The court issued a judgment that is wrong. Now it's asking me to pay a fee to set it aside.

astron4

I am a director of our Freehold Ltd. We hired a contractor to do some work for us and he partially delivered it. We paid him for the work done circa £4000, and then he asked for the full amount to be paid (circa £1000), even for the work he did not deliver, which of course we did not. He then issued a small claims court for the full amount of £5000.

When our Managing Agent forwarded us the claim, we immediately emailed the court and said that this claim was wrong for the aforementioned reasons, and provided invoices for proof. The court proceeded with issuing a judgment anyway, for the full amount.

We contacted the court and asked them whether they had received our email, to which they responded positively, and when we asked why the judge proceeded with the judgment anyway knowing it was on false ground, the operator said that he didn't know. He advised us to proceed with a form N244 to contact the court and request the judgment to be set aside.

We sent the form and they emailed us back saying that the fee for this is £275.

Now, we're asked to pay a fee to communicate to the court for a judgment that is on false grounds, for which we have contacted the court before the hearing but the court proceeded anyway.

What can we do about it? Can we somehow claim the money back from the defendant after the CCJ has been set aside, if there is proof that it was on false grounds in the first place?

sourcrates

When you respond to a court claim you have a certain period of time to acknowledge service, and lodge a defence to the claim.

Your defence should be submitted online or by post.

Sending an email to the court would not constitute a defence, and would not stop a CCJ being granted by default.

The court assumed that you did not follow protocol, and respond to the claim, so acted accordingly.

So they are quite correct in insisting the set aside fee be paid, you would have to counter claim against the claimant to recover your money.

astron4

sourcrates said:

When you respond to a court claim you have a certain period of time to acknowledge service, and lodge a defence to the claim.

Your defence should be submitted online or by post.

Sending an email to the court would not constitute a defence, and would not stop a CCJ being granted by default.

The court assumed that you did not follow protocol, and respond to the claim, so acted accordingly.

So they are quite correct in insisting the set aside fee be paid, you would have to counter claim against the claimant to recover your money.

I get it, however as they have responded now, they could have responded before to say that "if you want to defend against XYZ, you need to submit online, or by post", what you said really.

Hoenir

When you received the county court claim form did you read the full pack properly?  Contained everything required to dispute or issue a counterclaim. 

sourcrates

astron4 said:

sourcrates said:

When you respond to a court claim you have a certain period of time to acknowledge service, and lodge a defence to the claim.

Your defence should be submitted online or by post.

Sending an email to the court would not constitute a defence, and would not stop a CCJ being granted by default.

The court assumed that you did not follow protocol, and respond to the claim, so acted accordingly.

So they are quite correct in insisting the set aside fee be paid, you would have to counter claim against the claimant to recover your money.

I get it, however as they have responded now, they could have responded before to say that "if you want to defend against XYZ, you need to submit online, or by post", what you said really.

The court is there to decide guilt or innocence, based on the evidence submitted, nothing more.

Full instructions on how to proceed accompany every claim pack, the courts remit does not include rectifying your mistakes, that`s why we have solicitors and the legal profession, to make sure things are correctly submitted.

In the eyes of the court you failed to defend the claim, as you did not return the defence form, with matters of a legal nature, following instruction is paramount, no defence equals a CCJ granted by default.

astron4

Hoenir said:

When you received the county court claim form did you read the full pack properly?  Contained everything required to dispute or issue a counterclaim. 

No, this went to our Managing Agent I believe, who just forwarded us the notice in an email.

BadDebtor

astron4 said:

I am a director of our Freehold Ltd. We hired a contractor to do some work for us and he partially delivered it. We paid him for the work done circa £4000, and then he asked for the full amount to be paid (circa £1000), even for the work he did not deliver, which of course we did not. He then issued a small claims court for the full amount of £5000.

When our Managing Agent forwarded us the claim, we immediately emailed the court and said that this claim was wrong for the aforementioned reasons, and provided invoices for proof. The court proceeded with issuing a judgment anyway, for the full amount.

We contacted the court and asked them whether they had received our email, to which they responded positively, and when we asked why the judge proceeded with the judgment anyway knowing it was on false ground, the operator said that he didn't know. He advised us to proceed with a form N244 to contact the court and request the judgment to be set aside.

We sent the form and they emailed us back saying that the fee for this is £275.

Now, we're asked to pay a fee to communicate to the court for a judgment that is on false grounds, for which we have contacted the court before the hearing but the court proceeded anyway.

What can we do about it? Can we somehow claim the money back from the defendant after the CCJ has been set aside, if there is proof that it was on false grounds in the first place?

I feel your pain and am not casting blame but for the sake of others let me explain why this happened.

Our Courts are losing staff and are at breaking level, this means that there is not the flexibility there used to be.  In fact they have such a high workload that they almost look for a reason to deal with cases as rapidly as possible to get rid of the caseload.  

Most calls now go to central admin centres who are all told to say "we are unable to give legal advice and are not trained to do so".

IT DOES NOT OPERATE BY EMAIL, you can add evidence by email (within limits) but you don't get to email a decision maker (Judge) and most staff will just ignore an email that does not fit in with the process.

There are Civil Procedure Rules, these govern every process and procedure, if you fail to follow them then things don't go your way.

From what you have said the failure seems to be either the Agent did not send you every page or you got the paperwork and failed to follow the instructions on how to challenge the claim.

If they use MCOL then you would not only have had these papers but also be given details of how to file a Defence online.

If memory serves, any Defence on Part 8 track needs to be filed within 14 days, while the Part 7 track (small claims under £10,000) allows 28 days.

If you can show the Claimant is culpable then you can claim the fee in the very restricted fixed costs that are allowed in small claims.

A Defence must provide a Witness Statement, every paragraph in that should have evidence of what you allege the Claimant did or said or didn't do.  You can't prove a negative but dialogue between the parties can if the evidence is secure.

For example you can screenshot key WhatsApp messages and export the WhatApp chat, the export should remain with no deletions but can be tidied up in Excel to make it easier to read.

Your Defence is your one shot to dispute this before any hearing should there be one, but the Claimant gets to file a response to your Defence.

So make sure your Statement follows is chronological series of events, then where necessary counter every allegation made by the Claimant.

Do not make it too long, you just want the key facts,

Before appointing them you gave your requirements in writing 

They responded agreeing a price and a schedule of works

He failed to carry out the works so you refused to pay.

The parties hit an impass and you had to employ the services of another contractor to complete or start the job again.

You can ask the Court for permission to not only set aside the Judgement but to file a Counterclaim, this would be for the cost you incurred using another contractor to put matters right. it could also add the delay in rent received as a direct result of the claimant's failure to adhere to the contract and if the work was not of good quality then you could add that the work they did do had to be taken down and done properly.

Do not go on about the Court screwing up, they did their job, instead explain you did not receive the paperwork because it was not served upon you at your home, rather at a property that was being renovated.  You could mention (if it is the truth) that the Claimant did not provide the Court with your phone number or email either, so it seems they made every attempt to frustrate justice.

Another ground for your Defence is that the Claimant failed to send you a LETTER BEFORE ACTION, this must be served giving 14 days clear notice of intention to file a claim.

This is part the the

Objectives of pre-action conduct and protocols

3. Before commencing proceedings, the court will expect the parties to have exchanged sufficient information to

(a) understand each other’s position;

(b) make decisions about how to proceed;

(c) try to settle the issues without proceedings;

(d) consider a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement;

(e) support the efficient management of those proceedings; and

(f) reduce the costs of resolving the dispute.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/pd_pre-action_conduct#3.1

So in this part you say that the Claimant made no attempt to help you understand their position, they did not give a reason for failing to complete the works according to the contract, they said nothing.

Then because they failed to give any reason for breaching the contract you could not make decisions on how to proceed, as a rule you avoid confrontation, you had already suffered losses due to the failure to complete the project and as far as you knew matters were stalled.

The Claimant failed to try to settle the issues without proceedings, they did not send any letter before action, nor did they engage with me.  All they did was send an invoice for the whole contract which they had failed to complete. (WhatApp message on the 11th October 2023 (Page 8 in the bundle).  

The Claimant has made no attempt to resolve the matter through any form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement.

The claimant has increased the costs of resolving the dispute by filing their claim improperly and not providing the Court with our address, phone number, email address, if they allege that they did not have our address it would only have cost them £3 to do a Land Registry search on the property to obtain it.

Remember to put in your application what you want the Court to do on cost of the application, either ask them to award you partial costs just for the Application to set aside the Judgement because the Claimant is culpable or ask that the Judge orders that costs to date are reserved, to be heard when the matter is reheard.  If the Judge is silent on the costs the Judge that hears the claim and your Counterclaim will decide the costs, if the Judge says costs are not reserved then you can't claim them later.

If you do not take a contractor to Court yourself it can look as if you are culpable, so put something in like "We fully explained to the Claimant why we were not paying and the only reason we did not take legal action against them is because we have been extremely busy trying to fix the mess they made."

If the Judge agrees the first step will be to vacate the Judgement, the process will then start again IF you issue a Counterclaim, otherwise you will have included your Defence with the claim and they can determine the case.

It is a mark of disrespect to the Court if you fail to file, you can use the excuses above.

The lesson for others is to always take any threat to go to Court seriously and read the notes that are referred to in any claim as well as the other pages included.  You also need to acknowledge any Court claim within 14 days.

doodling

Hi,

astron4 said:

Hoenir said:

When you received the county court claim form did you read the full pack properly?  Contained everything required to dispute or issue a counterclaim. 

No, this went to our Managing Agent I believe, who just forwarded us the notice in an email.

Then unfortunately it sounds like your agent either didn't follow your instructions to forward all important information to you, or wasn't adequately instructed.

The court is not responsible for the adequacy of your internal administration and will expect you to follow the correct procedure; emailing your defence is not the correct procedure and whilst sometimes court staff are helpful and point out errors, they have no obligation to be.

It looks like the £275 is due either from your agent for not following your instructions or from yourself for failing to instruct your agent of the importance of providing you with everything pertaining to legal action.