Small Claims Costs
The system for handling small claims is designed to be cheap and easy to use. You do not need to use a solicitor/ It will usually only apply to claims for £5,000 or less (or £1,000 or less if the claim is for personal injury or housing disrepair), against a person, business or company in England & Wales, and claims for £3000 or less against a person, firm or company in Scotland.
For non-monetary small claims the small claims court fee is £150, but for money claims the exact figure will depend on the amount of your small claim. At present, the small claims court fees are as follows:
| Amount claimed | Small claims court fee | |
| Up to £300 | £30 | |
| Up to £500 | £50 | |
| Up to 1,000 | £80 | |
| Up to £5,000 | £120 |
More information on Small Court costs
Obtaining a judgment
Enforcing judgments
The Small Claims support service
The Small Claims costs & fees
No win - No Fee
We believe that the above statement "No Win No Fee" is misleading because the charges made are claimed directly from the insurers and inmost cases you will not even know what has been taken from your award. It can be as much as 35%
With debt-collection-uk.co.uk you know what you are going to be charged. Initially there will be the court fee and our admin fee refundable against 12% of the award gained. Do the maths 12% or 35%?
The Court Fees
Below are listed the Court Fees and DC uk's admin fee which must be paid prior to submission of the N1 form to the Court. Please go to our documentation page for an explanation and detail.
All of the fees you have had to pay in order to recover the debt outstanding from your defendant will be added to your claim.
The admin fee is payable with the court fee.
Claim (Up to) Court Fee Admin Fee
£500 £50 £50.00
£1,000 £80 £50.00
£5,000 £120 £50.00
£15,000 £250 £100.00
£50,000 £400 £TBA
£50,000 + £500 £TBA
In the event that the matter proceeds to a hearing in Court (which will only usually occur if the Defendant either disputes the claim or raises a claim against you) and the claim exceeds £1,500.00 the Court will require what they call an Allocation Fee of £100.00. This is to cover their administrative costs in "allocating time" for the hearing and making any orders necessary to ensure that both parties are ready for trial and notified of the hearing date etc. All fees and costs are added to the claim (together with interest).
Obtaining a judgment
After the issuing of proceedings the Defendant has 21 days to reply. They have the following options:
To ignore the claim
To admit the claim in full
To defend the claim in full
To admit part of the claim
If no response is received by the court Judgment in Default can be applied for.
Enforcing judgments
Having obtained a judgment against the Defendant it is necessary to instruct the Court to collect the sum awarded. Such enforcement proceedings will involve a further fee - which is added to the claim. If bailiffs are appointed the fee is £50.00.
There are other ways of enforcing judgments such as Attachment of Earnings orders, Third Party Debt Orders orders and Charging orders - all of which require a Court fee of £50.00.
Should you decide to issue a Bankruptcy or Winding Up Petition the fee will be £150.00.
The above fees are added to your claim.
The Small Claims support service
Small Claims will prepare your Court documents, submit them to the Court, liaise with the Court and the Defendant and advise you as to how to prepare your document bundle in the event that you should need to attend Court.
How much will it cost and what if I cannot afford it?
The fee you will have to pay to the court will depend on the amount you are claiming, including interest.You will have to pay a court fee unless:€¢ you receive Income Support€¢ you receive State Pension Guarantee Credit€¢ you receive income-based Jobseeker€™s Allowance€¢ you receive Working Tax Credit with no element of the Child Tax Credit. Court staff will explain this to you.€¢ your gross annual income does not exceed a specified limit. See booklet EX1 60A for more details.
Small Claim forms 2012 (downloads)
- Making a small claim? Some questions to ask yourself
- How to make a claim
- Debt recovery for businesses
Stage 2: The defendant's response
- A claim has been made against me - What should I do?
- No reply to my claim form - what should I do?
- The defendant disputes all or part of my claim
- The defendant admits my claim - I claimed a fixed amount of money
- The defendant admits my claim - I did not claim a fixed amount of money
- The small claims track
- The fast track and the multi track
If you have delayed issuing proceedings for any reason, you may wish to seek legal advice before issuing your small claim.
{Please note the above forms are copyrighted to HMCS}
- Need small claims forms for Scotland? see Small Claims Forms
- Need free legal advice from your CAB see Citizens Advice Bureaux