Acknowledge of Service without a Particulars of Claim - CCMCC

[Ssssssssss]

I would fill two forms, attach them together and cross out the counter claim fee section on one of them. Send a cover letter explaining that it's one claim and one counter claim requiring one fee.

OK thats a great idea. I'll do exactly that. Thank you !

I had just one other question and that is that we have gathered information on the claimants previous bathroom company that he liquidated last year. We found that out of 12 reviews online, 11 were only 1 star and also that the company itself has 2 previous CCJ's.

If we needed to use this information in the future would i need to "declare" it so to speak on the defence form. I hadnt added it just yet because i thought it might give the guy a chance to find a way to delete the online stuff or something. Or can i just use it when they ask for witness statements or something and not worry about writing anything about it now?

[jaguarsuk]

OK thats a great idea. I'll do exactly that. Thank you !

I had just one other question and that is that we have gathered information on the claimants previous bathroom company that he liquidated last year. We found that out of 12 reviews online, 11 were only 1 star and also that the company itself has 2 previous CCJ's.

If we needed to use this information in the future would i need to "declare" it so to speak on the defence form. I hadnt added it just yet because i thought it might give the guy a chance to find a way to delete the online stuff or something. Or can i just use it when they ask for witness statements or something and not worry about writing anything about it now?

No you can include it in the witness statement when it comes to that later.

[Ssssssssss]

No you can include it in the witness statement when it comes to that later.

OK the latest in the saga of incompetence by the claimant and the ccmcc is :-

They sent us a letter today saying that filing of the POC with them was on the 17th September. They however didnt bother to forward it on to us and nor did the claimant.

We only received it on the 26th September !!!

So our deadline should have been 24th October and not 15thh October (28 days from 17th September).

I am right to try and force them to correct this ? And how do i force them ? Shouldnt the claimant have told them to forward it to us or shouldnt they have known themselves

[jaguarsuk]

OK the latest in the saga of incompetence by the claimant and the ccmcc is :-

They sent us a letter today saying that filing of the POC with them was on the 17th September. They however didnt bother to forward it on to us and nor did the claimant.

We only received it on the 26th September !!!

So our deadline should have been 24th October and not 15thh October (28 days from 17th September).

I am right to try and force them to correct this ? And how do i force them ? Shouldnt the claimant have told them to forward it to us or shouldnt they have known themselves

The claimant himself should have served you with them, so I think you should contact them to request how you get an extension or else you will have to file the defence by the date the court directs. Ask them what they are setting as you deadline and to confirm that via email.

[Ssssssssss]

The claimant himself should have served you with them, so I think you should contact them to request how you get an extension or else you will have to file the defence by the date the court directs. Ask them what they are setting as you deadline and to confirm that via email.

OK - I will do. What a mess.

Ive insisted the court team call me as emails to them take 5 days to process and seem to get lost in their systems. So i've had to push them to call me back.

If worse comes to worse, i could serve the defence by friday and hopefully it will get there by monday and then write in the covering letter what has happened i guess.

[Ssssssssss]

The claimant himself should have served you with them, so I think you should contact them to request how you get an extension or else you will have to file the defence by the date the court directs. Ask them what they are setting as you deadline and to confirm that via email.

OK - so i've just managed to get this sorted over the phone and to anyone reading this and having to deal with CCMCC, if you have urgent issues i would phone and when you get nowhere with the call centre people, just insist on getting a call back from the court team. You will have to push heavily and tell them that the court needs to decide ( if that is indeed what needs to happen ). It seems to be the only way to get something sorted out quickly. Email takes 5 days and so cant be relied upon if things are urgent for you.

Jaguarsuk, i have managed to get the court to come back and they have said because the claimant didnt inform them whether he had filed the POC or not, they can only go by the date they sent it to me so they have effectively given us 14 days from 11th October to file another AOS (to get a further 28 days) or the defence.

[jaguarsuk]

OK - so i've just managed to get this sorted over the phone and to anyone reading this and having to deal with CCMCC, if you have urgent issues i would phone and when you get nowhere with the call centre people, just insist on getting a call back from the court team. You will have to push heavily and tell them that the court needs to decide ( if that is indeed what needs to happen ). It seems to be the only way to get something sorted out quickly. Email takes 5 days and so cant be relied upon if things are urgent for you.

Jaguarsuk, i have managed to get the court to come back and they have said because the claimant didnt inform them whether he had filed the POC or not, they can only go by the date they sent it to me so they have effectively given us 14 days from 11th October to file another AOS (to get a further 28 days) or the defence.

New deadline is 4pm 8th November 2018 with AOS or 25th October 2018 without it.

The claimant has 7 days to respond to the 31.14, so if he's not replied after 10 you could include that in the defence and file without further Acknowledging Service, but I would still file one ASAP to protect your position.

If he doesn't respond it doesn't mean you still can't files after 10 or 15 days from now, but this just gives you a protected cushion.

[Ssssssssss]

New deadline is 4pm 8th November 2018 with AOS or 25th October 2018 without it.

The claimant has 7 days to respond to the 31.14, so if he's not replied after 10 you could include that in the defence and file without further Acknowledging Service, but I would still file one ASAP to protect your position.

If he doesn't respond it doesn't mean you still can't files after 10 or 15 days from now, but this just gives you a protected cushion.

Ok we will file AOS. Hopefully letter from the court arrives tomorrow to confirm new dates in writing.

if I do a cpr 31.14 request, I saw that I can only ask for documents he has mentioned in his statement of case. We have copies of these anyway but is it worth making a request anyway just in case he tries to add anything to them without our knowledge ? Or am I worrying too much about it?

The documents I don't have copy of eg receipts etc, I guess I can't ask for them as he hasn't mentioned them.

[jaguarsuk]

Ok we will file AOS. Hopefully letter from the court arrives tomorrow to confirm new dates in writing.

if I do a cpr 31.14 request, I saw that I can only ask for documents he has mentioned in his statement of case. We have copies of these anyway but is it worth making a request anyway just in case he tries to add anything to them without our knowledge ? Or am I worrying too much about it?

The documents I don't have copy of eg receipts etc, I guess I can't ask for them as he hasn't mentioned them.

I wasn't aware you already had copies, if that's the case you don't need to bother and may as well file.

[Ssssssssss]

Hello, Thanks so far for all the help you have given. I wouldn't have managed without it.

We have finally received our directions questionnaire which thankfully is for the small claims track at this stage.

It seems fairly straightforward to fill out but i just had a couple of questions in regards to expert evidence, witnesses and me.

1. Expert Evidence. We have a basic report from someone however it is not complete and we are having trouble getting him to write down his qualifications. We didn't pay for it as he said that once we engage him for the building work, he will add a small amount to that bill if necessary. Given this might well be struck out as expert evidence for the reasons above, should we use it just as a disclosure of correspondence from a builder and then instead state another name and request for an expert report in the questionnaire e.g. an official section 35 report to be made by the tile association for example? Not sure how to treat what we already have versus what the court might require. We aren't even sure that an expert is really required but are worried that the other side would request one so we should too ?

2. In terms of witnesses,

2a) can i assume my mum, my dad (they are both the defendants), me are definitely witnesses ?

2b) We have someone who was in the house when the claimant came to do their own inspection and his statement would only state that he was there and it lasted 20 minutes - I doubt he would come to court but is he then classed as a witness ??

2c) We have an old client of the claimant who has forwarded me letters of the poor work the claimant did for her. I also have my correspondence with her too. Does she count as a witness ? She again would not be willing to come to court but she did say she would be willing to write a statement of some kind.

Any help greatly received. Not sure who else we should class as witnesses ? The builders who gave us quotes are unlikely to want to attend court or be witnesses but we have their quotes. We also have evidence via email from Wickes and a manufacturer....should they be classed as witnesses too or should i just refer to their correspondence ?

[jaguarsuk]

For completion of the N180 please see the link in my signature below, it may be helpful.

in answer to your specific questions:

1. Personally I would add his communications into your witness statement as a way of entering his thoughts into evidence. Don’t worry about whether they request an expert, small claims track is on the balance of probabilities (what’s most likely to have happened) and so you don’t need his evidence to be in the form of an expert necessarily.

2. For the purpose of the form only those going to court are witnesses. The others you mention, don’t get them to submit a witness statement and instead ask them to write a letter to you detailing their involvement. You can then introduce these in your witness statement, so their points are made and they are not obliged to attend.

[Ssssssssss]

For completion of the N180 please see the link in my signature below, it may be helpful.

in answer to your specific questions:

1. Personally I would add his communications into your witness statement as a way of entering his thoughts into evidence. Don’t worry about whether they request an expert, small claims track is on the balance of probabilities (what’s most likely to have happened) and so you don’t need his evidence to be in the form of an expert necessarily.

2. For the purpose of the form only those going to court are witnesses. The others you mention, don’t get them to submit a witness statement and instead ask them to write a letter to you detailing their involvement. You can then introduce these in your witness statement, so their points are made and they are not obliged to attend.

Thank you jaguarsuk (once again). We are just about to send our forms off tomorrow and have used your instructions so thank you hugely for that and your views on witnesses and experts. It completely makes sense to do it as you've described.

[Ssssssssss]

Hello. We just received a copy of the allocation questionnaire that the claimant filed and it doesn't contain a defence to our counterclaim in it.

I've just noticed that when we received our own allocation questionnaires from the court it said on them "this is now a defended claim. The defendant has filed a defence a copy of which is enclosed". This order doesn't seem to mention our counterclaim. Is this something we should be worried about ?

I did phone the court who said it looked like the counterclaim had been registered ok in their systems so i'm not sure what has happened now. Shouldn't the allocation questionnaire have said "this is now a defended claim and counterclaim has been filed ??" Also our defence is one document and says "defence and counterclaim" on it so i'm not sure how they could make a mistake.

Also, should we do anything given we haven't received a copy of a defence to counterclaim with the allocation questionnaire the claimant sent us? Obviously the court won't process anything sent to them for another few days as they have their 4 day backlog.

[jaguarsuk]

They have 14 days from the date they have been served the defence and counterclaim (14 days from 2 days after the date MCOL says the DQ was sent to them) to reply to it.

They must file and serve it on all parties (you) as well as the court.

if they do not then you should seek summary judgement of the counterclaim.

[Ssssssssss]

They have 14 days from the date they have been served the defence and counterclaim (14 days from 2 days after the date MCOL says the DQ was sent to them) to reply to it.

They must file and serve it on all parties (you) as well as the court.

if they do not then you should seek summary judgement of the counterclaim.

Thanks, I'll get the form to do this and double check with the court if they received anything. Are there any negative consequences for us of applying for a default judgement ? I'm sure they will try and say it isn't valid.