Small Claims Court guide

terryw

The claimant has to have an address in England or Wales for service but this need not be where they live.

FoxyLady1959

I'm sorry if I've posted in the wrong place, I'm new and spent ages looking for a link to put a new post on for Small Claims!!!!!




Hi can anyone help. When my husband and I came into some money my 'friend' asked if she could make downstairs of our home Open Plan, we agreed, gave her the money and she got the people in to do it (she has done this kind of thing before as she rents houses out), she employed the people and paid them with the money we gave her. Unfortunately, we are now having problems upstairs, she had the two supporting wall taken down and RSJ's put in, but because one of the RSJ's was not jacked up enough its causing all kinds of problems upstairs, the insurance don't want to know and say the house may not be insured!!!! My 'friend' says she did it as a friend so its not her problem!! We have since found out that the builder was in fact a BT Engineer and a joiner helped him. I have tried and tried with her but to no avail, my next step is a letter to her but I'm worried about Small Claims Court, do you think I have a chance of winning this????? Many thanks in advance.

Top-ranking_Bug

I keep seeing posts telling people (quite rudely, too, in some instances) to start their own thread and not use this one.

Why? There is an invitation in the MSE Small Claims Court Guide that reads as follows:

"Thinking of making a small claim? Share your experiences/complaints in the Small claims court forum discussion."

And the link leads straight to this thread. Ergo ....

shoi

We are british, living in France, being diddled by a uk car hire company (trustpilot rating 0.5/5!) for a rental when we were in UK. Using a UK credit card.

We are using resolver.co.uk (which is good) as are the company. But it keeps going on, they keep charging semi-random amounts on the card which we have to get frozen and so on. It really has been a considerable amount of trouble by now.

Can I use the uk small claims court procedure without having to attend? Should I?

Thanks

Fraisy

I have a claim going through the system which involves a furniture removals company whose office is located a long way from my home. Normally the defendant can choose the venue however the court told me that because it is a limited company that I can choose the venue. This I did successfully, however this company has challenged this and the judge has changed it back. I now have to pay £50 if I want it moved back is this correct? if I pay the £50 and win can I claim it back from the removal company? The claim is only £150.00 in total!

terryw

shoi wrote: »

We are british, living in France, being diddled by a uk car hire company (trustpilot rating 0.5/5!) for a rental when we were in UK. Using a UK credit card.

We are using resolver.co.uk (which is good) as are the company. But it keeps going on, they keep charging semi-random amounts on the card which we have to get frozen and so on. It really has been a considerable amount of trouble by now.

Can I use the uk small claims court procedure without having to attend? Should I?

Thanks

It is necessary for the claimant to have an address for service in England or Wales to issue a county court summons.


If it did lead to a hearing you really should attend to give your evidence and prove your claim.

katieks

I haven't received the 'court notice' which is supposed to have been 'served'. I only have the deadline date that claimant has given me and the claim reference number.

What do I do next? Do I call the money courts? It's for a disputed builders claim for materials.

We have moved house and are having mail redirected - do they only deliver in person or would it have been posted?

wojtekk

Hi,

I need a bit of advice - I was involved in a hit and run accident. Other party decided not to respond to police letters as the result he was charged for failing to nominate. Police did not to proceed with failing to stop and report after the accident charges apparently because of lack of independent witnesses.

From what I researched I still have a case and I could take him to the court but because of the nature of the accident I think there might be a risk of harassment if he gets my contact details.

I need to judge the safety of my family vs recovering some money. I am wonder if anybody had any experience in this subject? Does the court papers with all my contact details will be provided to the other party?

Regards

SunnySide

I am new to this forum but in need of some urgent help! I took a small claims action against a small drainage company as first defendant and an individual who ran the company as second defendant for some faulty work his company did on my drains. I followed the claim process and made sure I sent all letters and court papers to both the company and the individual by recorded delivery. I didn't get any replies at all even from either defendant though I had evidence that the papers had definitely been received by the company. In due course because neither defendant responded I got judgement in my favour and a warrant was issued and I started the process to enforce this against the individual 2nd defendant (during the process he had declared the company insolvent so there was no point pursuing the company…) Once the bailiff started visiting him, I finally heard from the 2nd defendant in the form of court papers saying that he was appealing to the court to set aside the judgement and the warrant on the basis that my contract was with the (now insolvent so untouchable) company, not the 2nd defendant. He was using a solicitor and had prepared a witness statement in which said he had never received my court papers but elsewhere said that he had seen papers sent to the company but hadn't understood that he was being named as a defendant, hadn't understood the consequences of not doing anything and therefore please could the court be merciful and let him off etc etc. And by the way even though he didn't read the papers properly could he have his costs too for this application. The case is being held on Monday 21st September ie this Monday. Last week I decided to cut my losses and wrote to the court saying look, I've decided to drop this not because I agree with him but because I don't think I have any realistic prospect of getting my money and I don't want to waste the courts time. I also sent copies of all the emails, letters and recoded delivery receipts showing the extensive efforts I had made to contact both the company and the 2nd Defendant before and during the small claim case and pointed out that had he just taken the trouble to not ignore the court papers and send some sort of a response this part of the case could all have been sorted out at the very outset and that therefore although I was agreeable to the claim against him and the warrant being struck out I felt he should definitely not be awarded any costs. I also copied all this to his solicitor - a week ago. Today Saturday I got a thick letter from the 2nd Defendant's solicitor setting out a schedule of costs and saying their costs are over £2000!!!!!! I think the solicitor has deliberately made sure I only got this letter today so I won't have time to get proper legal advice before Monday. But my basic question is, is it possible that the court could order me to pay his costs in a matter such as this? It seems so unfair. I have already made it clear I am willing to discontinue and I don't think it is right that I should have to pay his costs for his application which he has only had to make because he never bothered to read the earlier court papers properly. Will the letter I sent to the court last week be seen by the judge on Monday and will it be taken into consideration? Or do I have to go to the court on Monday in person to present my case? I thought there was a rule that you can't claim solicitor's fees whether you win or lose a small claims case in order to encourage people to keep it informal. Is that right?

katieks

can anyone direct me to some good advice for submitting my defence to the initial claim form? There's lots of advice for starting the process etc but I can't seem to find decent advice for submitting my defence i.e how much detail, do I submit evidence now or later, etc? Thanks.