HOW TO SUE IN A COUNTY COURT
Solicitors do not face ruin with the publication of this book. On the contrary, they will probably welcome it. Small consumer claims in the county court are generally a nuisance to most solicitors, time-consuming and uneconomic. You may well, therefore, be doing your solicitor a kindness if, instead of troubling him to act for you in pursuing a consumer complaint in the county court, you do it yourself. You will also, of course, be saving the fees you would have to pay him if he acted for you.
For many years the county court has been the preserve of lawyers and debt collectors. That is now changing. The government has accepted the necessity of making the county court more accessible to consumers as a means of obtaining redress. From October 1973 a new arbitration service is in operation in the county court, so that the procedure can be even simpler.
This website covers cases in England and Wales only. The Scottish legal system is quite different, and that in Northern Ireland is somewhat different again.
The main stages of suing in the county court on a consumer's claim letter before action, making a formal claim consumer to shop:
- Letter before action, making a formal claim (consumer to shop)
- Letter repudiating liability (shop to consumer)
- find out address of registered office of shop (Companies' House)
- prepare particulars of claim
- issue county court summons
- service of summons
- (optional) request for further and better particulars
- prepare defence
- defence filed at court
- defence sent to consumer
- pre-trial review
- consumer to shop
- shop to consumer consumer from Companies' House consumer consumer (plaintiff) at court office
- court on shop (defendant) defendant to plaintiff
- defendant defendant court to plaintiff plaintiff and defendant
- plaintiff defendant registrar the main stages or, if no arbitration
- preparation of list of documents (form C.C.83A)
- inspection of documents
- complete and serve notice to admit (C .0 .119)
- complete and serve notice to produce (C.C.120)
- prepare copies of documents needed at trial and put into logical bundles if necessary
- issue and serve witness summonses
- swear and file affidavit of service of witness summonses (form 116/2) where applicable
- taxation of costs (where applicable)
- enforcement of judgment (where applicable)
- plaintiff and defendant plaintiff and defendant defendant to plaintiff and plaintiff to defendant defendant to plaintiff and plaintiff to defendant plaintiff and defendant
- plaintiff to his witnesses defendant to his witnesses
- plaintiff at court defendant at court
- plaintiff, defendant, witnesses court to loser winner to court and loser winner (and court) to loser
