Part payment received between issuing claim form and PoC

[jimbo1966]

Hello

I had a long running dispute with a company which owed me around £18,000 including interest. They said that £8,000 wasn't in dispute and I have this in writing, but that they would only pay it if I dropped my demand for the full amount. I said that if they weren't disputing the £8000, then they should at least pay that much. I also made an offer to settle, but they weren't interested.

I issued a claim via Moneyclaim online for £18,000 including interest. I ticked the box saying I would send full particulars within 14 days.

I received £8,000 from them the same day as I received the notice of issue from the court. It seems they paid this in reaction to my issuing the claim form. There was no covering letter, the money just appeared in my bank account. If it is important, I believe the money arrived the day before the "deemed" service date.

I am working on the Particulars of Claim now.

1) Should I write the Particulars to reflect the new balance owing - noting that I have received a payment after the claim form was issued? Is there any other procedure I should follow?
2) The balance owing (excluding court fee) is just under £10,000. Does this mean that it will now be allocated as a Small Claim, which I would very much prefer?* Or is it the originally claimed amount that determines allocation...

*I once sued somebody for £10,800. Despite this, relations were amicable and we both agreed the matter was simple and should go Small Claim. We both wrote on the allocation questionnaire that we thought small claim would be most appropriate and that the parties were agreed on this. But still it went Fast Track. I did wonder if anyone bothered to read the questionnaire.

Thank you.

[R0b]

Hi Jimbo1966,

Yes you should mention in your POC that the defendant has part-paid the amount being claimed and that you now seek to claim the remaining balance which is X. If you don't declare that, then you are misleading the court and may have an adverse effect on your claim i.e. recovery of costs.

You might be better off putting a heading at the beginning of your POC titled "Summary of claim" and then in a short paragraph or two summarise the dispute and then also add that the Defendant has part-paid the amount claimed on X date after the claim form was served and you are now only seeking to claim the remaining balance being Y. Apart from that heading, you set out your POC as you normally would in any other case.

As for whether or not the claim will be allocated to the small claims track depends on the type of claim. Certain claims don't usually get allocated to small claims track unless there is good reason for doing so. The court should read the allocation question and contents within it because that determines how and where it might be allocated to. It is usually best to explain in the questionnaire (with reference to the CPR or any case law if appropriate) why it shouldn't be allocated to a certain track.

CPR 26.8 explains the relevant factors as to how a case might be allocated to a certain track, including the complexity of the claim, amount of evidence involved and the type of remedy or financial value being claimed. If you wanted to, you could make use of a covering letter setting out in more detail the reasons why you think the claim should be allocated to the small claims track.

[jimbo1966]

Thank you Rob for your comprehensive reply. I followed your advice and started off with a simple summary of where the claim now stood and referenced the paragraph near the end where I had some detailed workings (which were also updated).

Something strange has happened now. I sent the PoC to both the court and the defendant. But after doing so, that same evening, I checked Moneyclaim online. Three lines were added. 1) That they (the Defendant) told the court of a change of address. 2) That a "bar" was put in place for them. 3) They have entered a defence.

I re-downloaded the Claim Form to check. Indeed, it does say "I will provide detailed particulars within 14 days of service of the claim form". I was well inside that (the deadline is 6th January).

They have written the Defence without seeing the PoCs - and these, I unknowingly sent to the wrong address.

I suppose the court will write to me with the new address and I could re-send them immediately to the new address. Any thoughts?

(I have not yet filed the N215 Certificate of Service. Also, I didn't get any evidence of posting - was miles from a post office at the time.)