What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

[Little-Nancy]

Hi ~

From what I can gather, if I was to pursue someone through the small claims court and was awarded a payment from my opponent, there is no way that the court can actually ensure that this payment is made.
So what exactly is the purpose of taking a case through this process (is it just an expensive way of 'being proved right'?)

I've recently had work done by a builder which involved replacing a ceiling. Unfortunately the new ceiling is 'sagging'. I've asked the builder to repair it, and when this didn't happen I sent the letter quoting the 1982 Sale of Goods and Services Act (as advised by the CAB). There was still no response from the builder so I said I would have to apply to the small claims court to have my payment to him refunded so that I could hire someone else to carry out the remedial work.
His response was that he'd been through the small claims process several times previously, but simply ignored the fact that he had been told to reimburse the customers ... and the customers had no way of enforcing this re-payment.

It all seems very odd ... is the small claims court REALLY that pointless?

[Amethyst]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

No it isn't. Once you have judgment against the builder you can send in bailiffs, or get an attachment of earnings.

This is an article in the Guardian

You can ask the court for any of the following:

A warrant of execution This gives court bailiffs the authority to seize goods from the defendant's home or business to sell at auction. There is a fee to pay (you will need form N323), which will be added to what the defendant already owes.

What happens is that the bailiffs usually send the defendant a letter saying he or she must pay up within seven days. If they don't, the bailiffs will call at the address you gave. Be careful if the address is a company's "registered office" – there may be nothing there.

Almost 300,000 warrants of execution were issued in the civil courts during 2008 but, overall, creditors got back only 18% of what they were owed. Where creditors specify the correct address, this success rate soars to 83%. Bailiffs can only take goods that belong to the defendant or are jointly owned, and they can't take items he or she needs for their job or business.

If the court heavies return empty-handed, and you are sure the defendant lives at the address or you have tracked down another address, you can use another form, N445, to ask the court to reissue the warrant (naturally, there is a fee to pay for this).

The defendant has the right to ask for the warrant to be "suspended" – for example, if they are making an offer of payment. If you don't agree to the warrant being suspended, you and they will be told when to come to court.

An attachment of earnings order You send this to the defendant's employer. It tells them to deduct a certain amount from the person's earnings and send it to a collection office. This money is then sent to you. Again there is a fee to pay (you need form N337), which will be added to what the defendant already owes.

The court will tell the defendant either to pay all the money owed or to fill in a form giving information about their income and outgoings, called a "statement of means". If the defendant doesn't send back the form, the court will try to contact him or her; it could even issue an arrest warrant. A court officer will decide how much the defendant can afford to pay. If they are on a low wage the courts service says "it may not be possible to make an attachment of earnings order".

You don't have to accept the officer's decision; you can ask for a judge to rule on the matter by filling out form N244, though you may have to pay a fee.

The defendant can ask for the order to be suspended if they don't want the court to contact their workplace, and if the court agrees, it will tell the individual to make regular payments direct to you. An order can't be made if the defendant is unemployed or self-employed; a firm or limited company; in the army, navy or air force; or a merchant seaman. In 2008, 74,000 applications were made for such an order.

A third party debt order This is an order that freezes money held in the defendant's bank account. The cash you are owed is then paid to you from the account. You apply through form N349 (and yes, there's another fee) and if the judge is happy, he or she will make an interim third party debt order. And to stop the defendant simply withdrawing their money from their account, he or she won't get a copy of the order until the bank has frozen their account.

The timing of your application is crucial. If the court order is received a couple of days before the defendant's salary goes into their account, the "freeze" won't apply to this money – only to what's there at that time.

The defendant could also throw a spanner in the works by applying for a "hardship payment order" on the grounds that they can't meet day-to-day living costs as a result of their cash being frozen. Just 8,000 applications were made for third party debt orders in 2008 – 17% more than in 2007.

A charging order This stops the defendant selling assets, such as their house or investments, without paying what is owed to you. The order puts a "charge" on the defendant's assets. But you won't get your money until they sell (though in some cases you may be able to ask the court for an order to force a sale – called an "order for sale").

"The charging order will not normally get you your money immediately, but it may safeguard your money for the future," says the courts service. You can apply by filling in form N379 any time after you have obtained judgment. The application will be decided by a judge. There may be a fee, but this can be recovered from the defendant if your application is successful.

In 2008, 165,000 applications were made for charging orders – 25% more than in 2007.

Bankruptcy If the amount you are owed is more than £750, you can also apply to make the defendant bankrupt using a "bankruptcy petition". The court can make a bankruptcy order against someone who fails to pay their debts. But this may involve a lot of legwork and can be expensive (a £600 deposit that will often be refunded from the assets, £190 court fee, plus costs for instructing a solicitor).

[Little-Nancy]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Gosh, thanks ever so much Amethyst - that's EXCELLENT news! I will definitely proceed with my case if he fails to put things right within the next couple of weeks.
That has really taken a weight off my mind as I had no idea how I would find enough funds to get the repair done by someone else!
(Actually, the builder is rather a bully - so he's obviously just trying to convince me that legal action is pointless).

And I've had another bit of good news from my local Trading Standards Office - my contact details were passed to them by the CAB. The builder didn't give me any written documentation regarding the job (no quote, invoice, or receipt), and failure to do this is against the law now. It was made a legal requirement last June, apparently. I asked TS not to confront him until after he has fixed the ceiling (just in case their intervention made matters worse) - but whether he fixes it or not, the TS Office will 'pounce' on him at some point!

[Amethyst]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Ahh super, well done

When/If it comes to taking the bugger to court shout and we'll help you get the claim in right first time.

[des8]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Curious me..... is this the man who installed your kitchen and left the rubble?

[Little-Nancy]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Hi des8,

Yes, it's the same person!
He did eventually move all the rubble. I found some faults with the job he'd done - and just this week he sent a chap round to to sort out one of them (sub-standard door), but prior to this I'd become SO fed up of waiting for him to deal with the other faults that I paid another tradesman to come and put them right.
The remaining big problem is the new ceiling which has begun to sag quite alarmingly. It is actually a lot worse than the original ceiling that basically just needed 'skimming' to disguise the fact that it had been painted over with a rather unpleasant textured paint! (I'm going to try and upload a photo).
[IMG][/IMG]

Sorry picture is so big - I'm not very good with technology.
Apologies also, as I've just realise I have posted this thread in the wrong forum subject!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

From what I can gather, if I was to pursue someone through the small claims court and was awarded a payment from my opponent, there is no way that the court can actually ensure that this payment is made.
So what exactly is the purpose of taking a case through this process (is it just an expensive way of 'being proved right'?)

I've recently had work done by a builder which involved replacing a ceiling. Unfortunately the new ceiling is 'sagging'. I've asked the builder to repair it, and when this didn't happen I sent the letter quoting the 1982 Sale of Goods and Services Act (as advised by the CAB). There was still no response from the builder so I said I would have to apply to the small claims court to have my payment to him refunded so that I could hire someone else to carry out the remedial work.
His response was that he'd been through the small claims process several times previously, but simply ignored the fact that he had been told to reimburse the customers ... and the customers had no way of enforcing this re-payment.

It all seems very odd ... is the small claims court REALLY that pointless?

Small claims is not a court as such but a track dedicated to claims below a certain amount, the current threshold is £10k for money claims. One significant point about the small claims track is that costs are not normally awarded (although there have been exceptions). This means that even if you lose the case, you wouldn't normally have to worry about costs awarded against you. :thumb:

There are, as pointed out above, various ways to enforce a judgment once it's obtained, however, you should bear in mind that if the defendant has no means, you may not get your money back anyway. An attachment of earnings can only be applied when the defendant is employed, not self-employed. Your builder is likely to be self-employed. A charging order can only be applied if he owns property.

[Little-Nancy]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Many thanks for that info Flaming Parrot.
Well as the builder has revealed that he has been pursued through the small claims court previously by disgruntled customers, and managed to get away without making the repayments that were ordered, I should imagine that he must have the situation 'all sewn up' in his own favour.

The building firm is owned by two men - one of them is very vocal and seems to make all the decisions/carries out conversations with customers, whilst the other is very quiet and tends to hover in the background. The address on their business card is the home address of one of the men (although I don't know which one).

The business card actually has two firms on it - on one side it says: "*Business Name* Heating & Plumbing Engineers" and on the other side it says: "*Slightly Different Business Name* All aspects of Building Work Repair & Renovation"
When I paid them (by bank transfer) the payment was made to *Business Name* - even though the work fell wholly into the category covered by *Slightly Different Business Name*. When I queried this, they told me it was something to do with V.A.T (?)

It seems that they established a successful heating & plumbing business and then in more recent years decided to branch out into 'all singing all dancing' aspects of the building trade. In order to do this they sub-contract jobs such as plastering, electrical work, and joinery to other men.

Incidentally, I contacted the Advertising Standards Agency to query the fact that the pictures of spectacularly high quality 'refurbishment work' and 'building projects' on their website bear little resemblance to the standard of work that their team actually produces - and therefore this was misleading for customers. The ASA's reply was that whilst the images used are sundry 'stock images' obtained from the portfolios of commercial photographers who sell them for profit, there is no law against the builder using them to promote his business - even though they don't reflect his own standard of work. Apparently he doesn't even have to state anywhere on his website that they're merely 'stock images' and not pictures of jobs that his firm have personally undertaken. (I do believe that this is something that the ASA needs to revise!)

[lba40]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Wow,

I'm no plasterer but that looks pretty shocking

Good luck,
Lba40.

[wales01man]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

What a mess did they have performing monkeys on the job?
Gat some advice on taking action this is one that should not get away with this

[Little-Nancy]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

This is just one corner of the ceiling - and unfortunately it's the same all over :tinysmile_cry_t:

wales01man, I was told that the man who actually did this job has worked as a plasterer for 46 years!

:confused2:

[des8]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Needs to either buy a new float or go to specsavers

[wales01man]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Plaster department in what Hospital seen straighter leg plasters

[FlamingParrot]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Incidentally, I contacted the Advertising Standards Agency to query the fact that the pictures of spectacularly high quality 'refurbishment work' and 'building projects' on their website bear little resemblance to the standard of work that their team actually produces - and therefore this was misleading for customers. The ASA's reply was that whilst the images used are sundry 'stock images' obtained from the portfolios of commercial photographers who sell them for profit, there is no law against the builder using them to promote his business - even though they don't reflect his own standard of work. Apparently he doesn't even have to state anywhere on his website that they're merely 'stock images' and not pictures of jobs that his firm have personally undertaken. (I do believe that this is something that the ASA needs to revise!)

It all depends on how they are used. You are free to use stock photos on your website without having to mention that's what they are, to illustrate your web pages, however, it could be an issue if he was using them as his portfolio of work or under a heading such as 'some of my projects' and it turned out they were not his projects at all. It's also different when you sell actual products online in which case you'd be expected to post up images of the actual products you sell rather than stock images. It all depends on the context in which they are used, just like I can quote on here from various judgments as case law, but I can't claim to have been involved in those cases.

[Wombats]

Re: What is the purpose of 'small claims courts' ?

Looks like he was the one who was plastered to me!

Here's a list of court costs for the small claims court:

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-...ney/court-fees

If the debt exceeds £600, then High Court Enforcement Officers can be instructed for a smallish sum, (was £60, but may have gone up to £90 now). HCEO's will get your money if there is a way of getting it, they are much more effective than County Court Enforcement Agents.