Small Claims Track

There are many circumstances which arise in day to day life where you may find yourself in a dispute where the amount in dispute is fairly small. Examples where this situation may occur are if you have entered into a contract to purchase of goods or services which has been breached, if you are claiming for an unpaid debt or if you have a claim for compensation resulting from professional negligence. At Glanvilles we attempt to resolve disputes before they end up in Court, however sometimes this cannot be avoided.

If your claim has a value of £10,000 or less, the Small Claims Track is the appropriate Court procedure that will be used. The Small Claims Track is generally quicker and cheaper than other Court tracks; however it is not possible to recover the majority of your legal costs. This means that for Small Claims Track matters, you are only entitled to recover limited fixed costs. It may seem unfair that you are not able to recover your costs as it is not always possible or practical to deal with a small claim yourself. For example, the claim may contain complex legal issues where you will want a solicitor to assist you with drafting the claim form or defence if you feel you are being wrongly pursued for a debt.

It may be that you have a relevant insurance policy that can assist you in paying some or all of the legal costs involved with your dispute, such as home insurance. If you do have a relevant insurance policy in place you should check the terms of your policy to ensure you are complying with the terms.

Our Dispute Resolution team is experienced in assisting with Small Claims Track disputes and we ensure that you are aware of the fees that you are likely to incur, we provide advice on the appropriate action to take so that costs are as manageable as possible for you. We can provide advice as to the merits of bringing a potential claim, and will inform you if it is not cost effective for you to instruct us to deal with the proceedings from start to finish. It may be that we can assist you with part of the proceedings, which will put you in a stronger position to see the matter through to the end, in order to keep costs to a minimum.