Small Claims Court Help

[Calvin2023]

Could someone advise or help please?




I have taken a rogue builder to the Small Claims Court for work I was conned for, for the sum of £10k.

The ‘builder’ never responded to my claim or the Court claim form and on doing so, the Court said the defendant must pay me the full amount.




What happens now please as I’m very confused?

I think I have two options?

A bailiff or make him come to court to declare earnings?

The police do not want to help and have been hopeless.




The guy has stripped me of all my money so I think it costs £455.00 for a bailiff and he has told me he has no money to give to me and this is all a waste of time.




Any help would be gratefully received.

[R0b]

Hi,

First of all the police are not going to get involved in a civil matter but of course a rogue builder can be committing fraud which is a criminal offence so they should at least get investigate. Resources are now typically allocated according to seriousness and urgency so I’m not surprised they have chosen to do nothing.

if the builder is claiming to have no assets or money then you have to decide whether it is worth chucking more money at this.

You can make an application to the court to ask the builder to turn up and answer a series of questions but you usually have to pay his travel expenses as a condition.

Or as you have also suggested, you could instruct bailiffs to try and recover goods but there is no guarantee anything of value would be recovered.

There are other possible alternatives that may be less expensive and give you a feel as to whether it is worth pursuing or not:

- are you aware of any properties he owns or may be living from? You must have at least one address since you issued a claim so that would be a starting point. Get on the land registry and pay a couple quid for the title deeds to see who owns it. You may then want to consider and application for a charging order which puts a restriction on the title so that if he wanted to sell the property he would have to pay out of the proceeds before it can be sold. That’s a long term thing and not immediate. You could try to force a sale but they are difficult to achieve especially since £10k is not that significant to warrant a sale when balances against someone (or family) who could be made homeless.

- instruct an asset tracing agent to find and locate any assets the builder may be hiding. Prices vary and I’m not sure how much it is these days but they might be your best bet to see if he is telling the truth or not.

Whatever way you look at it, there’s going to be some expense in trying to recover your lost money. A judgment doesn’t have an expiry date but you have 6 years from the date of judgment to take enforcement action, and after 6 years you will need the court’s permission to enforce provided you have a good justification for not attempting to enforce the judgment within the initial 6 year period.

[islandgirl]

Very good advice. I got a charging order on the house of someone who could not afford to pay the debt. In the meantime I escalated the debt to the high court and their baliffs got £100 a month out of him which may have been a token payment but which made me happy every time it landed in my account. In the end the debtor's house was being sold and I was paid in full to remove the charge. Took about 8 years but got there in the end!

[12tribes]

V. good advice and testimony of a result, nice to have some good news