Small claims court "un-served" and "addressee gone away"

John575

Sorry for yet another post about this case.

Today I received my claim form back from the court telling me that it was returned on served. On the letter that was included it said "addressee gone away." It appears to be the claim issue rather than the default judgement entered against the defendant which is worrying.

The address I gave is the same as the company's address that sold the item to me on ebay so I assume they still work from there.


I am not sure how next to proceed:

Do I assume the document is served as this was a deliberate attempt most likely from the defendant to ignore my claim.

Could I scan the claim form and email/ send on ebay to the defendant.

Or do I pay the £50 application fee to re-serve the claim; although I still only have the one address for the company.

I did try looking up the company to find the address but it appears it's unregistered despite claiming it was a company. I also don't know how to find the one named person I know of.

hollydays

If you want to pm me their eBay name I'll see what I can find for you and message you back

Ectophile

If it's genuinely a company, then every official communication (including things like invoices and quotes) must have on them the company registration number and the registered address, which may not be the same as they trading office/showroom. That information should also be on a web site.

If it's not there, then they may nor really be a company at all. If that were the case, you should sue the boss personally.

zax47

Ectophile wrote: »

If it's genuinely a LIMITED company, then every official communication (including things like invoices and quotes) must have on them the company registration number and the registered address, which may not be the same as they trading office/showroom. That information should also be on a web site.

If it's not there, then they may nor really be a LIMITED company at all. If that were the case, you should sue the boss personally.

See the bit in bold - registration and reg no's from Companies House apply only to LIMITED companies - if he's a sole trader or not a Ltd company then you need to go after him personally.

One of my customers still runs his fathers manufacturing company, formed in 1955 - it employs 20+ people and turns over £1m + In all that time they've never been a Ltd company, does that mean they aren't "genuinely a company..."?

Maybe the OP can give us some clue as to the legal status (Ltd Co., sole trader, etc...) of the entity they are trying to serve notice against?

lovinituk

zax47 wrote: »

See the bit in bold - registration and reg no's from Companies House apply only to LIMITED companies - if he's a sole trader or not a Ltd company then you need to go after him personally.

One of my customers still runs his fathers manufacturing company, formed in 1955 - it employs 20+ people and turns over £1m + In all that time they've never been a Ltd company, does that mean they aren't "genuinely a company..."?

Yes! If they're not registered at Companies House, they're not a company at all - they are a business. Either a sole trader or partnership most likely.

hollydays

Just waiting for the op to com back to the thread.
It appears the eBay business is a sole trader but there are connections to a limited company albeit with variations on ownership/ spelling of names and a home address has been found.Also an accountants address and a trading address which is all a little mixed up, ie they have several strings to their bow..

lovinituk

hollydays wrote: »

Just waiting for the op to com back to the thread.
It appears the eBay business is a sole trader but there are connections to a limited company albeit with variations on ownership/ spelling of names and a home address has been found.Also an accountants address and a trading address which is all a little mixed up, ie they have several strings to their bow..

Possibly a case of Artificial Separation in an attempt to avoid VAT or to hide other wrong doings. Classy outfit by the sounds of it!

John575

Thanks everyone for all your help and especially hollydays, who really went the extra mile! Sherlock springs to mind

I think my best option is to now re-serve the court papers to the home address. They've now tried several methods to avoid the small claims court but it's just making me more and more determined.

Does anyone know if I can add the £50 charge to re-serve to papers to the defendant? The papers were sent to their Ebay registered address and I think this is a deliberate attempt to avoid the issue.