Small Claims court and Representation

[Danbri12]

After trying to google for advice, I have come across this site, and hopefully someone may be able to give a little bit of advice.

For 10 years up to the end of 2008 I was an IT Support contractor under my own limited company. I have since left the profession and undertaken a new career, although the ltd company still exists and operates with a small turnover for little bits of work here and there. All the contracted clients I had were sold on to a company with whom I still have a very good relationship with.

At the end of August 2008 I undertook a 'quick' job of installing one server and three PC's, with no ongoing maintainance contract (he refused the option). I supplied one server, two of the PC's with monitors, and network cabled the office. One of the PC's he already had. It took me two days to complete because of the cabling. He knocked me down on price from around £4500, down to £3675, which I accepted due to having no other commitments that week. The following weeks, he decided he wanted to pay in cash (which was fully declared) in batches of £500-£1000. At present in March 2010 there is an outstanding amount of £1175. During the following weeks, the owner would use the leverage of payment dependant on additional works being carried out, which stupidly I agreed to. All went quiet around Nov 2008. I started my new career in Jan 5th 2009. At no point in the 4 months after the initial install were there any problems whatsoever, and there is no proof of anything being said either, just the additional works.

I had initially written off the £1175 off as a bad debt.

Then in March 2009 I recieve a phone call at my new place of work from said ex-customer, threatening me to do even more additional work if I wanted payment. The threats were of physical violence, and at one point I had it on speaker phone so people heard in the office. I agreed to carry out the work on the following weekend, on condition that I work get full and final payment, to which he agreed. The weekend arrived and he refused access to the premises, after a 90 mile round trip on my behalf. That was the last I heard from him.

The company I sold my contracts to, have since done various small value business with this guy, of which none was to correct any faults caused by my workmanship. They no longer deal with him, again because of payments being witheld.

On the 12 month anniversary, I decided enough was enough, and I wanted my money, so I processed a small claim online, which he defended.

We've just had a hearing. He turned up with a lawyer, and managed to get an adjournment, claiming £1500 costs to resolve issues with incomplete work, carried out in Jan/Feb 09 - four odd months after the install. The invoices he has are from a guy who specialises in print and web hosting - so god only knows how he is an IT specialist. The invoices are obviously fabricated because of the cost of the work laid out - £375 to format and reinstall PC for example.

My question is - I can't afford a solicitor, but I am insured for the counter-claim. Do I need separate advice on my claim, or should I just carry on going it alone? Or any other help is very much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Michael Gerard]

Interesting situation.

Firstly, do not bother with a solicitor, otherwise your claim will be severely devalued with just a portion of it being recovered as costs in the event.

There seems to me that there is no dispute as to what you are owed, only that there is a counter claim to negate your own claim (are you also claiming for interest, and the wasted travel? You should be).

This being the case, the defendant (your ex-customer), in order to persuade the court that he should be awarded his counterclaim, must set out the following in his pleadings:

1. ID the contract including the terms of the contract that is salient to his case (important as this will lay down what he believes were your obligations to him)
2. Identifying the breach of contract (this will be stating what he believes was your failure)
3. Causation, loss and damage

Now I am guessing as I have not seen the contract terms and conditions that exists between you both, but in all probablity, he will be relying on an implied term for you to have carried out the work with reasonable skill and care (number 1), and as a result of this failure (number 2), damage was caused to [for example, cables], and hence the claim is for the repair and replacement to the tune of £1,500.

Now, I suspect that you should be able to defend your installation, and if the court is persuaded by you on this, counter claim is dismissed. But, lets say the court believes you did provide a faulty installation.

First and foremost, the defendant is under an implied obligation to mitigate the cost and this means in your scenario that he should have brought the problem to your attention in the first place, and given you the opportunity to correct the fault, which if you had attended, then the cost to him would have been zero, whilst the cost to you would have nominal (your time is free to you, plus materials, which you can price up). I am sure that you can show he never did this (where are the emails, evidence of calls etc) and if so, his counterclaim will be nominal, if anything.

In addition, he must also show that he actually incurred the losses. That means that he must prove he has actually paid the invoices to the company that purportedly made good - and you can raise your concern with the court that you believe the invoices are false. No doubt he will say that he paid in cash though, so be prepared to have an answer to that, ie request sight of the companies ledger, otherwise he is avoiding tax and in any event he has no proof of payment, hence there is no loss (you can show that you have accounted for your cash payment, which shows you are at least honest).

I am sure that you can have a lot of fun with this guy if you really put your mind to it, and have your day in court and show what a scroundrel he really is. And you also have the comfort that even if you lose, the costs he can claim for solicitors is limited.

Best of luck

 

[Danbri12]

Thanks for being so helpful!

I tried the 'believe these invoices to be false' in the court yesterday. But the judge threw it back at me with 'that is an allegation of fraud', which if followed through will have to move onto a different track, so I was kind of forced to back down on that claim.

I never thought of asking for proof that the invoices were paid, so thank you for that.