Advice needed re Small Claim charges and procedure

Sittingstill

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me with this - I am under quite a lot of stress with this issue

A former flatmate sent me a notice of further action letter for a debt of £485, stemming from some disputed utility bills during a joint tenancy last year. I have agreed to the amount, and have advised that due to my health and finance situation (universal credit of £294 is my sole monthly income, as I am off work with mental health issues) I would have to pay installments.

He seemed amenable to this, but then sent me an email late one Sunday night demanding I agree to a complicated agreement (some combination of using a guarantor and/or using personal items as collateral) by the following afternoon, or he would take legal action. I said that the email was too complicated, that I would need to discuss with my debt counselor at Stepchange, and that I would need 24 hours more to do it, i.e until the Tuesday evening, as on the next day, Monday, I had hospital appointments, and found it stressful due to my anxiety to be forced into something I don't really understand without getting legal advice

He refused, and took out the small claim online, through Money Claim. I advised him that the chain of emails made him look unreasonable as we are supposed to try and agree out of court, and I was in the process of offering to do so (including adding interest covering the repayment period). He appeared to recant a bit after calming down and said he would pay the £60 fee, he just wants to sort out an agreement.

So, I made an offer to repay, and but he has now gotten angry again (I have been attempting to offer payments for 2 months - nearly a third of the funds would be paid by now), and is claiming if I don't pay in full he will attempt to get a high court bailiff, adding all kinds of court and travel costs so that the debt of £485 will be £715.

We have quite a lot of personal differences, and he is very erratic and hard to deal with. He calms down and is reasonable then gets stressed out and is ridiculously antagonistic. It seems when he is in that mode that he wants to use the threat of legal action to get me to act a certain way, or to threaten exacerbation to a ridiculous degree if I don't agree with him (he has mentioned his goal is to get me in maximum legal trouble instead of resolving the debt, but backtracks on it when he calms down and acts a bit more reasonably)

So - my question(s) are really as follows. His latest exacerbation comes right on the eve of the claim response being due; I have to reply by 15th April on Money Claim online. So, I am asking the following:

1. He has not changed the amount on the claim to the agreed upon amount - he previous added dubious charges, which he realised he couldn't do after receiving legal advice, and thus £649 was the amount claimed. He subsequently amended this via email to £485, which I have agreed to, but after nearly a month he has not updated it (he is now just saying "if you pay in full I can withdraw the claim and it won't need amending", which, of course, makes no sense). Whilst I have no problem proving the £485 amount (he accepts this amount in numerous emails, and has not challenged it - he came up with the amount himself), how do I get him to change it, and furthermore, how do I reply to this in the claim if he has not? (I.e it looks like I am disputing part of his claim, which might affect me legally, but I am not disputing it - he has just claimed the wrong figure)

2. If I reply to the claim agreeing to the amount of £485, and make my repayment offer, what charges will this entail from the court. He is claiming he can add the £60 claim fee, £80 court costs, a £90 work allowance and £20 travel to the court costs at will (and I think he is trying to do it just to spite me). Is this how it works? What are the costs of going to small claims mediation? Will the court charge me £250 for accepting the debt and offering to pay in installments, even as I am unemployed ill and on Universal Credit??

Sorry for the lengthy post: I am quite stressed about this, and just want some idea what the resolution might be. It seems my former friend is attempting to turn this into an unending, bottomless pit of stress instead of seeking a resolution. Because he has the claim and money (he earns £6k a month), I can't shake that it seems like he has the law on his side and is going to just cause as much stress as possible.

So, I would be grateful if someone could explain how the procedure will work, and what the charges will be, should I accept the claim and offer monthly payments, and also what legal measures he could take to exacerbate the situation even after already filing a claim

Thanks!! :money:

waamo

There appears to be 2 questions.

1. You don't get him to change the amount. If you look at your reply options one of them is to admit part of the amount claimed. Tick that box and put in the amount you admit to. You have a clear defence to the spurious amount.

2. Mediation is free and will be offered by the court. Tick the box to say you agree to it. This comes later.

Costs are a tricky area and may or may not be awarded. He has to ask for them if it gets as far as court. If he has behaved unreasonably he may well not get them even should he win. You appear to have evidence of unreasonable behaviour.

da_rule

Also, don’t forget to make records of how much time you spend dealing with this. As, if he has been unreasonable, the courts may even award an adverse costs order (i.e. they may order he pays your costs even though he won).

Sittingstill

Waamo - you mention Mediation being free and offered by the court. At what stage does Mediation, or the process, turn into something that generates additional fees?

What I mean is - I presume (or hope) that in reality cooler heads will prevail and he will accept my repayment offer at the first stage of mediation. If he does, are there then any additional court costs? Presumably, in such a scenario there would be no physical hearing required?

Thank you very much for your responses :money:

waamo

If tings are settled at mediation then there are no additional costs. If they aren't and it proceeds to a hearing then a fee for that is payable. In a worst case scenario of him winning and being awarded costs the fee depends on the value of the claim

You can see the fees here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/789201/ex50-eng.pdf