small claims

dolphin0

I split with my partner last year, and as he owed me around £4000- he agreed to pay me £200 per month. I set up a spreadsheet which he agreed to (all via email), but surprise surprise, he hasn't paid me a penny. The debt was made up of credit card (he was an additional cardholder on my account) and money I lent him to get him out of some debt. Although I do have the cc statements with his name on, I have no other proof apart from the email trail showing that he has agreed to the repayments. He is now not responding to any of my emails, and he has changed his phone number. My question is, can I go to small claims? Is the email trail enough proof. I am at my wits end, as I cannot afford to pay off his debts every month. Many thanks for any advice.

Rick_Albright

I don't think you have enough documentation.

fatbelly

You can, but you may well be throwing 'good money after bad' - as an additional card holder he has no legal liability for the credit card debt.

If he didn't try to defend your claim it is possible that you would get a judgement in default. You would then be faced with how to enforce it. Does he own property? Do you know who his employer is?

dolphin0

No, he doesnt own anything.......but I do know who he works for. Just wondered whether there was any chance, but I guess Ive been done over!

fatbelly

Well you could start a claim. It will cost you £185. If he defends you might struggle. If he doesn't you could try an attachment to earnings. That's £110. It could get messy.

EssexHebridean

Dolphin I suspect you have to balance whether you can afford the risk of losing any more money on this - particularly in the light of him potentially just proving to have no money. You've got the facts from Fatbelly now so you know what sort of money you're talking about for the basics - but if you're already struggling with a limited chance of a good outcome it may be a gamble too far.

I think in your shoes I'd be starting to focus instead now on how I can tackle things in the short term, on the assumption that you're getting nothing from the ex. It might help to put together a Statement of Affairs (SOA) and post it into here - we'll happily take a look over it and see if we can help you with finding any areas of your budget where you may be able to make savings if you like? The link to the SOA calculator is in my signature.