Small Claims - Transfer of Proceedings

Meelo

I am involved in a long dispute with DFS over a faulty sofa. I made a claim against DFS Trading Limited via the moneyclaim online service, and received notification that they are defending the claim and the claim had therefore been transferred from Northampton to my local county court in Portsmouth. I received an allocation questionnaire, which I completed and returned to Portsmouth County Court with the allocation fee.

I have just received a Notice of Transfer of Proceedings, stating that as a result of an order made on 9 November 2011, the claim has been transferred to Doncaster County Court. I presume this is because it is local to the DFS head office.

Based on the limited information available on the moneyclaim online and the HMCS website, I was under the impression that because the defendant is a company and not an individual, the case would be heard at my local court as I am an individual (even though I am the claimant). I haven't received any information as to why the case has been transferred, and when I completed the allocation questionnaire, I ticked the box to say there was no reason that I thought the claim should be transferred to another court. I assume DFS have ticked the box on their questionnaire to say that it should be transferred, but I haven't seen their reasoning for doing so and wasn't aware they had requested a transfer until now.

Is there anything I can do to get the case transferred back to Portsmouth; does the transfer mean a judge has looked at the documents and decided it should be heard in the defendant's local court? If there is nothing I can do to get the case back to Portsmouth, will I have to resend all the particulars up to Doncaster, or will Portsmouth forward them automatically?

If DFS think I'll drop the case because I'm not willing to travel to Doncaster then they are wrong - but I was intending to bring the sofa to court as evidence (if the judge permits), and now it's going to cost me a fortune in petrol.

The_Pedant

As nobody else has replied yet ... I thought you are right that as an individual seeking a fixed amount against a company then the proceedings would normally be transferred to your local court. I believe if you are defending then this happens automatically. In other cases, I think either side can request the case is moved (although I don't know what happens if both sides want it moved).

It may be worth contacting the clerks of the court to find the grounds on why it was transferred & whether you are able to request transfer back to your local court.

Meelo

Thanks for your response. I'm a little frustrated not to have received any further information as to why the decision was made to transfer, so I suppose I will have to stew about it and wait until I can contact the court on Monday.

The strange thing is that Moneyclaim online (Northampton) saw fit to allocate the case to my local court once a defence was submitted, even though I am the claimant. Thus supporting the theory that it isn't transferred to the defendant's local court as they are not an individual. But Portsmouth seem to have other ideas no we have both completed our allocation questionnaires; I'm hoping it's just some sort of admin error where they've automatically transferred to the defendant but as you say, I'll have to try and find out on what grounds the transfer was made.

arcon5

Whats the case about, out of curiosity?

BlueAngelCV

Meelo wrote: »

I completed the allocation questionnaire, I ticked the box to say there was no reason that I thought the claim should be transferred to another court

Are you sure the AQ didn't ask whether there was any reason that it needed to be heard in a particular court? If you said no (assuming that it meant it didn't need to be moved) & the Defendant said yes then that could be it.

I would try just writing to the Court asking them to move it back.

Meelo

Well the defendant's solicitor phoned me and it turns out they didn't want to move it either, so looks like it's a mistake in the intial processing by Portsmouth. I've had to write to Doncaster to ask that it be transfered back and the solicitor is going to do the same as apparently the witnesses for DFS will be sent from the local store and not head office.

arcon5 - The dispute is about a faulty sofa, it developed a fault within 6 months of delivery (split surface seam on fixed seat cushion). We allowed DFS to repair as we wanted to keep the sofa. Then one of the foam seat cushions collapsed through the frame around 18 months in. Again we allowed them to repair but the foam is still torn inside and causing loss of support and an ugly buldge along the front (it was ok intially as they tucked it back in place but has been getting worse with use). Another seam also split at the beginning of this year, and this time they removed the cover and repaired it on a machine, as the last seam they repaired by hand has by now started to look quite ugly where you can see the stitching as it's loosened with use. But all this time we have also been losing feather stuffing all over the place, we were told on each visit that it would cease but it's still going on and when they removed the cover there were so many loose feathers that had been escaping through a poorly designed inner lining that it's clear it's going to be an ongoing issue for the life of the sofa. DFS offered to take the whole lot away and re-line it all to try and help with feather loss, but we are angry about the failing of two of the three previous repairs and the intial fobbing off about the feather issue, and are pursuing a refund on the grounds that the sofa is not fit for purpose (poor quality) - it cost £2500 so we expected quality in line with that price. Trouble is, we involved the Furniture Ombudsman initally and they were really unhelpful and dragged things out for months, the inspector they sent said he couldn't comment on the extent of feather stuffing loss (why not? It's what we paid him for) and he couldn't find any fault with the sofa, but then his recommendation was that it was taken away to be relined and restuffed (so it needs a repair... but it's not faulty). We queried the contradiction and the Ombudsman refunded the £50 inspection fee to us, but both DFS and the Ombudsman still seem to be hiding behind the defence that the repair offered is only a goodwill gesture. We therefore instructed an independent VAT registered engineer to investigate for us an he has produced a written report verifying the presence of the faults with photographic evidence to back up. So now, almost a year after requesting a refund, we have ended up having to take it to court. We have a confusing Ombusdman report that seems to go against us for the most part, but hope that will be mitigated to an extent by our second report (which we have submitted to the court), and we intend to bring the sofa to court if the judge will allow as it's easy to illustrate what the problems are. If not then we have the photos at least.