Please help confirming my witness statement is sufficient

zap99

So I thought this was all resolved, but things have gone oddly quiet. The judge said she'd give me 14 days to submit a defence, but I have received absolutely no correspondence on the matter. Not a single letter in the post in terms of what I need to submit.

This leaves me with very little confidence - firstly, my documents I submitted never even made it to the hearing, and now the 14 days have long since elapsed without any word at all. Have I missed my chance to submit a defence because of this?

I called the court helpline and they could see that no correspondence had gone out, but gave me a generic email address anyway.

I did a TrustOnline search, and the judgement is still on record. Should I just wait to receive correspondence with instructions, or should I now reach out to CEL?

This is such a frustrating process!

Umkomaas

The judge said she'd give me 14 days to submit a defence, but I have received absolutely no correspondence on the matter. Not a single letter in the post in terms of what I need to submit.

I think that it's pretty clear from what the Judge said and the timescale to do so. You weren't going to get any further correspondence on that point.

In terms of your credit rating, it tends to take up about a month for a set aside to be recorded, but maybe the court is awaiting your defence before they confirm it (a surmise on my part).

zap99

An update here:

1) @Umkomaas: you were incorrect in terms of 'no further correspondence at that point'. I received a letter in the post confirming that the communication only went out after the deadline, and as such, the deadline was extended to the date when I proactively sent in the defence.

2) A date has now been set for the trial for the initial charge. The letter has info such as:

* Must send a copy of defence to the claimant by X date
* parties must file at court and send to the other party witness statements of all the evidence on which they wish to rely.
* the counterclaim is struck as disclosing no reasonable grounds for counterclaiming.
* Hearing fee must be paid by X date, and if they do not pay, the claim will be struck out without further order and unless the court orders otherwise, they will be liable for costs

My questions:

1) What does the part about the counterclaim mean? Does this mean I cannot counterclaim something against them?

2) What is the likelihood of them paying the fee and pitching up at court? Is this when they're likely to discontinue proceedings?

Thanks!

Coupon-mad

Hearing fee must be paid by X date, and if they do not pay, the claim will be struck out without further order and unless the court orders otherwise, they will be liable for costs

That is good - your costs for attending the hearing re the set aside then, and your £255...are reserved and will be payable by them if they do not proceed & pay the hearing fee. So they can't just run away with their fingers in their ears going 'la...la...la' and leave you out of pocket by around £300.

What counter claim? Did you pay a fee for one? I can't see you tried? Asking for your costs is not a counter claim so I hope you didn't pay a fee for that. Maybe you ticked a box in error and talked about costs?

What is the likelihood of them paying the fee and pitching up at court? Is this when they're likely to discontinue proceedings?

Normally likely that they might have discontinued, but your canny Judge has protected your costs thus far and they will have to pay your costs if they don't go ahead, as I already said.

So, highly likely you will get to defend this and win 2 - 0, as you are already 1-0 up at half time.

Then you can say that you understand your costs from the set aside hearing were 'reserved' and your costs from this hearing are £xxx and in addition, you believe their conduct as met the high bar for unreasonableness because (list all the conduct that was unreasonable, including using a wrong address for the claim, then not turning up to the set aside, filing a claim that had no prospects of success and - whatever the facts are that they did - LIST THEM!).

Please read this and the links, in detail. We want MORE people to claim MORE costs and to succeed, by having knowledge of the rules & what to say:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76777501#Comment_76777501

HTH

Umkomaas

1) @Umkomaas: you were incorrect in terms of 'no further correspondence at that point'. I received a letter in the post confirming that the communication only went out after the deadline, and as such, the deadline was extended to the date when I proactively sent in the defence.

Whoopydoo! We only advise on what we see in front of us at the time. We are not fortune tellers, or blessed with ESP, or seeking the post vacated by Mystic Meg.

I'll watch from a distance, good luck!

zap99

Thanks guys - you have been super helpful! I didn't pay for any counterclaim of any sorts, hence my confusion on the matter! I will prepare all my necessary documents this week and then post here for a review.

Cheers!

zap99

A quick one on this matter - an issue for me is that I am actually leaving the UK for a few months (remote post abroad), and would have to fly back to London to attend this case.

At this point, whilst I would love to attend and claim as many costs as possible, it would be better for me if they decided to discontinue proceedings entirely.

Is it worth contacting them and informing them of this? Am I within my rights to call / email and inform them that I fully intend to attend and defend my case, however, if they are prepared to discontinue proceedings, I will not file for costs.

I know the general advice is to *never* contact them, but the costs awarded wouldn't cover my travel costs back to the UK, so I'm in a bit of a quagmire.

Thanks!

nosferatu1001

Erm, no. They'll see it as a way to pressure you.
Include in your costs the costs of travel.

zap99

Okay great, thanks. Do I need to submit my costs schedule to them too? Ie: they'll see my costs prior to the hearing?

KeithP

zap99 wrote: »

Okay great, thanks. Do I need to submit my costs schedule to them too?

Yes you must. Everything you send to the court must also be sent to the claimant.

zap99 wrote: »

Ie: they'll see my costs prior to the hearing?

Of course. You want that to happen.
Seeing you costs just might encourage them to think twice about continuing.