Preparing your case and preparing for the hearing


Preparing your case.

Work out what your case is. A good way is to write it down calling yourself the Claimant and the other party the Defendant. This is a prelude to actually what the claim looks like.

It might go something like this.

  1. The Claimant asked the Defendant to build a conservatory on his house. The cost was agreed at £7,500 plus VAT recorded in an exchange of emails on 3 October 2014.
  2. When the work was completed, the Defendant asked for a further £1,500 claiming there were extras to which the Claimant had agreed verbally. The Claimant denies this.
  3. In breach of his obligations to the Claimant, to produce good workmanship and materials, the conservatory was defective and the cost of putting the work right is £4,400 plus VAT in accordance with the attached estimate.
  4. The Claimant has asked the Defendant to pay that amount but the Defendant has declined to do so.

You can see it tells the brief story of the case.

Very often you can issue court proceedings online at www.money claim.gov.uk and pay by debit or credit card.

Alternatively you can physically go to your local County Court and get the forms.

Even if you plan to be a litigant in person, is often well worthwhile running past a lawyer for a fixed fee.

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Preparing for the Hearing

Read the documents of your claim and any defence and counterclaim very carefully. Focus on it. Do not skip anything. If you are going through a counterclaim do it line by line, paragraph by paragraph, making notes on what you have to say about it.

Inconvenient and awkward points will not go away by ignoring them.

If the case gets to Court you have to convince the Judge with evidence (written and oral) that what you are saying is true. Always be completely honest and never lie. Apart from the serious consequences of perjury relating to the laws of justice, Judges are trained to smell out lies and if you tell a small one they may well disbelieve other evidence which is in fact true.

If you cannot remember something, even if it would be convenient to do so, do not make it up.

The more unlikely or serious the allegation you are making, the harder it will be convince the Court that it is true.

Even if you cannot recover the cost, consider having your preparation checked by a specialist fixed fee lawyer. Could pay off.

We would be interested in your comments, please leave them by clicking on the title to this blog above.