Small claims court - unserved claim form

Skag

I submitted a claim to SCC for a trader who took my money and never delivered.

The other day I've got an email from justice.gov.uk with the following:

Good morning

Your claim form is attached to this email. The claim form is ‘un-served’ – this means Royal Mail could not deliver it and it was returned to us.

The claim form is ‘served’ if you believe the address is correct.

 

If the Defendant’s address is correct

No further action is required in order to serve the claim form.

If the Defendant has not responded to your claim, you may proceed with the case in the usual way and request judgment through your online account.

And it goes on to say what I can do to correct the address etc.

I have found the address from Companies House, under his Ltd company name, but as it turns out that might be an invalid address.

Do I need to take further action? I mean, if the address doesn't exist anymore, I can't do anything more at this stage, right? I'm also pretty sure that he received the email from SCC when I submitted the claim.

user1977

Skag said:

I submitted a claim to SCC for a trader who took my money and never delivered.

The other day I've got an email from justice.gov.uk with the following:

Good morning

Your claim form is attached to this email. The claim form is ‘un-served’ – this means Royal Mail could not deliver it and it was returned to us.

The claim form is ‘served’ if you believe the address is correct.

 

If the Defendant’s address is correct

No further action is required in order to serve the claim form.

If the Defendant has not responded to your claim, you may proceed with the case in the usual way and request judgment through your online account.

I have found the address from Companies House, under his Ltd company name, but as it turns out that might be an invalid address.

This isn't very clear - is the limited company you're suing? If so, sending it to the (current) registered office is fine. But if you mean you're suing the trader as an individual, I'd be less certain about the registered office of a company linked to him being a suitable address for service.

Skag

user1977 said:

This isn't very clear - is the limited company you're suing? If so, sending it to the (current) registered office is fine. But if you mean you're suing the trader as an individual, I'd be less certain about the registered office of a company linked to him being a suitable address for service.

Yes, it's the limited company that I'm suing. And added the trader as the director.

user1977

Skag said:

user1977 said:

This isn't very clear - is the limited company you're suing? If so, sending it to the (current) registered office is fine. But if you mean you're suing the trader as an individual, I'd be less certain about the registered office of a company linked to him being a suitable address for service.

Yes, it's the limited company that I'm suing. And added the trader as the director.

You don't sue the director separately - if it's the company which owes you money, you only sue the company.

Skag

user1977 said:

Skag said:

user1977 said:

This isn't very clear - is the limited company you're suing? If so, sending it to the (current) registered office is fine. But if you mean you're suing the trader as an individual, I'd be less certain about the registered office of a company linked to him being a suitable address for service.

Yes, it's the limited company that I'm suing. And added the trader as the director.

You don't sue the director separately - if it's the company which owes you money, you only sue the company.

Correct, I had another look at the claim. It's just the company. I just mention the director's name in the timeline.

Skag

So, from what I gather, the current registered office is either wrong, doesn't exist, or something else, thus the notice hasn't been served. What happens in this case then from a court's perspective?

Alderbank

You can choose to go ahead, pay the court fees and you will probably get a judgement in absentia against that limited company at that address. If the company does not exist there is no-one for you to try to enforce that judgement against so it will be a worthless piece of paper.
If the company exists but you got their current address wrong and they find out about the judgement in the future they can apply for the judgement to be set aside.

Skag

Alderbank said:

You can choose to go ahead, pay the court fees and you will probably get a judgement in absentia against that limited company at that address. If the company does not exist there is no-one for you to try to enforce that judgement against so it will be a worthless piece of paper.
If the company exists but you got their current address wrong and they find out about the judgement in the future they can apply for the judgement to be set aside.

The company does exist, and it's registered in Companies House. The address is one acquired by the Companies House register.

It might be a case of the director had changed address and forgetting to update Companies House.

user1977

Skag said:

So, from what I gather, the current registered office is either wrong, doesn't exist, or something else, thus the notice hasn't been served. 

No, like they told you "The claim form is ‘served’ if you believe the address is correct."

And the address is correct - the company's registered office is whatever is currently registered with Companies House. Doesn't matter if nobody there is able or willing to receive mail, or the building has burnt down, or whatever. It's the address you need to use for service.

Of course, it means that in practice the company doesn't know about the claim (unless you've sent them details by some other method), which may mean they can apply for it to be set aside (if they actually want to bother defending it).

Alderbank

If the director was careless about updating the registered address and had nothing in place to ensure the company received official correspondence then an attempt to have the judgement set aside would be decided by the judge.

Manxman_in_exile

If you are making a claim against a limited company, the correct address to serve papers on them is at their registered office as listed at Companies House.  Full stop.

Skag said:

... I have found the address from Companies House, under his Ltd company name, but as it turns out that might be an invalid address...

I'm confused.  Apart from the email you've received from the court, have you any other reason to believe that the address you've used might "turn out" to be wrong?