UK or USA address in small claim court

thiennga

I made a booking for a holiday home in the UK. The manager gave the quote inclusive of a cleaning fee. I paid 50% of the rent as the deposit. I made the payment into the home owner's account and it was a UK bank account.

4 months later, the manager told me that she made a mistake and wanted to charge extra for the cleaning fee (not a small amount). I didn't agree with her. She told me to pay extra for cleaning fee or to cancel the booking. As I didn't agree to pay more, the booking was canceled but she didn't agree to refund me fully. She claimed that I canceled booking and only part of the deposit would be refunded. I didn't agree for that.

The home owner (which is the manager's mom, I think it is a family business) contacted me with the same argument. I didn't agree with her and so far none of the money has been sent back.

I am about to make a small claim court action. I found the holiday home's address. However the home owner claimed that she didn't receive mail there. She gave me a US address.

I sent the letter (to both UK and US addresses) giving them 28 days notice to return the money and that period expires tomorrow. We didn't receive anything.

If I now fill in a small claims request with the holiday home address in the UK, they may not response. I am concerned that after a default judgement they may argue they told me they only receive mail in the US and get the default judgment cancelled. Apparently under rule 6.36 I can request permission from a judge to serve notice to the US but I have no idea how to do this!

Does anybody know if I can just use the holiday home address in the UK and whether they have any obligations to receive mail at this address?

bris

If you serve it to the holiday home address then any ruling would be set aside as it's not going to be received. You need to serve it to the US address.

If the owner is from the USA then any action you take may be futile, as they simply won't pay anyway and the UK baillifs are powerless to act on US citizens.

You could be on a hiding to nothing here as it could get very expensive chasing them in the US.

hollydays

Alarm bells ringing here about how authentic this company is.
How much we're both cleaning fees.
How much money is she keeping back.

hollydays

Where did you see this advertised? What terms and conditions did you agree to?

thiennga

They have some houses in UK and they have a UK bank account. We don't really know if they are US or UK citizens or both.

They have lots of advertisements for few holiday homes in UK and many in US on different websites. When we looked at one advert for the first time, we trusted the reviews.
After this problem, we did a little research and it turns out those reviews are suspicious. It seems they and their friends/family wrote those reviews (we can see that most of the reviewers wrote multiple reviews for their adverts only and were submitted in bulk).

The deposit is £2000. They claimed the cancelation fee £600 (for which we don't agree because they didn't honour the price). However, they kept all £2000.

If we use the US address, does anyone know how to ask the judge for permission to serve the claim form outside of the jurisdiction?

wealdroam

thiennga wrote: »

If we use the US address, does anyone know how to ask the judge for permission to serve the claim form outside of the jurisdiction?

Sorry, I can't answer that, but you really do need to consider Bris's earlier reply:

bris wrote: »

If the owner is from the USA then any action you take may be futile, as they simply won't pay anyway and the UK baillifs are powerless to act on US citizens.

You could be on a hiding to nothing here as it could get very expensive chasing them in the US.

earthstorm

Unless you have a bottomless bank account then dont even think of chasing anyone in the USA.

2 years ago i had a hosting client who was USA based and they owed me £400 for hosting and various other services. They ignored invoices and all communications, so looked at chasing them for the money. looked at several US lawyers and the average was a $1000 just to retain their services, never asked what the others costs would be.

shaun_from_Africa

Are they still advertising homes for rent?
If so, why not get someone else to contact them stating that they are interested in renting.
Ask them to get a quote and then state that they don't have access to online banking but will be happy to post a cheque to them.

This might possibly give you their UK address.

hollydays

£4000 rent for a holiday home? How so?

Buzby

OP, where are you? If you are in the US, then pursue them there. If you are hoping to chase them Internationally, YOU (or your agent) need to be located in the relevant country in order to pursue them. England & Wales, use MoneyClaim online, Scotland no online system - nearest Sheriff Court to the defendant, NI ditto.

If you have no local agent then the pursuit will be incompetent and you will waste even more money.