Settlement before Small Claims and afterwards

cornflower88

We hired a company to undertake some work of our house. Their work was far from the standard without reasonable care and skills and totally different from their marketing materials.

We had to file the Small Claims court. After mediation and presenting the expert witness report to the defendant, they immediately offered to pay us the full amount of our claim just before the court hearing. We did not sign or promise anything with this company to receive the refund.

This company is registered with Which? Trusted Traders, Checkatrade, etc. We would like to warn other consumers by leaving some reviews on each site.

In order not to cause a legal problem, what are the things we shouldn’t mention online? Are we allowed to write about our Small Claims court process against this company?

We look forward to some advice.

Jenni_D

This isn't a legal help forum, so any responses will merely be opinions which may or may not be worth the electrons used for displaying them.

If you want legal advice, try a solicitor or perhaps Legal Beagles.

Lomast

To be honest I would just forget about it and move on, negative reviews are rarely effective and places like check a trade and similar are groups that members pay to be on so negative reviews are routinely removed

Sandtree

An agreement is an agreement irrespective of if its signed etc or not, the only difference is that verbal agreements are harder to prove what was agreed exactly. So...
1) Did you agree anything like a non-disclosure?
2) Was there any comment on the basis of which payment was made? eg a without-prejudice or goodwill basis?

Ultimately, you are legally free to express you opinion. They are equally entitled to sue you for libel if they feel that you are spreading lies about them. The court (High Court as small claims cannot deal with libel most the time) would decide if you were being libellous or simply telling the truth.

Clearly if you agreed to not discuss it then that creates more problems for you even if you are being purely factual.
If payment was made without prejudice or on a goodwill basis then you'd be highly sensible to avoid any reference to winning the case (it didn't go to court) or them accepting it was a sub par job etc (many without prejudice settlements are made on the basis of economics, when costs cannot be recovered in small claims its cheaper to settle the claim than to pay a barrister to defend it)

cornflower88

Sandtree said:

An agreement is an agreement irrespective of if its signed etc or not, the only difference is that verbal agreements are harder to prove what was agreed exactly. So...
1) Did you agree anything like a non-disclosure?
2) Was there any comment on the basis of which payment was made? eg a without-prejudice or goodwill basis?

Ultimately, you are legally free to express you opinion. They are equally entitled to sue you for libel if they feel that you are spreading lies about them. The court (High Court as small claims cannot deal with libel most the time) would decide if you were being libellous or simply telling the truth.

Clearly if you agreed to not discuss it then that creates more problems for you even if you are being purely factual.
If payment was made without prejudice or on a goodwill basis then you'd be highly sensible to avoid any reference to winning the case (it didn't go to court) or them accepting it was a sub par job etc (many without prejudice settlements are made on the basis of economics, when costs cannot be recovered in small claims its cheaper to settle the claim than to pay a barrister to defend it)

Everyone, thank you so much for your kindness and helpful advice.

First of all, we were fortunate that our case was resolved. This company has been reported to Trading Standards.

It's clear that this company will continue to do the same things to other consumers, and it's sad that we can't do anything about it.

JamoLew

As long as any feedback is truthful and factual (and you can prove it) - then you have nothing to worry about in that respect

I suspect they want to settle out of court so that there isnt a proven court case against them on record