Small claims court jargon

doke1892 · 17 August 2017 at 4:41PM

I wonder if anyone can help me please. I currently have a money claim and on my online account it reads (below)

You submitted a claim on 29/05/2017 at 15:27:40
Your claim was issued on 30/05/2017
A bar was put in place for Mrs ******** on 15/06/2017
Mrs*********** filed a defence on 15/06/2017
DQ sent to Mrs ******** on 15/06/2017
DQ filed on 09/07/2017
General sanctions order was made on 14/07/2017
The defence was struck out on 11/08/2017
The bar in place for Mrs********* was removed on 11/08/2017

As I am doing the claim myself without legal representation, I am slightly confused as to what
the last 2 parts mean and what to do next? I have not heard from the court by letter.

PaulW922 · 17 August 2017 at 4:48PM

The good news is for you here. The respondent put in a defence but the court struck it out on its own authority. The respondent will probably have been given xxx days to submit an acceptable defence and I would think that ran out on 11th August 2017 allowing you to apply for judgement in default. You can usually do that online. However are you absolutely sure that you have had no correspondence from the court? It seems odd nothing has turned up.

doke1892 · 17 August 2017 at 5:03PM

Thanks for replying. No. I've not received any letters since the last action date (11/8/17). Up until then the correspondence from the court was very good. The last I heard from then was that the defendant hadn't submitted their paperwork within the 14 days allotted time and they were giving the defendant another chance. that was before this appeared on the site:
The defence was struck out on 11/08/2017
The bar in place for Mrs********* was removed on 11/08/2017

National_Debtline · 17 August 2017 at 6:21PM

Hi Doke1892,

There are some guidance notes on the MCOL website that may help, or you could give the court a quick call to check what this means and double check what options you have from here. If the defendant is out of time to submit further information or a defence you will likely need to apply for the judgement to be entered.

The Gov.uk website has some information that may help you - https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money or if this is a business debt you could give Business Debtline a call on 0800 197 6026. Although they cannot offer legal advice they tend to have more experience of this process.

Laura
@natdebtline

doke1892 · 17 August 2017 at 7:33PM

Thank you Laura.

I've tried ringing but it's always busy. Their website warned me about this and suggests sending an email instead. I've also done that and the automatic reply I got said it could take 10 to 15 days for a reply. I will keep trying them by phone.

MEM62 · 18 August 2017 at 10:03AM

We have used MCOL a few times over the past year. If you are able to request default judgement this option will be open to you when you log into the system and look at the case. Sorry, I cannot remember specifically what the screen looks like but the option is obvious.

doke1892 · 18 August 2017 at 10:41AM

Thank you. I managed to get through to the court by telephone this morning and they said that because the defendant hadn't submitted their paperwork within the allotted time their defence has been thrown out. I have now requested a judgement online to be made. This is all totally new to me so now I just have to wait and see what happens next?

If anyone knows, an insight will be gratefully appreciated.

Small claims court jargon

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