Wright Hassall - Please advise!

Insert_User_Name_Here

I would email a copy as well

Done! Thanks again

The_Deep

£236 is way too much. Even if they took you to court and won you are unlikely to pay more than £200.

Reply to them thusly

I have received your letter dated ****

Notwithstanding that I deny any debt to your client, I note that your letter demands £136 for legal costs

Your client has either failed woefully in its duty to mitigate costs or the sum has not been incurred and the demand is fraudulent. In neither case am I liable for the payment

If you insist that the charge is justified, please provide a copy of your invoice to your client

If this is not possible, please confirm :

1 The Invoice number and details of the VAT component
2 The date that your client paid the invoice
3 Details of the time spent and activities performed for which you charged the client £136

If none of the requested information is provided, I require a full explanation for the charge

I will not enter into any discussion of the parking charge until I am satisfied by your reply

Do not contact me again other than to provide the answers to my questions

I am copying this letter to the SRA

Copy to SRA here

http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page

Insert_User_Name_Here

Hi everyone. After posting / emailing the above back in December 2016 I heard nothing at all, so assumed it had been dropped - until yesterday when I received court papers (claim form & response pack) in the post from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton.

In the 'Particulars of claim' section it gives little detail but states 'I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days after service of the claim form'.

How should I proceed? Wait the 14 days to see if anything turns up (claim form is dated 05/10 - already 7 days ago)?

Again, any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Deleted User]

The claim form should be endorsed 'particulars of claim to follow' if that is the position. For clarity please confirm exactly what the particulars on the claim form say.

If particulars are to be served separately, they have a maximum of 14 days to send them to you under the MCOL specific rules. If the claim form is served with no particulars there is no need to acknowledge and time does not start to run for the preparation of the defence. Receipt of the particulars is key. From then acknowledge and defend as usual.

The claimant will need to lodge a certificate of service at court to both provide the particulars and establish that they were sent.

This is (I hope) a good thing if you get a properly pleaded case that will allow you to tailor a better defence. Naturally you should be arguing that where particulars were served by post, the MCOL exemption no longer applies and that in a breach of contract claim, details of the contract should be served with the particulars....

Insert_User_Name_Here

Particulars of Claim:

Outstanding debt and damages
DATE-DESCRIPTION-AMOUNT-DUE DATE
XX/03/15 RefXXXXXXXXXX 236.00 XX/03/15

Total due- 236.00
(ref: ce-service co uk or tel:01158225020)
The claimant claims the sum of 284.36 for
Outstanding debt and damages
including 48.36 interest pursuant to
S.69 of the County Courts Act 1984
Rate 8.00% pa from dates above to- 04/10/17
Same rate to Judgement or (sooner) payment
Daily rate to Judgement- 0.05
Total debt and interest due- 284.36
I will provide the defendant with separate
detailed particulars within 14 days after
service of the claim form.

Insert_User_Name_Here

Other than the above, I cannot see an endorsement stating 'particulars of claim to follow' anywhere on the claim form

Insert_User_Name_Here

So, am I ok to wait for the promised 'separate detailed particulars', or do I need to respond regardless?

Redx

if you have done the AOS online then you have doubled the time from 14 days to 28 days in order to write a defence , plus the claim starts 5 days after the issue date

so yes as long as you have completed the online AOS you have time to draft a defence and tweak it once or if you get the POC as detailed above

if you had read the newbies sticky thread post #2 properly, especially the walkthrough by BARGEPOLE , you would know this

and you wont be filling in the paperwork either

[Deleted User]

I'm afraid I disagree with RedX on this occasion as that claim form is not pleaded at all, so no need even to acknowledge.

Because of the debate I've Just double checked the MCOL user guide: See page 14 (it's a download job, so google it). Time does not yet start to run until the complete particulars are served..

The court will not be able to issue a default judgment unless a proper Particulars of Claim is served and there is a certificate of service upon you, so no panic there.

The particulars to follow check box (on paper claim forms) is absent from the MCOL form, because it appears as a computer option instead. Sorry for that confusion. However, it seems clear that it has been ticked because:
I will provide the defendant with separate
detailed particulars within 14 days after
service of the claim form.
is automatically inserted when that box is ticked.

In summary, you can hold off doing anything and await your defence. If none is received in 14, then check back here.

Redx

I an happy to be corrected if that is the case

however, let me explain MY confusion here

I always understood that MANUAL paper claims originated from the SALFORD CCMCC and that online claims originate from Northampton CCBC

so as this OP mentioned a major solicitor (WH) and that the claim originated from Northampton I was under the impression that this was the standard MCOL that we see incessantly on here and is always dealt with in the same way

if this is an MCOL from Northampton CCBC then I expected it to follow the BARGEPOLE advice , because we see hundreds and hundreds of similar cases where the BARGEPOLE advice is a given

this one appears to be different from what we consider to be "normal" , it is certainly of a type I have never seen on here before according to what was said in the previous post

one good thing in all of this was that we both agree to the waiting time , albeit for different reasons

perhaps we need more clarification on why this is different to all the others we normally see, because its certainly a new one for me and appears to be an option I have not seen before

I am also unclear on why the OP is waiting for a defence ?

surely the OP is saving their defence draft submission pending Particulars of Claim ?