Without Prejudice offer rejected, then accepted...

[Lizmontague]

Hi all,

Taking a ticketing company to Court. A Small Claims hearing is set for July. I made an offer to settle the matter for £550. They rejected this. I emailed them back and told them offer was therefore void.

Two days later, after I spent five hours putting together evidence, they emailed me to state that they changed their mind and they accepted the offer.

I told them no. I told them I had spent five hours on putting together evidence, and that I would not charge them for my time at the LIP rate of £19 per hour, i.e. lost earnings.

So I asked for £650.

All these offers are without prejudice save as to costs.

They have emailed me back and told me they feel £550 is fair and I will be held to this offer at trial, as I made the offer and they accepted it.

Anyone have advice on this please?

[R0b]

You wont be held to that offer because they rejected it - you didnt even need to tell them the offer was void because once rejected the offer becomes a nullity automatically. They cannot then accept a rejected offer as that would be treated as a fresh offer and you will only be held to it if you you agreed.

I think it's fair for you to seek a slightly higher amou lnt and you could argue that their rejection of the offer only to come back and accept it 2 days later was unreasonable conduct and because of that, you incurred further unnecessary time and resources in preparing for your hearing.

Sounds like scare tactics to me.

[Lizmontague]

Thank you.

[Lizmontague]

Can I ask - this company I am taking on literally has NO CASE. Seriously. I am completely covered by their terms and conditions and they are crazy to be even fighting this claim.

I think that there must be someone in their back office who thinks I don't want to attend the hearing.

if you were of the opinion that they were trying to defend an utterly indefensible case, and you envisioned spending another fifteen hours preparing for trial, and then the actual hours on the day, how would you seek to recover your time? i.e. lost earnings? I heard there is a precedent for seeking this recompense.

Application beforehand? Or just wait until you've hammered them at trial and then request it when costs are considered?

[Lizmontague]

Anyone?

[MIKE770]

it is the weekend wait response

[R0b]

Can I ask - this company I am taking on literally has NO CASE. Seriously. I am completely covered by their terms and conditions and they are crazy to be even fighting this claim.

I think that there must be someone in their back office who thinks I don't want to attend the hearing.

if you were of the opinion that they were trying to defend an utterly indefensible case, and you envisioned spending another fifteen hours preparing for trial, and then the actual hours on the day, how would you seek to recover your time? i.e. lost earnings? I heard there is a precedent for seeking this recompense.

Application beforehand? Or just wait until you've hammered them at trial and then request it when costs are considered?

If you think that they have a hopeless case then you can ask for your costs incurred at the end of the hearing - given that the trial date is in July, any application might end up getting heard at the same time as your hearing so you may have wasted £255 in filing one.

Unreasonable conduct is difficult to argue in small claims cases so you'll need to explain why you are asking for additional costs. Certainly, you can say that the defendant was unreasonable by refusing to accept the original offer only to come back a few days later and want to accept it which in the meantime has caused you to spend unnecessary time preparing your case. Add that to you thinking their case is hopeless with reasons why, the court should consider awarding costs for unreasonable conduct.

The current rate for litigants in person is £19 per hour unless you can prove your financial losses (usually this applies to those self employed) and you would usually send the court and the other side a schedule of costs 48 hours before the hearing. If sending by email, you need to make sure the subject line has the date and time of the hearing together with your case number otherwise the court may not react fast enough to put it on the court file.

I've attached an example Schedule of Costs and some of the type of costs you could seek to claim. Do be realistic about the time spent on each and don't try to exaggerate because the judge will see through it. In terms of entering the number of hours, you should ideally try to do it in increments of 0.5 for ease of calculation.

[Lizmontague]

Thank you.