PowerOfCats UE Diary

[PowerofCats]

I have 2 claims of similar amounts (see diary) and they were £1000 plus VAT each. The claims were around the original debt amount as the creditors have requested interest.

[MisterK]

Here's another thought for you, Cats. If JCS can convince the claimant early on that this is beyond doubt SB so that they have no option other than to withdraw the claim then I would have thought that the claimant should be settling your account with JCS, not yourself. It shouldn't really matter perhaps that you didn't inform them earlier that you thought it was SB. How could you be sure, you are not a lawyer. If they didn't do their homework as they should have done then it could be said that they are seriously amiss for bringing the claim in the first place and should therefore accept the consequences. Those are my thoughts.

[Dottir]

Here's another thought for you, Cats. If JCS can convince the claimant early on that this is beyond doubt SB so that they have no option other than to withdraw the claim then I would have thought that the claimant should be settling your account with JCS, not yourself. It shouldn't really matter perhaps that you didn't inform them earlier that you thought it was SB. How could you be sure, you are not a lawyer. If they didn't do their homework as they should have done then it could be said that they are seriously amiss for bringing the claim in the first place and should therefore accept the consequences. Those are my thoughts.

I am not convinced by your argument. Costs are only usually awarded in claims above 10k . The only exception would be unreasonable conduct. In this case maybe the claimant could say there was unreasonable conduct because no one told them it was SB - they may very well think it is not. The whole point of the Pre Action Protocols is to stop things going to court, I think I have expressed my views on this before as have others.

It might be also worth looking at the contract with JCS to see if costs would be refunded.

[MisterK]

I wouldn't really want my thoughts to be represented or characterised as an argument. I am of course aware of the 10K threshold, but one of the problems here could be that if there are no sanctions at all against a claimant who for example engages in claims of the scattergun variety - the kind of claim which might not have been brought if the claimant had bothered to do their homework properly - then someone could be in line for a potentially large legal bill through no fault of their own. So that might well be considered to be unreasonable conduct on the part of the claimant and hopefully JCS would point that out if it applied here. But we don't know what's happening and quite likely we don't have all the facts so I would guess that the best thing to do would be to wait until Cats gives us an update, assuming Cats does so of course. I for one would be very interested to know the outcome of this as no doubt would others.

[Dottir]

Mister K - I think you misunderstood. When I said argument I did not mean it negatively , it was as in ‘the point you were making’. To me arguments are debates not fist fights ?

[MisterK]

Dottir. More hypothesis than argument perhaps ?

But I'd definitely rule out the fist fights.