Not informed of court date, no right to appeal decision.

[peggm01]

I am asking this question on behalf of my dad, he had a court case against a neighbour. However, his solicitor did not inform him of court dates, not once, not twice but three times. On this third time the court has obviously continued with the case without my dad or his representative been present and has resulted in him losing the case and costs and various things has been awarded to the neighbour. However, the letter he has received states he has no right to appeal.

Surely this is not the case, we have raised a case with the legal ombudsman against his solicitor, but surely it is not right that he has no right to appeal, considering my dad was not notified of any court dates etc. Is he not able to apply to get the decision set aside, or is this not possible because he has no right to appeal.

Any advice, much appreciated.

[R0b]

Hello,

First of all, what has the solicitor's response been to the failure to notify you of the 3 court dates?

Are you able to upload a copy of the letter with the personal information redacted so we can see what the letter says? Assuming this is a county court claim on the small claims track and there has been no previous appeal on the decision, I do not believe the county court has the power to refuse any right of appeal. I would be surprised if the court letter actually states that so it's important to see the wording because a lot of people make assumptions on what they think it says rather than what it actually says.

As a general point in legal proceedings, if you lose your claim then you have two opportunities to appeal. You either make an oral application on at the hearing itself as to why an appeal should be granted but if that doesn't happen or appeal is refused by the judge, you can then make a written request for permission to appeal. The grounds for appeal are very limited and I am not entirely sure whether the fact your solicitor may have been negligent are grounds for overturning the appeal - certainly that argument on its own I think won't stand as much as the court might have sympathy with the situation you are in, the right balance has to be struck between your right to have your case heard and finality of the case. If this was the first instance where a court date has been missed perhaps you could have a point, but 3 missed court dates would be concerning and not to mention the court would have to schedule a new hearing where time and resources are already scarce.

Sometimes the decisions that courts make are unfair but as I said they have to strike a balance as it's not just about your father but the neighbour too. If your father doesn't want to go down the appeal route, then the Legal Ombudsman would be the way forward, I think they have a cap of compensation that is awarded at £50k and if you accept their decision, you wont be able to sue any difference by going to court.

Alternatively, you could seek professional advice and instruct a professional negligence lawyer to take legal action against your current solicitor, possibly on a no-win no fee basis or some kind of damages based agreement where they take a cut of the compensation awarded. However, these options are only as good as the solicitor can afford to pay.

Solicitors are required to have professional indemnity insurance for these kinds of issues which is a minimum level of £2million. If it turns out the solicitor/law firm doesn't have insurance, you can possibly look at the Solicitor's Regulation Authority discretionary compensation fund for a payout if you meet the eligibility criteria.

[islandgirl]

civil or criminal case? Was there a problem with the home address at all (recent move etc)?

[peggm01]

Civil case, also I will try and get some correspondence to look at Rob and will update the thread