Small claim against large hotel chain

vax2002

Who did you pay the money to, the head office name or the hotel.

baker85

The hotel.. we've had no dealings with head office apart from when we asked if they could step in to help, which they couldn't.

vax2002

Well it looks like a waiting game then.
Once you have a judgement you may need to look at enforcing it

bod1467

Sounds to me like you sued the right people (hotel).

baker85

Well CAB and the solicitor advised us to send everything directly to the hotel, so hopefully they're not wrong.

So once we're at the stage of enforcing, do we stand a chance of getting our money back or can they still be awkward? The manager was adamant that he would never give us our money back so I'd just like to know what our options are.

Equaliser123

bod1467 wrote: »

Sounds to me like you sued the right people (hotel).

If it is a separate entity from the group, then yes.

OP - where did you get the corporate details for the defendant from?

baker85

Equaliser123 wrote: »

If it is a separate entity from the group, then yes.

OP - where did you get the corporate details for the defendant from?

By corporate details, do you mean the name of the manager and hotel details/address etc? If so, we already had the name of the manager from dealing with him and the hotel information from the correspondence we had and their website.

Takecareofthepennies

From my understanding of post #1, the OP already has a judgment since the defendant did not dispute the claim.

It should therefore be immaterial whether they sued the right entity. If the hotel operator had felt that their chain head office should be the ones to be sued rather than the hotel themselves, their chance to say so was when they received the paperwork from the small claims court.

Having to enforce the judgment may be a bit of a pain, but I'd like to see the hotel's manager allowing equipment or furnishings to be taken away by the bailiffs simply because he does not want to pay up.

If you are still on speaking terms with them, I would suggest a calm phone call to ask precisely that question before you request execution (which, ultimately, will only add further to the hotel's costs). If not, well, just send the bailiffs in.

shaun_from_Africa

If not, well, just send the bailiffs in.

Preferably on a day when they have a function of some sort at the hotel so there will be plenty of people milling about.

This might just prompt them to pay up in cash rather than having guests see the baliffs taking some of the furniture.

pelirocco

ThumbRemote wrote: »

The reason they are ignoring it is almost certainly one of:
a) they have no processes in place to handle this event, so don't know what to do and just hope it'll go away
b) they know they are in the wrong, so have no grounds to contest it

Never underestimate just how incompetent some businesses are.

I have seen ccjs awarded against some very large companies , Ive always assumed its because the person whose desk the summons has arrived on doesnt know what to do with it or doesnt care