Small claims court - general advice please

Umkomaas

A plausible explanation of me not getting their WS is that I changed address from where the original LBC and claim form was sent. That being said I advised of the change of address and they acknowledged their records had been updated.

Almost all of this stuff is now done by email; if they're emailing the court, it's highly unlikely that they will have physically posted out anything to you - often claimant bundles can run up to 100 pages and no one there will have been looking forward to driving to a post office to post a tome of that size.  Do you have Mail Redirect set up following your house move?

Your physical address change won't have altered your email address - check your Junk/Spam folders. 

nosferatu1001

Did you confirm this with the C, or are you guessing?> 
YOU NEED SIGHT OF THEIR WS. 

firmaten

As I understand it they emailed the court in February which is around the time they would have to pay the trial fee. The lady from the court gave me the impression that an electronic submission of the the WS and defence was also sent around then (though something might have got lost in translation). She also checked if I was copied into it and I was not. My assumption was this was in addition to any WS the claimaint may have submitted to court previously to comply with the original order.

On the orignal order the date to send the WS was late December.

I've checked my junk and nothing in there. I do not have a mail redirect setup.

firmaten

@nosferatu1001 sorry are you referring to the claimant or the court?

Do you mean confirm that something has been sent?

nosferatu1001

C is always claimant
Yes, of course. You should have done this months ago when they were first late!
Any reason you havent done so? given this is their claim against you, and their evidence, having sight of it is critical.

firmaten

I just didn't think I needed to - my perhaps wrong assumption was if they did'nt comply with the order well that's their lookout.

nosferatu1001

Yes, but you dont know2 they didnt comply. All you know is you did not receive it. Unless you were checking your junk email every single day they can simply claim they emailed it, and tough you didnt receiveit - as an example. OIr they posted it, and iut wasnt delivered
Get on it now. You must know where their WS is and what happened to mean you didnt get it

Court isnt based on gotchas. Get stupid US dramas about court out of your head!

firmaten

Thanks @nosferatu1001

Right...I have contacted the claimant for this information, and they advised that they sent it to the new address.

However….

While I was awaiting a response from them, I’ve got in touch with my previous registered address and indeed it turns out to have been sent in the post there. So in fact they have actually sent the WS but to the wrong/old address despite being advised of the new address (unless they sent two copies to new/old address). So it would appear that either they are actually not 100% sure where they sent the details or they are deliberately misleading me.

So I’m wondering if I should now get back to the claimant with the above or just raise with the Judge?

nosferatu1001

I wouldwrite to the court and note that
- on X date you advised the claimant of your current address for service, namely new_address
- on Y date, some Z days after this, the claimant sent their Witness Statement and documents to old_address
- on Z date when you called / emailed / whatever (BE SPECIFIC), the claimants rep "name" claimed that the WS was sent to new_address
- the claimant is therefore in breach of the order of XXXX date by judge YYYY as they did not serve their WS on you and file with th e court. As trhe defendant you have been prejudiced as you now have littel time to prepare, and you note the claimant attempted to mislead the defendant into believing it was served correctly. As a serial litigant, they have no reasonable excuse for this breach.
- as the claimant has not applied for relief from sanction, and combined with their deliberate attempt to mislead the defendant, you ask that the court strikes out the claimants witness statement entirely. As this leaves the claimant unable to prove their claim you ask that the court dismisses the claim entirely as having no prospect of success, and awards you your costs for the claimants unreasonable behaviour as per your costs assessment and to prevent further waste of the courts valuable time

And file along side a costs assessment. Time is £19 per hour, no other figure, an dbreak it down to research x hours, write defence y hours, wrtite WS z hours, etc. SENSIBLE OBVIOUS BREAKDOWN THAT MAKES YOUR FIGURE BELIEVABLE

nosferatu1001

Are they sending you a new copy of the WS? Because UNTIL THEY DO, THEY REMAIN IN BREACH of the courts order