Window Cleaner - Small Claims Court

stevemLS

Agree with others, that is not what you would say in a defence, you reply succinctly to each point in the particulars of claim.

The narrative you have written is more suited to a witness statement if it goes to a hearing (I couldn't be bothered to read it all, sorry).

Post 6 gives the style, but without the Particulars of Claim it is difficult to say any more, can you post them up?

tomtontom

laurajd28 wrote: »

The online service allows 120 lines of text, so I'm sure they are well aware that some people will use the full allowance. I don't feel there is anything wrong with being detailed and thorough.

You asked for feedback. If you are going to dismiss it why did you bother to post?

The word limit is an absolute maximum, not something you must fill. Cut out all the emotion and all the irrelevant stuff, then repost. Or just pay up and put an end to the matter.

stevemLS

I don't think the court is going to be too impressed with this dispute being played out before it, btw - I would suspect as part of case management, the court will encourage you in the strongest terms it can to mediate.

That, however, is a problem for the claimant rather than you.

Pollycat

laurajd28 wrote: »

There's a bit too much to say! I'm sure there will be a lovely person on here who won't mind reading it!

I'm sure you can cut it down.


I usually read most posts when I open threads but yours has got me beat.

Pollycat

laurajd28 wrote: »

..........

Oh dear.

Has Laura thrown her toys out of the pram?

tomtontom

Pollycat wrote: »

Oh dear.

Has Laura thrown her toys out of the pram?

Seems so! Expect to see her on Judge Rinder soon

Pollycat

tomtontom wrote: »

Seems so! Expect to see her on Judge Rinder soon

I caught this the other week when I was doing some ironing.

Talk about hilarious! :rotfl:

I can just imagine how he would deal with this - especially the bit about putting the s**t back on the windows..

Seriously Laura, if you only want to hear things that you agree with and you can't take a few comments - totally justified - about a wall of text, maybe MSE isn't for you.

Surely it wouldn't have taken you long to put a few line breaks and paragraphs in to make reading easier.

George_Michael

Pollycat wrote: »

Oh dear.

Has Laura thrown her toys out of the pram?

And thanks to the power of Google cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oPSR6oeMvqsJ:forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D5065931%26goto%3Dnewpost+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

Hi,

We've had a dispute with our window cleaner in which the police had to be involved. We've today received a claim form from the small claims court that he window cleaner has filed against us.

I'm just lodging my appeal online - I'd be grateful if someone could have a read of it and give me your opinion please?

Thanks in advance!
Laura


On Friday 5th September 2014, we were sat in our lounge when suddenly someone started hammering on the back door of our
property. I went to the front door as this is where visitors should knock on. Iwas approached by the window cleaner (Mr D) who abruptly said 'window money?' I explained that we have made attempts to get into contact with him, as we have been unhappy with the last 3 window cleaning attempts by him. Initially, we had been happy with the service and we paid via online banking as this was more convenient for us (which we can prove via bank statements. However, when we received the first of the 3 most recent window cleaning slips through the door, we were disgusted with the service and they actually looked worse than they did before they were apparently 'cleaned.' I had a look on the slip that had been pushed through the door, requesting payment of £5.00. It had nocontact number. It said 'Windows cleaned today' the amount and then Mr D's Bank Account details. I searched on Yell.com and via Google, searching for 'K C D' and searched within Window Cleaners in Stoke-on-Trent. There was no sign of him being registered as a company, and we were unable to find any way of making contact with him. I spoke to our next door neighbour to see if they had a contact number for him, but they said that they sacked him a long time ago for the same reason & that he was abusive to them also. At this point, we intended to discuss the matter with Mr D when he came to collect payment and would have paid him the £5.00 to avoid confrontation and then simply ask him to not do them again,but he never came whilst we were home, which resulted in him subsequently coming to 'clean' the windows on 2 further occasions.Between these 3 separate occasions, Mr D pushed a couple of notes through the door to say that he had come to collect the window money, but obviously we weren't home when he did, as we didn't on any occasion see him. Again, these slips contained no contact details for him either, so we still had no way of telling him to stop cleaning the windows.
So, on 5th September 2014 after I explained to him that we weren't happy with his service and didn't want the windows cleaning by him & that we had no way of telling him that we didn't want him to
come and do them again, he became very abusive. He told me to
pay the £15 and that he would go and not do them again. I explained that we weren't prepared to pay as the windows weren't cleaned to a satisfactory standard and if he'd left contact details, we would have called him to tell him this, to avoid him wasting his time doing them again on 2 further occassions. He started shouting and swearing, ranting & raving at how he has apparently being cleaning windows for years and that no-one else has complained (despite us knowing that our next door neighbour had problems with him also, it which our neighbour had to lock herself in her home as Mr D was threatening her). He proceeded to call me a 'b*****d' and assured us (my partnerwas now present) that he "would come and put the s**t back onto the windows" and that we hadn't heard the last of it. Myself and my partner both asked him to leave our property as he was standing lose to our vehicles on the driveway and we didn't want to risk any damage occurring to any of our property. He continued shouting and swearing at us both and I continued to ask him to leave, telling him that I would have to call the police if he didn't do so immediately. It was at this point that he spat directly into my face. I was absolutely disgusted and pushed him off the driveway of my property so that he was now standing on the pavement. The argument moved into the middle of the road and he was still threatening to 'put the s**t back onto the windows.' My partner took a photograph of the registration of his car, as we had no way of proving to anyone who he was or where he came from. We literally just had his name and bank details. He eventually walked off towards his car and we went back into our house. I immediately called 999 as I was concerned that our property had been threatened. The police arrived within around 15mins. 2 police cars arrived in the street, followed by Mr D in
his car. The police officers entered our property and took a statement, another police officer escorted Mr D away from our property back to his car which was parked further down the street. The police confirmed that we were well within our right to not pay for the window cleaning as we weren't happy with the service. They examined the slip requesting £15, and also confirmed that we had no way of contacting him to confirm that we did not want the windows cleaning. They also agreed with our point that anyone could go round pushing these slips through doors, claiming that windows had been cleaned. There was no evidence whatsoever that our windows had been cleaned &also no date on the slip to confirm what day they had apparentlybeen cleaned. Our statement was taken and we were given an incident number (706/0905). Both officers then went to speak to Mr D & he said directly to their faces that he was 'going to put the s**t back onto the windows.' Both officers noted this down. The police officers came back to explain this to us, and my partner was concerned at the threats made to our property and asked the police officers what would happen if he did come back. The police officers confirmed that if anything at allhappened to our property, to call 999 immediately, and that Mr D would have to prove that it wasn't him, as he had already made the threats to indicate that he was going to do something. The police confirmed that we were well within our rights to not pay& that Mr D would have to go through a small claims court in order to recoup the £15 owed. The police left and we then felt on edge for the next couple of weeks, worrying what state our house would be in when we returned home from work each day. Thankfully, our neighbours on both sides (Number 10 and Number 14) both said that they'd keep an eye out for him and would let us know if theysaw him coming onto our property whilst we were out. This gave us a bit of reassurance but we still shouldn't have been made tofeel like that and we shouldn't have to live in fear when weweren't in the wrong. I still do not feel that we should be paying the £15 to Mr D as obviously it's up to him how he runs his business, but surely he should not have continued cleaning our windows 2 further times, when he had not received payment the first time? He has dragged this on a lot longer than necessary by not providing us with any contact details & not making more attempts to come and collect the money from us. Surely as we had been reliably paying him via online banking with no issues,he should have wondered why we had stopped paying him, and then took it upon himself to come and discuss the reasons why we hadn't paid him. I feel thathe's wasted his own time in continuing to clean our windows when we did not want them doing, and he's also wasted the time of the police. This matter could have been resolved over 3 months ago if he had bothered to collect payment for thewindow cleaning before cleaning them twice more. I will not be spat at by anyone and will not have verbal abuse thrown at myself and my partner on our own property which is therefore why I felt the need to involve the police.

Pollycat

George_Michael wrote: »

And thanks to the power of Google cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oPSR6oeMvqsJ:forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D5065931%26goto%3Dnewpost+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

Ooooh, don't. It hurts my eyes.

I think I prefer the 10 full stops. :rotfl:

hollydays

At the very least, paragraphs , as a courtesy to the reader.
You could have described " an altercation where the window cleaner was verbally aggressive and spat at me" , much more concise.