Let us know your experiences of taking small claims action

Pound

Someone subletted a property to me then did a bunk with the money (ie. without passing it to the landlord) meaning I had to foot the bill for two months rent a second time which was about £400-500 IIRC.

The process was easy enough and done through MoneyClaim and I won by default but enforcing the CCJ was impossible since it still required the other side to pay up who ignored all correspondence.

Waste of time unless you're taking action against an established company.

Jazzking

I'm still in Small Claims proceedings (with a poster on MSE actually) over an item that was sold, returned under the Distance Selling Regulations but I did not receive a refund.

I am the claimant, total cost in dispute was just under £600, plus costs of £135 for MCOL fees and a hearing fee.

Court date was two weeks ago, company never showed up to defend, judge very friendly and awarded me the full amount altogether totalling £771.
Still awaiting confirmation of judgement through post (need to chase up with court since they actually lost my file - not good!) but suspect defendant will not play ball and get a CCJ

He filed a defemce but there has been no communication since then in October. So I will then need to decide what to do next, bailiffs, 3rd party debt order, baseball bat....

No ombudsman available, took advice from Consumer Direct and Trading Standards, but as others have said it's the enforcing of the judgement that is hard and actualt getting your money back....

WhatFrickingUsernameIsnt

jd87 wrote: »

I don't understand. You were awarded £540+ but ended up with nothing. How does that work?

I got a piece of paper which legally proves I am owed £640+ but it is up to me to find and recover the money.

Small claims are a waste of time.

hendryclan

i have recently been given judgement over a bloke whose holiday cottage i was renting for a week and it was a complete [EMAIL="sh@t"]sh*t[/EMAIL] hole. I was awarded the money for the cottage together with costs. that was 2 weeks ago and although the judge has told him via letter that money should be paid immediately, absolutely nothing. he advertises his cottages via a holiday letting company. was wondering if its worth getting back on to them as I did let them know at the time regarding the state of the cottage) and tell them that this bloke is running down this company with the state of his cottage(s).
its a joke, how nothing is done to make sure these shysters pay up. he has £600 of my hard earned money in his skanky pocket.

sbarnes

We used MCOL against Dr China, after my wife had some accupuncture there by a so-called doctor who didn't disinfect the area properly. My wife dug up a load of issues with them, and although they did the usual threat of saying they would ask for legal fees against us if we lost, they paid up when we made it clear we were continuing with the action!

Steve

oldagetraveller

WhatFrickingUsernameIsnt wrote: »

I got a piece of paper which legally proves I am owed £640+ but it is up to me to find and recover the money.

Small claims are a waste of time.

Exactly right! Except, in my case, substitute £1500 + for £640+:D