Discontinuance of small claim - costs

[Stindall_92]

Hello, hoping someone might be able to help me with this.

I started a small claim where I genuinely felt I had a good chance of winning against the defendant.

(long story short: they are the freeholders of the building I lived in - they built scaffolding to undertake a development project which created access to my balcony. We started to have a problem with foxes accessing our balcony from the scaffolding and climbing in through the windows. I notified them multiple times that we were having this issue with the scaffolding and nothing was done to block off access. A fox then caused a significant amount of damage to my personal property, so I pursued them for £1,000 in compensation).

However I’ve since been informed that my argument doesn’t hold any water and that it is likely I will lose in small claims.

I did try to go through mediation first but I was only offered one time and date for a phone call which I was unable to confirm as I was due to be flying at the time. I did call and email several times to attempt to get an alternative mediation date but no one came back to me and I’ve now been issued a hearing date.

Knowing now that I don’t have much of a case it seems like going to hearing would just make things worse. What I’m trying to find out though is whether the defendant can pursue me for any costs if I choose to discontinue the claim at this point (I’ve been sent the hearing date with a deadline of 9 days to pay the fee and proceed).

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

[des8]

As long as the case has been allocated to the small claims track (and you have not acted unreasonably) there should be no risk of having to meet the other party's costs.

[Stindall_92]

As long as the case has been allocated to the small claims track (and you have not acted unreasonably) there should be no risk of having to meet the other party's costs.

Thank you! In the court order requesting an evidence bundle it states that the case will be dealt with on the small claims track so I'm pretty sure nothing has changed on that front since then.

My concern is that I've already been allocated a hearing date (in just over three weeks' time) and been given a date by which to pay the hearing fee or risk the case being struck out. I sent the notice of discontinuance by special delivery two days after receiving the letter, but I don't know if it's likely to get in front of a judge to approve before the hearing fee is due.

I guess my question would be wether the other party could suggest that serving notice of discontinuance at a late stage is unreasonable behaviour? It's for a small claim – £1,000, but they're quite tricky and I could see them going for something like that.

The reason for the late stage discontinuance (which I put in my letter accompanying the notice of Discontinuance) is that I've been trying very hard to secure a mediation appointment and it was my preference to resolve it that way.

Hoping that will be sufficient to show I tried to resolve the issue without going to a hearing but I'm not sure :S

[des8]

When filing the notice did you not send a copy to the defendant?

You can check by phone with the court that they have received the notice, but all courts are behind with their paperwork.

Late discontinuance is not classed as unreasonable