A man had his bank account frozen after he was wrongly served with a court order imposed on the residents of a different apartment block in his street in an insurance dispute.
Imagine what would have happened if I had no family to help me or if I did not know how to access the proper channels to get this whole thing sorted out.
For nearly two weeks all Tony Portelli had to live on was €20.
“I couldn’t even buy my baby his nappies,” Mr Portelli, who lives in St Paul’s Bay and has a five-month-old boy, said.
Since November 24, he has had to make ends meet with the help of his family and friends.
He spent days chasing Gasan Mamo Insurance to persuade them to withdraw the garnishee order. They eventually agreed to withdraw the case but his accounts were still frozen until yesterday.
But, earlier, they had told him to hire a lawyer and submit evidence to prove he did not live in the apartment block involved in the row.
“Imagine what would have happened if I had no family to help me or if I did not know how to access the proper channels to get this thing sorted out,” said an angry Mr Portelli.
“Shouldn’t the insurance agency have done its research properly for something so serious?”
The misunderstanding happened because his apartment block has the same name as the one involved in the dispute, Liliana Apartments.
Mr Portelli lives in Block A and Gasan Mamo Insurance had a dispute with Block B.
Last year, hydraulic fluid from the lift of Block B spilled onto the road, allegedly causing a car to skid and crash into three other parked vehicles.
Gasan Mamo Insurance asked the residents to pay almost €2,500 in damages for collective negligence.
Almost three months after the 10-day deadline imposed by the agency’s lawyer was missed, the court accepted to issue a garnishee order, freezing the bank accounts of all the residents.
Mr Portelli was inadvertently included in the list as his address on the electoral register did not specify that he lived in Block A and was indicated as living in Liliana Apartments.
Strangely, Mr Portelli’s wife was not included in the list, even though the address on her ID card is identical to the one shown on her husband’s.
Gasan Mamo Insurance said they obtained information about the residents from the Electoral Register and the telephone directory.
It said Mr Portelli was one of the recipients of the letter sent in August warning the residents to pay up.
The letter said that if the sum was not paid, action would be taken “immediately” against “all” the recipients.
“For this reason, you are strongly advised not to ignore this letter or the warnings it contains,” the letter stressed.
The problem would have been solved, according to the company, if Mr Portelli had replied to the letter, as another innocent recipient had done.
But Mr Portelli said he never received the letter and only acquired a copy at a later stage from one of his neighbours. He accused the company of treating him with disdain and in a rude manner.
The insurance firm insisted it handled the situation in the best way it could.
“We took immediate action as soon as he provided evidence of his address. We do not feel that we committed anything wrong for which we ought to apologise.”
“We do regret that Mr Portelli was inconvenienced but we can hardly be held responsible for the fact that his address is recorded in an incomplete manner in the Electoral Register or for the fact that he chose not to respond to our original letter and correct the inaccuracy at that time.
“Nevertheless, we are willing to pay any legal costs he may have incurred, without prejudice,” the company said, adding it instructed its lawyer to withdraw the case against Mr Portelli on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, the procedure does take time although we are assured that it is being processed as fast as possible,” it said.
Mr Portelli was also charged €125 by the bank, in terms of the garnishee order, but Gasan Mamo has promised to settle “any reasonable and evidenced costs he incurred”.