Letter before claim recieved

BRS7

I've got confused I think...
I emailed the WS to the other party but I think I must have scanned your replies and wrongly understood it as the court not needing the WS. My court date is a couple of weeks away, and was going to read up today about skeleton arguments and suddenly realized that I've done a wrong'n!
I'm happy to hand deliver to the court that is not a problem, but with the letter at home and my being at work I'm not sure of the deadline! Am I correct in thinking it's 14 days? Which I have missed!!
Can you confirm that the file I need to deliver should contain the WS and skeleton argument? I have referred to the newbies thread and can't quite get the clarification that I need.


Thanks in advance

KeithP

You need to deliver your Witness Statement and evidence to the court when they say. 14 days is often the time, but but your letter will confirm.
If you've missed the date, take it tomorrow morning.

Hand deliver it to the court nicely presented - indexed, pages numbered - in a folder or binder clearly marked with your name, case number and date of hearing. You need to make it easy for a judge to find their way around it and therefore easier to come to the conclusion you want him/her to come to.

Your skeleton argument can wait until about three days before the hearing - remembering to send a copy to the Claimant.

Also think about a costs schedule.

Coupon-mad

Your WS and all evidence you intend to rely on (photos, transcripts of cases mentioned in your defence, any other evidence, a copy of the Beavis case sign, etc - as the NEWBIES thread tells you in the examples of WS and evidence) goes to the court by the date the local court's letter told you to do this - the one that gave you the hearing date.

If late, take it all there in a ring binder with a contents page tomorrow, which should be fine anyway.

I can't stand it when people say ''my WS is late, am I stuffed?'' and waste time posting for days, instead of simply sorting it asap!

So, sort it asap!

BRS7

I have re-read the letter from the court and it had to be sent by the beginning of October, no where in the letter does it state how it has to be sent. Is your advice to hand deliver and to NOT email just advice or a rule? I did email the WS before the date set out and then just believed (wrongly) that it was only for the claimant (stupid, I know). I will call the court in the morning anyway to ensure receipt of the email and whether acceptable.

KeithP

Emailing the WS to the Claimant is fine.

The court has strict limits on the number of pages they will print.
Look it up - it's in the Practice Direction somewhere.

It would be disappointing, at best, if only part of your Witness Statement and evidence was place before the judge.

I repeat: do not email your WS and evidence to the court - hand deliver it tomorrow.

Coupon-mad

Is your advice to hand deliver and to NOT email just advice or a rule?

Both, based on the fact that a court has a limit on what it will print, and you will find yourself up the creek with no paddle if you sent them an email of stuff you expected the court to print out! They will not, and your Judge could have nothing in his/her hands at the hearing!

KeithP

BRS7 wrote: »

I will call the court in the morning anyway to ensure receipt of the email and whether acceptable.

So you have emailed it to the court?

Good luck.

BRS7

Okay, so way back in September when I was compiling my WS well within the deadline I emailed it at that point to the mcol email address, I received a response on the deadline date (over a month ago) stating that as the claim was now with the local court that I would have to send it to them...in my panic (as it was the date of the deadline) I posted on here, before I got a reply I had emailed the WS to the local court. I saw the reply on here that read in bold “do not email the WS to the court” I stupidly didn’t read the rest of the reply.

So, WS was emailed to the court on the date of the deadline and I had no idea until today that this was not what I was supposed to do.

Having just checked the practice direction the maximum number of pages is 50 and it does state that if the documents are emailed they must NOT be faxed or posted as well.

As my WS is 30 pages I will not hand deliver it tomorrow (which would be against practice direction since it has been emailed already). I am just thankful that I have remained compliant to the courts although it may not be best practice.

Coupon-mad

Good luck with that, if your local court has their own Judge-decided in house printing limit of say, 5 pages per case!

I warn you appear to be making a dangerous assumption.

Your Judge may have NOTHING in his/her hands when you rock up and will not take kindly to being told about the '50 page max' rule in the Practice direction that you found, if that's not how his/her court plays things. I think you need to ring them and ask...

BRS7

No assumptions made, called the court, 50 page max and WS has been processed by them.