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Court mediation: What is it and when can we use it?

Court action, as we all know, can be costly and time-consuming and the courts, as much as the parties involved, would always prefer a quicker, less painful way of resolving a dispute.

It’s a key reason why the court mediation service exists.

The service, run by the civil courts, is a relatively pain-free and effective way of settling many small claims disputes up to a value of £10,000 without the need for a potentially stressful court hearing.

Here’s how it works:

When a defence to a claim is filed, parties will be asked via a questionnaire if they want to use small claims mediation. It can only go ahead if both sides agree.

Mediation usually takes place over the telephone and lasts up to an hour. It is supervised by a court official who is not a judge and may not even know too many details about the case.

Skilled negotiator

He or she will, however, be a skilled negotiator who will be focused on re-establishing relationship between the parties and arriving at an agreement that’s satisfactory to everyone, rather than pointing fingers at who may be right or wrong.

Mediation, as we know from our experience of using it as part of our own services, is most effective when both sides are prepared to be open and honest about how a dispute may have arisen; a proper settlement can only be reached if they are both ready to compromise and be sensible.

If an agreement is reached, the mediator will record all the details and inform the court service. If a claim is not settled, it will proceed to trial – though any matters raised during mediation cannot be repeated to a judge as they are classed as privileged information.

If you’d like to know more about mediation and how it works, get in touch with us at legal@pelliottassociates.com

 

2018-07-17T23:25:31+00:00 July 18th, 2018|

CCJ: What is a County Court Judgement? Our legal expert Robyn Baxter explains

You might have heard the term CCJ – County Court Judgement – in connection with someone’s business problems but do you know what it means?

Put simply: if a person or business owes you money and they show a distinct lack of interest in paying you back – even if you have tried an impartial mediation service – you can apply to a county court to claim back the cash.

This process – which works slightly differently in Scotland and Northern Ireland – used to be known as taking someone to a ‘small claims court’; that term, however, refers to the procedure of pursuing the simpler cases featuring sums of less than £10,000 which would more or likely take less than a day in court to resolve.

Claim online

You can make a claim online if you’re demanding a fixed (‘specified’) amount of money. Alternatively, you can download and fill in paper claim form N1 if you’re claiming an unspecified amount of money, before sending it to County Court Money Claims Centre, PO Box 527, Salford M5 0BY. You will be charged a court fee when making a claim.

You might have to attend a court hearing if the other party denies owing the money or gives a response with which you disagree. The court can order them to pay if they do not respond to your claim or fail to repay even after admitting the debt.

If the money is still not forthcoming, you can ask the court to collect the money by other means such as the use of bailiffs. After you make your claim, the person or business who owes you money must respond to it by an agreed date.

At the court hearing, you can represent yourself, pay for a barrister or solicitor to represent you, ask someone to advise you in court – they do not have to be a legal professional or ask someone to speak on your behalf with the court’s permission

Less than £10,000

Your hearing can be held in the judge’s room or a courtroom in a county court if your claim is for less than £10,000. There might be a more formal hearing if you’re claiming for more.

You will receive a decision on the day of the hearing as well as a written copy of the decision by post.

If you win your case, the court will order the person or business who owes you money (the ‘debtor’) to pay you. If you think a mistake has been made, you can appeal against the decision of the court within 21 days of the hearing.

Robyn Baxter is Philip Elliott Associates’ legal specialist and regularly deals with the courts.

2018-07-11T10:22:58+00:00 July 11th, 2018|

Credit control: Is outsourcing the answer for you?

One of our key services, for which there is increasing demand, is credit control.

We provide credit control services for, among others, accountants and solicitors as well as virtual assistants and patent attorneys.

There are several good reasons for handing this part of your business over to a third party.

One of the big ones is it saves time. Chasing up invoices, re-sending them to pursue a response, putting in the phone calls and generally monitoring the process is time-consuming when your time could be better spent concentrating on your core business.

But credit control also requires a set of specialist skills and knowledge. Too often, it is left to someone who has a different role but ‘picks up’ credit control because no one else is doing it. That person then has to learn the processes and best approaches – again, effectively wasting time.

A specialist credit control operation, on the other hand, knows the paperwork and can focus on the case intensely until it is resolved. They also have the experienced eye to spot , for example, when a customer’s excuse is real . . . and when it’s just an excuse.

Our experience shows, too, that a fresh pair of eyes on a case gives more chance of a successful outcome.

So outsourcing credit control can be more efficient, save you time and frees up you and your staff to focus on your real work.

Above all, it beefs up your own cashflow because it should mean you get paid more quickly!

If you’d like to talk to us about outsourcing credit control services, contact me at philip@pelliottassociates.com or on 0115 784 5602.

2018-07-09T16:05:16+00:00 July 4th, 2018|

Crackdown on high-interest loans is welcome news

News that the authorities plan to take a tougher stance on some high-interest lenders is to be welcomed by anyone who has seen the misery that this kind of personal debt can cause when it spirals out of control.

Some three million people in the UK use payday loans, ‘rent-to-own’ shops, pawnbroker services or other forms of high-interest credit, many of them to help buy household goods such as washing machines or TVs.

After a two-year inquiry, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has set out plans to curb some of these lenders, including a price cap on the rent-to-own shops that sell goods for relatively low per-week payments but at high interest rates.

It is good to see the FCA taking this step.

At Nottingham Credit Union, where I am a board member and which we support as a company in other ways, rent-to-own shops are one of the major sources of problems for the people we help.

Many have poor credit histories as a result of taking out too many loans, frequently for much-needed household goods, and often at exorbitant rates of interest.

The interest can quickly rack up until it is far greater than the original debt: the FCA cited cases of people paying £1,500 in total repayments for basic household goods that cost just £300 to buy.

The fact that loan operators can make such a vast profit at the expense of people who are on low incomes is not something a fair-minded society should tolerate.

Organisations like Nottingham Credit Union are a valuable safety net for the vulnerable who fall prey to these exploitative tactics.

We’re pleased to be able to do our bit to help.

2018-06-03T14:54:11+00:00 June 3rd, 2018|

Courts take school fee contracts seriously, even if some parents don’t

We’ve had another success recently with one of our clients in the charity sector, an independent, fee-paying school. Appropriately enough, it offers some lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.

Payment problem

The school was owed money by the parents of a pupil. Sadly, the couple were in the throes of splitting up and the outstanding payment to the school was fuelling the tension between them. One parent had, apparently, been keener on private schooling than the other which didn’t help.

But the problem arose not because the parents had fallen behind with the fees as such but because they had overlooked one of the conditions of the contract with the school – namely, that if they wished to withdraw their child, they needed to give a term’s notice.

Fees in lieu of notice

They had failed to do so – they missed the deadline for notification by a week – and were now being charged fees in lieu of notice.

It’s an issue that we encounter regularly: people see contracts with schools as ‘not quite real’ for some reason.

Sometimes mediation will work: we can sit down with the different parties and find a resolution that will, more or less, satisfy all concerned. It might be more time to pay or the school may agree to accept a lesser amount.

Mediation failed

But in this case mediation failed so it went to the small claims court where the judge ruled in the school’s favour. The parents now have to find the £3,800 owed in fees, plus interest and court costs.

We were glad to be able to get a result in court for our clients but settling earlier would, clearly, have been less expensive and time-consuming for the parents and for the school, too.

A tighter focus on reading (check the contract), writing (notify someone of a change of circumstances in good time) and arithmetic (or you could lose money on costs and interest) might have paid off all round.

 

 

2018-02-20T17:43:24+00:00 February 20th, 2018|