Making a Claim
Before taking Court proceedings to recover money owed to you, you should try and explore every possible alternative. Although making a claim for a sum less than £5,000 is not particularly expensive it can be time consuming, frustrating and at the end of the day, unsuccessful.
You may need help in bringing the claim from a solicitor. If the value of the claim is less than £5,000 (£1,000 for personal injury claims) you will not be able to recover those solicitors costs from your opponent.
You also need to consider whether the other party has sufficient assets and resources to be able to pay you the amount ordered.
If someone is unemployed, is bankrupt or has other debts and no property of their own even the Court may not be able to get money for you.
If you want to check whether someone is bankrupt or owes money to other people which has not been paid you can contact the Insolvency Service at 21 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SS (Tel: 020 7637 1110) for bankruptcies and Registry Trust Ltd at 173-175 Cleveland Street, London W1P 5PE (Tel: 020 7380 0133) for judgement. In the latter case you should enclose a cheque or postal order for £4.50 for each name that you are interested in.
A Court case may take many months to resolve and even when an award is made the money due is often not payable straight away but over a period of time.
For these reasons making a claim through the Courts should be your last resort. Before going ahead you should try to speak to the person who owes you money and write them a letter setting out what is owed, requesting payment and threatening to take Court proceedings in the absence of a satisfactory reply.