UK SMALL CLAIMS COURT

The Small Claims Court (SCC) is a division of the County Court which is part of the justice system that deals with civil as opposed to criminal cases. The idea of the SCC is that the procedures are relatively informal and the case is heard by a single Judge in his Chambers without the necessity for legal representation. Either party can be represented by a lawyer and many are, which takes away a lot of the point, however the main difference is that costs are not awarded except in unusual circumstances and any legal fees payable to the winner’s solicitor, if the winner is legally represented, must come directly out of any compensation that is awarded to the winner.

The limit that the SCC can award for personal injury is £1,000 maximum and even the most trivial injuries will justify an award in excess of this sum. If you have suffered personal injury in an accident within the last three years and you are thinking about running a claim by yourself in the SCC please consider taking advantage of the free advice that our lawyers offer. If you do issue in this court you may well be selling yourself short and restricting your compensation award to £1,000. If the claim justifies the issue of proceedings in the main county court, unlike the small claims court, there are no restrictions on the amount of damages that can be awarded and in addition if the claimant succeeds, the court will usually also award legal costs and both the claimant and his solicitor will get paid by the other side.

The County Court divides potential claims for damages for personal injury into three categories. Claims that have an anticipated value of less than £1,000 for personal injury or less than £5,000 for other claims are dealt with under the rules of the small claims court. Personal injury claims with a value of between £1,000 and £15,000 are dealt with by the count court under the fast track proceedure and claims with a value greater than £15,000 are dealt with using the multi track proceedure. In all cases the basic proceedure is similar.

We represent a nationwide group of specialist lawyers who are all members of The Law Society Panel of personal injury experts. Our solicitors use the no win no fee scheme and compensation is paid in full with no deductions. You will not be expected to fund or finance your claim as it proceeds to settlement and you will not have to pay for any expenses. Win or lose there is no charge and we guarantee without reservation that our claims are completely risk free. If you would like free advice without any further obligation either phone our helpline or complete and send the form and we will put you in touch with an expert solicitor. If after talking to us you decide to proceed no further then you are quite at liberty to do so and you will not be charged for our advice.