Starting a small claim - How to make a claim in court
If, after reading through the sections, you feel your case is complex, it would be unwise to proceed without instructing a solicitor to help you. Nevertheless, you will at least have the benefit of being in a more knowledgeable position, which means a saving of everybody's time and probably your money.
That said, the small claims track is designed for people to represent themselves and indeed for this reason the winner cannot normally recover legal costs from the loser.
If nothing else, you will have a good understanding of litigation in the small claims track of the county court.
The site is set out with various pages and sublinks which you can see on the left. If viewed together in order starting from the top and going down, the pages will guide you through the entire small claims procedure. However, you can also look at individual pages and sublinks as they apply to you. So, for example, the 'judgment' page will give you invaluable claim guidance on how a judgment affects your credit rating where you may recently have found out that you have a judgment against you. The hearing section will be useful if a solicitor has handled your case, but you have decided to present it on your own. There is also an instant dictionary of legal terms. Where you see a word underlined with dots, touch the word with your cursor and the legal definition will immediately appear.
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