Anyone taken some one to small claims court?

[hypnorm]

well our so called friend still hasn't made any effort to pay back the £4500 he owes us, its been a year every time we've seen him hes not mentioned it, hubby texted and emailed over the weekend but he has ignored it all.
So we have paid the £200 to put in through court, bit nervous as he lives less than 5 mins from us, hoping i won't bump into him!

I'm expecting him to turn up on our doorstep complaining to me, we've also included his fiance on the form too as they live together so i doubt she is going to be impressed.

Just hope this will be the end of it, thought he was a really nice bloke, we lent him money before and he always paid it back, but things started going pear shaped, so we lent him the money with the promise he would pay it straight back once sorted, and we hoped we would be rid of him then, but it back fired.
luckily we have a guy who has said he will witness the fact he owes us money.

 

[MrsRH]

I don't have any experience of small claims court but wanted to say good luck, hun
hopefully the threat of court will make him pay up.
it will severely affect his credit rating for the future so hopefully he will do everything to stop it going further

xxx

 

[Manchester_Lu]

Not taken anyone myself but I almost took a previous landlord when he withheld our deposit with no reason.

Just make sure you have plenty of documents to support your claim such as any written agreement between you both and evidence of payments into your account etc. Also include any attempts to contact the person to request payment and any responses. Absolutely everything sent now should be signed for or read receipts put on emails etc.

Hope it works out for you and he decides to pay without it having to go to court.

 

[hypnorm]

I just hope it gets sorted quickly, I don't think he wil have the money or will fiddle it as he is self employed as security, and (this is laughable) debt collection! the bloke is built like a brick sh1t house too, so i'm hoping he doesnt get nasty.

All this because of a couple of bikes! long story but oh and this bloke bought bikes together at the same time, OH ended up with both sets of finance in his name even though one bike was bought by said friend, friend got behind with payments (we agreed to continue paying through our account if he paid us what was owed monthly) at this point finance realised bike wasnt owned by us so said they were going to claim bike back, we had money at the time and friend aid he was going to sell bike anyway, so we cleared the finance with friend saying he would pay us back straight away once bike sold, and funnily enough once bike sold... the bank took away his overdraft so he couldny pay back...
and that is where we have got too, he never paid a penny back yet. luckily the bike dealer have agreed to be witnesses. i really hate money sometimes!

 

[emzul]

Guy sounds like a bit of a tool!! But as long as you can prove that you lent him the money and he agreed to pay it back, you will be ok.

Unfortunately your "friend" may get away with paying just a small amount back each month, if it has gone through the courts, he will have to pay it back, but the question is how much?! If he is self employed, he will need to prove his Income and Expenditure and make you a monthly offer of payment, this will then be advised to you and you either accept or decline. If you do decline the offer though, it will be passed to the Court to decide how much he must pay you. If he can prove that he earns a small wage or has alot of outgoings (there are guidlines, so he cant just put £500 a month for food and get away with it) but if he has other debts, especially "priority" debts (Council Tax, Mortgage, Rent, secured loans and any arrears) these will come first ahead of your money
Once you agree on a re-payment amount, or the Court decides it, this guy will have to pay you back on time, each month. If he falls behind with the payments, the Court will more than likely go for an AOE (attachment of earnings) where the money is taken directly from his wage and sent to you, but then again, he is Self Employed so I am not sure how this would work?
Hope it all goes well, and that you get every penny back!! x

 

[hypnorm]

I know the house isnt in his name, its in his fiances.
we have since found out he did this to someone else, and it was going to go to court, but he paid up before it did.

he thinks hes mr big, someone cut him up on his scooter so he kicked the guys door in, someone else did it and he tried to punch the windows in. we know that he only lives with his fiance for convienience, as he was always complaining and planning to move out he even saw his ex gf behind her back.
i just want it sorted and him out of our life, totally, without him getting away with our money.

 

[emzul]

He will more than lkely do the same for you, he probs thinks he is far too scary for anyone to try and mess with him, but once he knows the courts are involved he will soon pay up before it goes any further. If he is self employed/owns his own business (especially debt collection!) he wont want this hanging over him, and having Court Orders can jeopordise some Finance-based jobs too, so he may even end up losing his job over it!
Most people dont want the expense of taking people to small claims court, which is probably why not many people go through with it, but for £4.5k it is def worth it!
Good luck again, let us know how it goes!! x

 

[nikitasmom]

It's probably slightly different here in Canada but I took my best friend to s.c.c and sued her. Over a cell phone. I was 20 and she was 16, she couldn't get a cellphone in her name so I co-signed for her ( even though the guy told me not to at the store). Well she got behind on her bills then rang up $800 in bills which I had to pay off, and her then bf told her to disappear and not pay it. She even quit thinking I wouldn't find her. Luckily, being her manager I pulled up all her information, went to the court and paid $200 to get everything filed. I had to send it to her registered mail and have a signature so I could prove that she was served, and she had 10 days to respond. The phone company was nice enough to provide all the phone records, and I got a copy of the contract with both our info and off to the arbitrator we went. She tried to say she wasn't responsible and shouldn't pay since I had it under my name but the arbitrator called it a "breach of faith" and turned in my favour, making her pay the amount plus interest to cover everything, plus cost of filing. She had to pay payments every month and if she missed once they where going to garnish her wages and send the sherriff to her house to collect anything of value from her. I'm now 27 and we are friends again, I have given her 2 jobs since and she just had her 3rd baby lol. I guess it's live and learn, you want to be good to people but the people you least epxect, will take advantage of your good will so you have to be careful.

 

[hypnorm]

well small update, court sent the initial forms out asking him to state if he agreed, disagreed, or ignored the claim, he wrote back saying we were lying and if the claim continued he would sue for harasment
So we had tp pay another £200 quid to take if further, this time he replied back saying he did owe us £3500 and could only pay us £40 a week, even though a friend knows he is working full time in sercurity self employed. so we replied that it wasn satisfactory.
the court now replied and said they will 'stay' the claim unless we provide more evidence and a further statement we don't have anything in writing it was all verbal but we may be able o get a written statement from someone confirming what happened.
If we back out now he'll be laughing.. but cany understand why the court has stayed when he has now admitted he does owe us money.

 

[emzul]

Hmm bit of a tricky one.... he will have to provide proof of income, which if he is self employed might be easier for him to lie? Im not too sure how much tax SE people pay.. but if he has been declaring his hours for the sake of Tax then he is a bit screwed because he will have admitted to his hours.
But on the other hand, he can fudge his Income and Expenditure to say he ends up paying out more than he does.... if you know he is doing this, advise the court and they should ask the guy for proof of rent/mortgage etc.
That is a bit mental that he denied having the money and then did a 180 and admitted it? Surely that in itself is proof!?

How did you pay him the money? Was it by bank transfer? If so get a copy of your bank statement, that will show you paying the money to him.... also, any texts/emails to/from him regarding this may help?

 

[hypnorm]

Luckily we have found emails with him saying he doesnt know how he is going to pay us and that the bank have taken away his overdraft.
We also have the bike dealer who is will to give a statement that the bike was sold to our friend and that he then sold the same bike for him.
So hopefully that will help.

 

[who]

a4 paper blank in envelope send recorded delivery once a week or so on for few weeks should it go to court you have proof you have tried contacting said person as am affraid emails do not always stand up in court .

 

[hypnorm]

Did send two letter s too, but stupidly not recorded delivery. Luckily we have all the finance agreements and the sale invoice saying they paid our friend the money for the bike.

 

[hypnorm]

Hubby in court today
Don't have a lot of faith in the legal system, but I hope they see through him as he now says we gave the bike to him as a gift. yes of course we always buy 5 grand bikes for people when we are struggling financially.

 

[hypnorm]

Well the court ruled in our favour! so he now owes us the full amount plus a years interest, plus court costs! Almost a grand more than he originally owed and now has a CCJ to his name.
He also tried to lie in court saying the email address wasn't his, when he had written the same email addy on his court papers! and tried to say he had never seen the emails, but refered to them in his statement. So just got to wait and see if he pays.

 

[emzul]

Ah wow great news!! And how dumb is he?! LOL

Hope you get it all back from him now, are you pleased with the monthly amounts he has to pay? x

 

[hypnorm]

they've not stated how much he has to pay. he is self employed which doesnt help.

 

[hypnorm]

Well going to court was a waste of further. Money he has not paid a penny, and has ignored further letters from us asking for payment, if we want to call in bayliffs or debt collectors we have to pay more money out which we just don't have especially with the worry of never getting it back. We have since found out he is moving houses and has also cleared out a storage unit he w using without telling the owner so also owes him about a yr of unit rent.
The bloke is pure scum, he works self employed so could declare no earnings at all.
Think we will just be wiping out hands of it, though I have been very tempted to damage his car! But then I would just be as low as him. I really hope karma hits him hard!

 

[Dinah93]

I thought any money you spent on bayliffs would be recovered from him?

 

[hypnorm]

Yeh but only if he has anything of value, we could send Bayliffs round but we know he has nothing of value or has put it away in storage where they can't get to it.so we could spend hundred more on Baylis and still not get any thing from him, each stage costs more and more money, also with moving we don't know his new address.

The court just rules that he owes us the money but doesn't help us recover it.