Third Party Losses - The Small Claims Court

There will be a few occasions where you have a very good case to pursue but your opponent won't play ball with you. What can you do?

If your claim against the third party , including the insured losses, is less than £5000 and there is no injury element or the injury element is very small (say a bruise or two) and worth less than £1000, you could try the small claims track of the County Court.

Where you have legal expense insurance your legal expense insurer will appoint, and pay for a solicitor of their choice to deal with this for you.

In the absence of that, unless you have an insurance company that is willing to fork out more money for a solicitors bill, you will have to do this alone. Some insurers have special deals with solicitors for small claims - the County Court arbitration procedure.

I would not recommend you to instruct a solicitor yourself for this reason: under the small claims procedure, the Court will not award legal costs to the winner. So if you appoint a solicitor, you will have to pay your own legal bill whether you win or lose. But as the intention of the Courts it to let ordinary people obtain justice in an informal procedure there is no need to have a solicitor represent you.

In fact this might even give you a tactical advantage over your opponent if they have a solicitor and you do not. The judge is likely to bend over backwards to help you put your case clearly and fairly. Also you might not have to go that far. Your opponents insurers will always have an eye on the bank balance. It might be cheaper for them to give in to you than fight on. On the other hand, the third party might also feel he has a good case and decide to run a defence all the way to a hearing. But at least you will have had your day in Court. And a chance to convince an independent judge that you are right.

If you want to know more, or you are in this position now, your local county court have leaflets that will help you follow this procedure. You can also obtain more information from the Lord Chancellors web site. There are also some excellent books, written in a friendly style available at your local library. Please check these out, talk to your insurers (they might want to include their outlay) who can probably give you a lot of support, and go for it. Try not to get too stressed up. Plan, prepare and document your case carefully and if you have a good case you should win.

Depending on what happened, it would be worth taking a few photos of the scene of the accident that show your view, the other drivers view and which help to explain your version of what happened. Prepare a sketch with some measurements showing road markings, signs and any identification points. (Please be careful that you don't cause another accident when running around trying to measure the width of a road. Pace it out and take an approximation if the road is busy - it will usually be enough). If there is a dispute over road markings (e.g. the lane arrows on a road approaching a roundabout) then the sketch with photos will prove to the judge what the road really looked like and prove your point. If there is no dispute then this sketch and photos will help the judge understand what happened.

If there were witnesses, try and obtain a detailed written statement as to what they saw. Try and exclude opinions and hearsay. You just want them to comment on the facts, not who they thought was to blame.

Make sure you have estimates, receipts invoices for the amount of money you are claiming. Don't forget to add in your postage, incidental losses and interest.

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