Few questions regarding Small Claims Track

imamutant

Hi all,

A brief rundown of my situation:

I purchase something online back in December, the seller never sent the item and wouldn't respond to emails. Blocked me on social media when I messages asking about my item. After months of trying to get my money back I sent them a Before Claim Letter which they ignored - So I made a claim against them. The claim included the refund of the item, court fee and interest. The seller then quickly refunded the item amount, but not the court fee or interest. It's worth nothing the Before Claim Letter stated that there can be increased costs if claim is opened (I used the template from Citizens Advice). Then I had the option of keeping the claim open or closed, I chose to keep it open as they didn't pay the full claim amount. This escalated the claim to mediation. The defendant agreed to mediation, but they day before the agreed date the cancelled it. This then esclated the case to a hearing. At this point I just want it to end as its costing me so much more from taking time off work to deal with it.

I have received a notice of allocation to the small claims track hearing, stating I have to pay a trial fee of £59. If I don't I will be liable for the costs which the defendant has incurred.

My questions are:

1) How can I pay the trial fee? I can't find any information on how to pay online. The letter says to visit this link for info explaining how to pay, but the link doesn't actually say how to make the payment online?

2) I have already had to pay a court fee, and now paying the trial fee - If I win the case, can these be refunded/paid by the defendant? The costs adding up are worth more than the claim amount anyway so I don't really want to pay more.

3) If I dont pay, what could the costs be that I would have to pay to the defendant?

4) Finally, I'm unable to attend the hearing as I'm on a work trip - I am writing to the court to inform them of this, is there anything particular I should include in my letter? And what are the chances of me still winning if I'm not there?

Thank you!!

PHK

When you make the claim, you indicate any dates that you aren’t available. Did you indicate the work trip ? If not then you’ll need to apply for the case to be moved which will cost you. 

When you phone the court one of the options is to make a payment, you give as reference your case number. (You could go to the court office but are likely to have a long wait )

imamutant

PHK said:

When you make the claim, you indicate any dates that you aren’t available. Did you indicate the work trip ? If not then you’ll need to apply for the case to be moved which will cost you. 

When you phone the court one of the options is to make a payment, you give as reference your case number. (You could go to the court office but are likely to have a long wait )

I did indicate the days I was unavailable, but this trip recently came up. Are you able to help with my question number 2 on the original post? The claim is for like £50 or so, i didn't want for the claim to go to a hearing and all these fees and time off work is literally costing me hundreds if not thousands of pounds. It's not worth pursuing so I'm not sure if its worth me not paying the hearing fee, as I don't know how much fees I would have to pay the defendant. Seems whatever I do I have to pay loads of fees?