has anybody used this ?
was it easy to use ?
did you use a solicitor or did you do it all yourself ?

as i may have to use this shortly

A friend did it alone without the aid of a solicitor in the court room, it was a long hard battle. I think at times she sought advice from a solicitor to make sure all the paperwork was correct.

I think it does depend on the reason you are taking someone to court.
Generally speaking just by putting the application forward which is cheap often makes people pay up as they want to avoid the court room.

Doing one as we speak its dead easy and do it yourself up to £5000

I have been on the opposite end of one and the process is straight forward but the defence and preparation is quite time consuming ( well it was for me getting evidence and expert witnesses statements together ). The hearing itself was quite informal held in a room around a table and went on for about a couple of hours but well worth all the effort as the case was dismissed with my costs been given to the Plantiff to settle !

I consulted a solictitor just to run thing by them to make sure I had everything I needed.

> I think it does depend on the reason you are taking someone to court

Yes. If it is a straightforward - I did a job for you and you haven't paid my bill etc. It just depends. The difficult bit may be actually getting the money out of the person. If you know/think that they don't have any money it may not be worth doing :(

> I have been on the opposite end of one and the process is straight forward but the defence and preparation is quite time consuming ( well it was for me getting  > evidence and expert witnesses statements together ). The hearing itself was quite informal held in a room around a table and went on for about a couple of >hours but well worth all the effort as the case was dismissed with my costs been given to the Plantiff to settle !

As long as it's not in Scotland :) A friend defended one in Scotland and the whole process was very longwinded and, I think, she had to go to court about three times (together with taking three days off work and the travelling expenses) :( :(

Did she defend it successfully ?

Yes that is a problem as well if you know you are going for somebody who hasn't any money ! That reminds me I have done one myself on some tenants who didn't pay the rent. We took them to court for the arrears and we ended up winning but the payment schedule was some ridiculous small amount over a very long period of time (years) due the fact they provided enough evidence of their out goings and so the judge deemed it fair for that settlement ;-( I didn't persue it in the end and lesson learnt, never take anybody on to rent your house who is the friend of a friend and take their word that you don't need to get references :-(

A long time ago when I was naive enough to trust people !!

> Did she defend it successfully

Yes - she had had a shower room installed, but the work was done very badly. The builder took her to court as she hadn't paid the final installment (but she had paid about 90% ish). She had paid more than she owed to someone else to put the work right :( The builder used an agency to recover the money. They didn't persue the case to court when she said that she would defend. Then the debt was passed to another agency. The whole thing was very time consuming and costly and she did it all herself :(

Many years ago when I was a trainee with the electricity board, I spent months issuing summonses through the county court for non-payment of electricity bills and credit agreements :) The whole system can be easy, if people just pay up, but if they defend or just don't pay, despite a judgement against them, it can be very expensive :(

thankyou for the answers i have spoken to the person concerned and told him that i will be going to the small claims court and that letters are being drawn up and he says i will have everything i have asked for by monday i have told him that if 4pm comes and the funds are not forthcomming he will be receiving and letter from my solicitor and i will get the money back that he owes me 600 pounds is a lot of money to me.
Hopefully i will not have to do this but have started the proceedings myself and will carry on with them if i have to so far no solicitor involved but that is an option if i need one i suppose

If it's to do with with dogs, speak to Nik Starmer-Smith at  www.doglaw.co.uk  he really is a great guy and very helpful.

Yes with a succesful outcome and didnt use a solicitor.
Diane

no sadly not to do with dogs i bought something off someone and he said i stole it that is the quickest explanation i can give you as it has been a long drawn out process

So are they taking you to court then rather than you taking them to court ?

no i bought a van off them and due to them messing about with log books etc and private number plates and telling dvla that i had not purchased the van even though i had receipts etc i have told him he can have the van back and i want my money back ,he needed to change the private plates over but he needed the log book for that which was fine but then he found out he could not change the plates as it was not mot and insured and taxed so when he gave me the log book he would not sign it.

dvla have said that i can take the log book and the van to them and as long as they see proof that i have the van i could then have the log book in my name.

I am annoyed at him telling dvla that he never sold the van to me and today i went to the police with it and they advised me to go through the small claims court and try and get my money back and give him the van back, i have had a phone call off him today and he has said he has been advised to sign the log book and also he has phoned to dvla to confirm that he did sell me the van so hopefully court will not be an option and he is going to sign the log book on monday as i can have a solicitor with me when he does incase he tries to pull another fast one again this is the short version but been going on for months

Hope it all get sorted for you on Monday ! It sounds a bit like the situation another poster was having with a car they bought a few weeks ago. Can't remember which member it was but a difficult situation to get sorted.