LETTER BEFORE ACTION
Before starting a claim of any kind you should always write to the other side to explain your claim or complaint. In your letter you should concentrate on the relevant facts and give as much detail about your complaint as you can.The Letter before Action is important. If it is not answered within the reasonable time stipulated for a reply, you cannot be criticised for placing your case in the hands of the court. If it is answered you will have a better idea of what the arguments before the court will be and you can put your case and evidence together with those issues in mind.
In short the initial stages of the case can be made very much easier by dealing with them in correspondence before you issue your claim. You can go to the court knowing what the argument is about.
It is also important to realise that the court can have regard to the conduct of the parties before the issue of a claim in deciding whether there should be any costs awarded. If you write a suitable letter, are not answered with anything that amounts to a defence to your claim and have to issue to get what you were obviously entitled to all along there may still be some chance of extracting some costs from the other side. Even if that is not so the judge who hears your case will certainly look upon you more favourably!
THE CLAIM FORM
This is the document by which the case is started.The Claim Form should be completed accurately and fully. Brief details of the claim need to be shown on the first page. These can be limited to a very short statement of what the case is about.
Additionally you need to give some information about the value of the claim. This will assist the court in deciding which track to allocate your case to as well as in calculating the court fee payable on issue. If the claim is for a specified sum, such as an invoiced debt you should state the amount. If your claim is not for a specified sum but for a sum to be decided by the court you should give details of the upper limit of the value of the claim e.g. not exceeding £5,000.
PARTICULARS OF CLAIM
On the back of the form you can include Particulars of Claim. If the Particulars will not fit on the form you can serve them as a separate document attached to the claim form. They can be filed and served at the time of issue or within 14 days of service of the Claim Form.The Particulars must:
- Contain a concise statement of the facts upon which you rely
- If you are seeking interest, say so. Interest is allowed on a claim at a flat rate of 8% under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984. For a single invoice take 8% of the amount due and divide it by 365 to give a daily rate. Multiply the daily rate by the number of days since the invoice fell due for payment. If you are claiming in respect of a number of invoices you can either do this calculation for each of them or take the whole sum due and claim at 4% from the date when the first invoice fell due. Use the specimen pleading for interest below.
- Contain a statement of truth – see the notes for more information about this and the effect of signing a statement without belief in the truth of the facts contained in the Particulars. There is a statement of truth in the standard court claim form but if you use separate Particulars of Claim or even continuation sheets you should ensure that a similarly worded statement appears at the end of the Particulars of Claim. The court will reject the papers if the statement of truth is not signed but after signature the particulars can stand as evidence.
- Contain details of what your evidence will be including what any witnesses whom you propose to call will say.
- Have attached to them any documents which form part of your case and on which you will rely such as contracts, letters, cheques, invoices.
Do not forget to check that the contents of the claim form and the particulars of claim are correct before you sign the statement of truth.
