Options after county court judgment?

goldlemontree

Hi all, just needing some advice while I am trying to claim back money from a business I hired the services of during a vulnerable time in my life in June this year. By August it was clear they were not going to deliver what they had promised, and were only replying to my emails sporadically. I paid them about £600, and although it isn't a huge amount of money it is significant for the fact I have nothing to show for it at the end of it, and they have made no effort since to try and complete the service. I opened a small claim online and have received a letter saying they had until Oct to reply to the claim, but I also have an email saying it has been 'un-served', but to ignore if I am confident it is correct. So I'm a little confused if this means it has been served or not if I have given them the only address I know the business uses, so I am ignoring at the moment. Apparently you can't follow this up online either as any further correspondence will be by post. The defendant hasn't replied to any of it, just wondering if anyone has dealt with this before and any ideas what to do next?

eskbanker

goldlemontree said:

...I have given them the only address I know the business uses...

Is that the registered address shown on their Companies House listing (assuming it's a limited company)?

A_Geordie

The claim form being returned 'un-served' is likely to mean that either Royal Mail could not deliver to that address because the defendant's address you entered into Money Claims Online was incorrect or that someone at that address has refused to accept the claim form (could be a a number of reasons e.g. new business refused to accept the claim form, defendant refused to accept it or argued the business no longer operates there, or maybe some other reason) and RM have since returned it back to the court.

The civil procedure rules dictate that a claim form will be validly served (even if claim form is refused delivery) if you have complied with the rules on serving the claim form. For limited companies, partnerships or coroporations this would normally be their registered office address or a place of business that has a connection to the claim. Sole traders will be their usual or last known principal place of business.

If you are certain you have met this requirement and the address is valid and correct and the defendant didn't tell you to send it to another address for legal proceedings, then the court is telling you that if they don't respond by the required period which is 19 days  (claim form is deemed to be served on someone 5 days after issue, then they have 14 days to respond) from the date of the claim form being issued, then you can request judgment in default.

If you got something wrong, then you should follow the amendment process and paying the fee because if you go for default judgment, the defendant could make an application to set aside the judgment if you were found not to have followed the correct procedures by sending it to the correct address, so the claim form will not have been validly served on the defendant.

Evidence of the address such as invoices, website details or similar will likely be sufficient for you to rely on as the address for serving court documents.