My case is going to County Court - should I be worried?

sunflair

I believed that this claim your money back is quite easy. My case has been handed over from the small claims process to a county court in my area. The court have stated that HSBC have asked for an extension to the case. I am trying to claim £1235. Now I am worried, this does not appear to be the normal process. Am I looking like I will lose my case?? Any one else gone through this process??? Will I have to pay costs if I lose in the county court???

beardface_2

sunflair wrote: »

I believed that this claim your money back is quite easy. My case has been handed over from the small claims process to a county court in my area. The court have stated that HSBC have asked for an extension to the case. I am trying to claim £1235. Now I am worried, this does not appear to be the normal process. Am I looking like I will lose my case?? Any one else gone through this process??? Will I have to pay costs if I lose in the county court???

Can you tell me what exactly you have received from the court. I might be able to tell you what is happening?

kevwev_2

my case went to county court. no need to worry you will win

Twinkly

sunflair wrote: »

I believed that this claim your money back is quite easy. My case has been handed over from the small claims process to a county court in my area. The court have stated that HSBC have asked for an extension to the case. I am trying to claim £1235. Now I am worried, this does not appear to be the normal process. Am I looking like I will lose my case?? Any one else gone through this process??? Will I have to pay costs if I lose in the county court???

I discovered that there is no such thing as a small claims court. Claims of this nature are heard in county court on what is called a small claims track so there is no need to worry and this is quite normal. Good luck

sunflair

beardface wrote: »

Can you tell me what exactly you have received from the court. I might be able to tell you what is happening?

Hi thanks for your reply. What I have is a "standard order for stay for settlement with consent of all the parties". Looks like I need to complete an allocation questionnaire and file it with the court. Is this normal??? Got until the 31st May to respond, but the claim is stayed until 17th May. What does this mean??? Can you help???

beardface_2

It's a bit confusing, a stay for settlement is normally given when both sides have indicted that the case is likely to settle before the date given or the defendant has indicted that they are likely to pay up in the very near future. I would be suprised if a bank has gone down that route though unless they are stalling. Also a stay would normally be granted AFTER allocation questionairres are filed.

The only way I can make sense of this is if you do NOT have to file AQ's, in which case if you have not agreed a settlement with the bank then you need to write to the courts on or before that date to say you wish to procede.

If you have received an AQ to fill in then first you still have to write to the court saying you wish to procede, then file your AQ by the date stated.

When you write to the court regarding the "stay" I would make it clear that you will not agree to any further stays as you feel the defendant is using unreasonable delaying tactics.

Yours is an unusual way of dealing with these cases and I wouldn't suprise me if the Judge who looked at your file was not a Deputy Judge (part timer).

Hopefully the bank had indicated they are willing to settle;)