constitutes necessary use by debtor that bailiff can’t take, if there is such a rule?
12. If I apply for a warrant to seize property and the debtor has property that he doesn’t live in what procedure can I apply for to force him to sell it to recover my money or does this simply go under a warrant to seize property?
13. If bailiff targets a rental property of the creditor how does this affect the renters and how does their tenancy type affect the eligibility of the property to be sold to recover the debt?
14. How can I obtain his rental properties’ info addresses, whether they are rented already or not and what type of rental agreement is in place for each rental property?

Thank you so much and look forward to favourable response from you.

Regards
Ngā mihi nui
Rami Al-Jiab