how to take a power supplier to court

chanz4

The company has a right to counter claim, ask undaunted he has first hand.

macman

The defendant is entitled to claim reasonable non-legal costs if they win. That could easily amount to several thousand for a Big Six supplier.

sniggings

macman wrote: »

The defendant is entitled to claim reasonable non-legal costs if they win. That could easily amount to several thousand for a Big Six supplier.

You are just wrong, as said they are rarely past on and even if they are they are capped to a level inline with the £10,000 limit, which is a few hundred if you are lucky, not a few thousand as you say.

In most cases, the court will not order solicitors’ costs to be paid by the losing party in a small claims case, and if you instruct a solicitor you will have to pay the costs yourself. For this reason most claimants deal with a small claim without the help of a solicitor. It is possible to have the help of a friend or ‘lay representative’, for example, some Citizens Advice Bureaux can offer trained advisers to help people with small claims.

source
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/law_e/law_legal_system_e/law_taking_legal_action_e/small_claims.htm

Cardew

macman wrote: »

Taking an energy company to the county court is the same process as taking out a civil claim against any other company: you complete the claim, pay your fee and file it.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/small-claims-court
There is no 'small claims court', it's simply a fast track process within the county court for dealing with claims under £10K in England and Wales.
Are you prepared to pay their expenses if you lose though?

However the victor can most certainly claim their expenses other than legal ones: i.e. costs of witnesses, reports and company time spent on the defence.
Which could easily amount to a few thousand.

Macman,

You are not normally incorrect, but I fear you are in this case.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/JCO%2FDocuments%2FCJC%2FPublications%2FOther+papers%2FSmall+Claims+Guide+for+web+FINAL.pdf



That Government Document(dated Nov 2013) refers to 'taking someone to a ‘Small Claims Court’.

Your point about 'fast track' isn't necessarily true.

I am the claimant in such a case later this month and have the papers in front of me.

If a case is likely to be complicated and either side likely to have high non-legal expenses, the Judge would not normally allocate such a case to the small claims track.

The whole point of the Small Claims Court is that a complainant can go to court for a legitimate grievance and is not deterred by the possibility of paying for the defence costs.

If you are the claimant and you win your case, you will get the court fees back as well as the claim, and you can ask for certain expenses also. If you lose, you will not get the court fees back. But it is unlikely that you will have to pay any other costs.

The exception would be if the Judge considered your claim to be frivolous.

Cardew

dogshome wrote: »

The reason I query the date of your problem, is that only recently Ofgem the regulator finally recognised the problem and brought in rules to cover it - The Erroneous Transfers Charter which is breifly:

Sorry, but that is not correct.

The question of compensation for Erroneous Transfers was covered in detail in the Gas and Electricity Acts of 1986 and 1989 respectively.

A charter was discussed to formalise procedures was under discussion for years and introduced in 2002.

Suppliers implemented the Erroneous Transfer Customer Charter (ETCC) in February2002. This document is the second review by Ofgem of the performance of gas and electricity suppliers in resolving cases in accordance with the ETCC standards, where a
domestic customer’s energy supply has been transferred against
their will to a new supplier.

The latest iteration of the charter is to take into account new rules for switching supplier and IGT.

Cardew

cct2013 wrote: »

Hello, I really do need some advice on taking npower to court as the energy ombudsman was unable to help.


npower illegally switched my power supply and then it took me ages to get them to move it back as the company is hopeless to deal with.


I want to take them to the small claim court to seek damages for fraud and theft but am struggling to understand the small claims court process.


The ombudsman was a total waste of time.


Does anyone have any experience of taking an energy company to court and have any advice on how to establish the process. I have looked online but I find advice to be contradictory.


Thank you for any help provided.

In the post above I posted about a claimant not paying the Defence expenses, but added the caveat 'unless the judge considered the complaint frivolous'.

If you went to court accusing a company of 'Fraud and Theft' and dismissed the neutral Ombudsman as a 'total waste of time', The judge might well take a view that your claim fell into that category i.e. frivolous.;)

Jonesy88

OP, i'm just looking at this from a slightly different angle to the others but you say you want damages for theft and fraud?

Theft - what did they steal? do you mean your supply? Technically they stole it from your previous supplier, not you. Also under the ET process they put you back as you started - with the original supplier. Most ETs i've seen, although messy and long winded have financially benefitted the customer as the supplier in the wrong didn't bill them for the usage whilst the ET was going though. (I have no evidence to back this up, it's just what i've seen and others may have more detailed knowledge).

Fraud - can you prove an agent forged your signature or exactly why the supply was taken over? In most cases (as mentioned previously) it's simply wrong information given/used. I wonder how it could be shown npower were fraudulent as opposed to stupid (by which i mean accidents/wrong info etc).

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Save your efforts to help, folks. The OP hasn't been back since posing the question and I hazard a guess won't be here in the future.

undaunted

macman wrote: »

Taking an energy company to the county court is the same process as taking out a civil claim against any other company: you complete the claim, pay your fee and file it.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/small-claims-court
There is no 'small claims court', it's simply a fast track process within the county court for dealing with claims under £10K in England and Wales.
Are you prepared to pay their expenses if you lose though?

chanz4 wrote: »

Becarefull, they will claim high legal costs from you if your wrong

If it's a claim for no more than 10k, allocated to the small claims track he / she will generally speaking not be ordered to pay costs.

Should you be on a low income you may also be able to claim an exemption for your own court costs

Parties will also have the option to resolve it via mediation before you reach that stage

What damages do you think you are entitled to?

undaunted

chanz4 wrote: »

The company has a right to counter claim, ask undaunted he has first hand.

They can counter claim if there is a basis for it yes. That isn't only / directly about the costs though.

In the case chanz4 refers to (see the thread npower versus the vulnerable) it was the customer who counter claimed - the case was therefore well in excess of the 10k limit and hence why costs came into play.

You could sue a company for upto 10k & incur minimal costs (if using no solicitor, able to claim fee exemptions etc), whilst it may cost them more to defend (if using solicitors etc) than it's worth to fight. There has to be a legal basis for your claim though and evidence of loss - as said above you can't just decide that you were inconvenienced, want £10,000 and expect that a Judge will give you it if you haven't lost it.