How To Make A Small Claim

How To Make A Small Claim

It isn’t obvious from the online resources, how to make a small claim.

Historically, you could issue a claim in any court of your choice. However, to make the processing of claims more efficient and cost effective, the court service introduced a bulk centre in Salford. The offices in Salford have taken over the issue and early processing of standard civil claims for people seeking payment of money. If you try to send proceedings for issue to your local county court, they are likely to be returned to you, for you to send them to the Salford bulk centre instead.

The claims can can still be issued at local County Court Hearing Centre but they tend to involve either more complicated claims, or specific claims which must be issued in the defendant’s local court, such as bankruptcy or possession claims.

So Where Are The Rules That Explain How To Make A Small Claim?

The provisions relating to this are hidden away in the court rules http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part07/pd_part07a#4A.1. In all claims only for an amount of money, practice form N1 (the Claim Form) must be sent to County Court Money Claims Centre, PO Box 527. M5 0BY.

The vast majority of small claims will be someone seeking money from someone else so the rule above needs to be followed.

How to make a small claim might be a simple task when you know how but when doing it for the first time, it is easy to get it wrong.