Jurisdiction of Scottish Court?

Brushman

Background:

My partner and I have/had a failed business that we're putting to bed. We had a bad payer on a contract that we couldn't recover from and had to cash-flow borrow some funds from a business lender as a stop-gap in the meantime, which is now due for repayment at a little under £3k. We've been hanging on and hanging on for another debtor to the business to finally come in that's around £2.5k and the balance will come from personal funds - ergo we've been trying to play the lender for time. The principal to the loan was our Ltd co. but it was personally guaranteed by my partner who at the time of signing over a year ago was still living in Scotland.



That time has now run out and they've issued both the business and my partner as co-respondents in a Simple Procedure money claim from a Scottish Court. I can't see any reason for the claim to have been issued in Scotland other than because of a respondent being in Scotland (they believe) - whereas in fact she's been habitually resident in England for a little over a year now.


Apart from them not having an up to date address, can we 'reject' the application based on the Scottish Court not having jurisdiction? Yes, we know it will only come back again in a couple of weeks time as an English based money claim but that couple of weeks is literally what we're left to play with in terms of getting our ducks in a row and assembling the funds to pay it off - which we're not long-term trying to avoid - and without it risking her a CCJ if it all goes pear, clearly. And yes, I have tried to talk to them on the phone and not really gotten anywhere with this.

MovingForwards

If the claimant (pursuer) is Scottish and the debt was in Scotland then they are entitled to commence action in Scotland.

It's the two out of three rule of litigation:
Residence of pursuer
Residence of defender (defendant)
Where the act (debt or other reason for action) took place

Brushman

Thanks for that - it's as I thought. The lender is based in London and we're (both defendants) in Somerset!

sourcrates

You can still offer to settle the debt, the claim will not be heard by the court for 3/4 months, so judgement won`t be issued till then, and even if its a "forthwith" judgement, you can apply to the court for an installment order, to pay monthly, so re-issuing the papers in England is unnecessary.

WhenIam64

Irrespective of where everyone lives, was the loan agreement drawn up under Scots law or English law? I suspect it is the former but could you confirm?

Are they taking action against the individual or the individual plus the company?