Lay My Hat

I've no idea what's going on at the moment.

In September I received a 'General Form of Judgment Order' for my claim stating that the defendant had 7 days to submit the directions questionnaire or their defence would be struck out. Then nothing until 7 October stating the case is being transferred from Kingston-Upon-Hull to Birmingham County Court.

Sam if you did the claim online you should have a login ID to the government gateway for the small claims. Going into the record you can see the latest information/progress of the proceedings.

Do the defendants live in the Birmingham area? Have they asked for it to be moved so they can attend?

UPDATE!

I don't know why the case has been moved to Birmingham but I'd guess it's because my nearest is Kingston upon Thames and theirs is Kingston upon Hull!

Anyway, yesterday I received notice that they (the court) have decided our case would be better served by mediation (over the phone!) I now have to decide to accept and arrange a mutual time or decline and go to court (2 hours in Birmingham). My initial thoughts are mediation , if not resolved then court. Frankly, I'm not sure what 'agreement' can be arranged, I'm out of pocket because of 'his' ineptitude.

I only know one person who has done mediation instead of court, and he regretted it - basically, if you don't accept some sort of compromise, however silly it is, it reflects very badly on you. There's no obligation to mediate, just send it to court.

Thanks for that heads up, edinburgh. Some disputes (not all of course) are definitely in the black and white category. There is no grey area or room for compromise with them.

Yes there is no obligation to mediate but we were told it was frowned upon by the court if you did not try.

Sam V, I have no experience of claim procedures against guests so I can't help on that issue. All I can do is offer my sympathy on the difficulties you are going through at the moment. You are being battered on all sides (ie +TA) at the moment. I hope things work out for you, and that your inconsiderate guests get their just desserts.

Mediation is offered because the court believes the case could go either way and they want to have a compromise reached without court costs.

I have done mediation and would only recommend it if you has a water tight case; this of course means that mediation would be unlikely to be offered if you had.

The court does expect mediation to be taken if offered and frowns upon those who do not take up the offer, although, they deny this.

None of the mediation evidence or discussion is used in a subsequent case going to court.

The two parties do not discuss matters directly; everything goes to and fro through the mediator. I found the mediator to be fair but extremely pushy in wanting to have a mutual agreement sorted out before the end of the call (maybe they are on commission!).

In my case we could not agree on an outcome and the case went to court - the defendant failed to turn up on the day - I was awarded the full claim made. Subsequently, bailiffs eventually recovered all the claim - it took 15-months.

Just wondering what's been happening SamV ...

I accepted mediation, given some provisional dates but he has to register too before this goes ahead and they'd email me My assumption is that as I've not heard anything he's not done anything, so to date it looks like it might be going to court in February.

I accepted mediation, given some provisional dates but he has to register too before this goes ahead and they'd email me My assumption is that as I've not heard anything he's not done anything, so to date it looks like it might be going to court in February.

Given that you cannot claim costs in the small court, even if you win, mediation would be a good idea. Whatever you might lose out on the amount agreed will probably be less than your costs of travelling to and possibly staying in Birmingham.

We found this out the hard way when we flew from Italy to UK to attend a small courts case (mediation had neither been suggested or offered) as a witness for one of our owners. Judgement was awarded in the owner's favour but we had been advised as soon as the case started to be heard that no costs are allowed in the small claims court!