Let us know your experiences of taking small claims action

Former_MSE_Wendy

Hi all

We're looking at doing a guide on small claims procedures and thought we'd check your experiences of taking legal action, particularly online.

So it'd be great if you'd let us know if you've used the online claims procedure at www.moneyclaim.gov.uk to resolve a dispute? And if so a few more details such as...

The general details of the case
Were you the claimant or the defendant?
How much was claimed?
How much was awarded?
How easy was the process?
Was there co-operation with the other party?
Was it an alternative to initiating a claim in your local county court?
Was it done instead of another alternative dispute resolution such as mediation/ using an ombudsman etc?


Thanks in advance

Mummy_Jo

We are due in court on the 11th Feb with our claim so I will keep you posted. So far though the court process has been easy and the people at our local court in Swindon have been very helpful. It is for a faulty pushchair.

SolicitorMidlands

I do them on behalf of clients and have done one personally myself.

With the one I have done myself the balliff went round to registered office, spoke to the woman there and returned the warrant because she said he didn't trade from there. Well, that is all well and good but registered office is fine for service etc and he owns it!! Useless. So I am now issuing a third party debt order to get his bank account frozen and money paid to me direct.

Check home insurance for LEI - they will pay for barristers fees sometimes.

brightonman123

i have done 2 in the past..

1 against a holiday firm, for misleading description of an 'all inclusive' trip - not so! i was only after out of pocket expenses, but they denied any liability etc, until the day before court case, when i got a cheque for full settlement! some rubbish about not wanting to prolong the matter further, no liabilty etc..

2nd one was against a former friend of a friend- one of 4 who agreed to share cost of hiring a car, when we got stranded abroad. i had written the matter off as he left the firm we both worked at, shortly afterwards (related to this? no idea).. a year or two later. i got a cheque out of the blue, via the court, to settle my claim!

smcaul

So far I have used the small claims 4 times.


1. RoyalMail, they actually took me to court for overpayment of my redundancy money, went to court, showed the judge my evidence, RM's lawyer offered no real evidence of their own, I won ) Amount was ~£400

2. I took someone to court over non payment of fees, case was decided in our favour but defendant done a vanishing act so no chance of getting money. Amount £70

3. I took another client to court over unpaid fees, client sent cheque which cleared with no problems for full amount the day after receiving paperwork from court. Amount £700

4. I took olympic warranties to court for breach of contract, they settled after receiving paperwork, but did need some strong nudges to pay up!!! Amount was £300.

Have also sent quite a few letters to companies/shops as a final letter before action, this has worked numerous times in the past before it even got to court.

Mummy_Jo

Hi

We were in court on Wed 11 Feb and we won:j:j:j

We took the retailer who sold us our pushchair to court. We paid a little under £400 for it. A phil and Teds E3. Within the first year the main seat fabric failed and just after the 12 months no quibble period the second seat also failed. Retailer denied responsibility stating that they did not see why they had to sort out something that we thought was faulty.

On the day itself the retailer didn't turn up. The judge read through the evidence from both sides then had a chat with my hubby. He showed him the seat and he could see that it was frayed in a number of places. We were awarded our costs plus £45 towards the cost of a new seat. We had £10 deducted from the overall price as we had already had some wear out of the seat. My daughter has sat in it.

It was a relatively painless day but without the help of the team at Which? Legal we would not have gone that far. We phoned them a lot just to check that we were in the right. We were convinced that if the retailer pursued the matter to court there must be something that we do not know. HAving been through the procedure once I would be more than happy to do it again if the need arises. People need support in the background though to know that what they are doing is the right thing and not to let it go as it costs £50.00 just to get it to court!

If anybody needs any help with this please ask or PM me

Mummy Jo

bexman

Hi there, we took B&Q to a small claims court regarding faulty B&Q Colours Emulsion, basically it cracked after applying to our perfect walls! We had to pay for it to be put right. B&Q obviously denied any fault with the paint so we took them to court, the judge decided that our claim was suitable for mediation (a free service that takes place over the telephone) so I decided to give this a go and to my surprise B&Q agreed to settle and paid our damages.

B&Q were so stubbon throughout the whole process that I didnt think we'd ever win but it seems the threat of court worked, backed up by the excellent evidence we had and thorough tests we'd been through.

You can find my previous post from back last year detailing exactly what the problem was.

My advice, never give up! It will wear you down and you will get fed up but if you keep going you will get the satisfactory result you want!

Tozer

Small claims is excellent - both in my experience as a lawyer and a litigant. Slightly concerned that the fees seem to be increasing quite a lot (Allocation fee, Hearing fee, etc) but I doubt there are many countries in the world where you can get access to the judiciary so quickly and for so little outlay.

The costs rules (i.e. no legal costs) work against companies and encourages settlements - not always a good thing for justice but again reduces the average time to resolve disputes.

Butlers1982

what does it cost for the intial paperwork? ive got an issue on going at the moment, its with Trading standards at the moment. they have said if they cant get a reply and i want to take it further then i would have to go through the courts myself

KILL_BILL

a few years back - i had a case against a company who were running one of those collect 40 vouchers from the daily newspaper to fly to the states and 3 nights hotel for £69.

Of course they denied that i had ever sent the vouchers - even though they had previousy acknowldged receipt of said vouchers.

In the end i sued 3 companies in total and even though they filed acknowldegemtn of services they never filed defences. I instrcuted balliffs to collect the amount i was reasonalby seeking which was the cost of the flight and 3 nights hotel. They came back and prepared to settle my case at a figure higher than what the cost of flight and 3days hotel would have cost me myself - result

with the money i ended buying a new computer

bexman

Butlers1982 wrote: »

what does it cost for the intial paperwork? ive got an issue on going at the moment, its with Trading standards at the moment. they have said if they cant get a reply and i want to take it further then i would have to go through the courts myself

You can do it all online on Money Claims online website and it initially costs £25 for small claims. If you cant agree and the defendant wont settle you would have to pay another £25 for the court fee, but its a big IF its get that far