Thanks andyorch for looking in on this thread. Update is, I received a telephone call from MR Xs solicitor yesterday evening, she (the solicitor) said she had been instructed to defend her client if we progress to court. I believe she was on a kind of fishing expedition, she was certainly trying to extract everything she could from me, she said that the main stumbling block she could see is the lack of written contracted, all I said was `We have ample documents showing direct instructions from your client, where he has instructed us to do bits extra, more bits, change bits etc etc` the only thing I told her is that the judge would have no reservations as to the existence of a verbal contract when he sees the docs. She then said that the client would like to offer £6,000 in full and final settlement, and that her client would be bankrupted if he paid the £9,200. The solicitor also said to me that the claim would be automatically allocated to the Fast Track (regardless of submitting now, or after April 1st) as the judges prefer complicated construction cases to be FT no Small Claims Track. Can anyone confirm or deny the judeges have preference to FT over Small Claims for construction claims. Steve

Of course they are going to do the hard sell, they are making £23.88 pure profit per year from watching subscriber credit fiels. Pure profit All that is happening behind the scenes is a little old computer script running all on its lonesome, programmed either in something like Python, Ruby, VB or C#, quite simple The code would be something as simple as these 4 lines to check for changes to credit files 1: if old_credit_file_snapshot() new_credit_file_snapshot then 2: submit_credit_file_change_alert(customerID) 3: else 3: old_credit_file_snapshot() = new_credit_file_snapshot 4: end if all that pure profit for a script on similar lines to that of above but wilth maybe 4 or 5 more lines. All the staff will have been battered into submission by supervisors and line manager and told to SELL SELL SELL, as the big wig directors really do need that new Lamborghini and apartment in Florida. Pure profit, what a great little earner this really is for them. Anyway, sorry for the rant at the CRA, can you tell I don't like cra's?, ha ha Note to self, Calm Down.... ;-)

subscribing, with immense intere5t. Shocked at their actions, shocked. Go get them, legally they have nothing to stand on, whether it was a hacker or AS themselves, they are the custodians of the data TO BE UPLOADED to the cra, so they should make sure everything is correct before updating callcredit.

I have had a long hard think about the Small claims / Fast track issue over night. Although I am very very confident of being able to provide enough evidence to sway the judge in my favor, I would be stupid not to mitigate any possible losses. Therefore I think April 1st and Small Claims is for me. As for the Letter in my previous post, can anyone suggest any changes to make it compliant with the proper court procedures. Steve.

Thanks for replying wonkeydonkey and steampowered, It wont let me quote you as you have links in the post and I can't post links even in quotes, how bizarre that is.... As for the points asked, there is no written contract, it is a verbal contract. But we have many email documentation and sms texts through-out the work we were commissioned to do, where MR X has given us directions, so there is no way he will be able to turn around and say there is no contract and he didn't ask us to do the work. The LTD company are the ``Money Men`` they paid for the land and instructed MR X (an individual, not an employee of the LTD company {he is a personal friend of the directors of the LTD company}) to act as Client, MR X contacted us with his requirements for us to design the road, liaise with highways and water board, and to gain technical approval for the drawings, which we did. Whilst we were completing the works, we needed to complete a form from the water board under section 104 water industry act 1991 to deal with all the drainage issues, on this form there needs to be the contact details of the developer of the project we were designing, the developer needed to be on this form to provide financial sureties to the water board, the name of the Developer and the address were that of the Wife of one of the 3 directors of the LTD Company. The LTD company is active, and not in liquidation/administration. I understand how LTD companies work regarding liability etc etc. We have sent a Letter of claim on more than one occasion it is attached as pdf, (Although I now believe the wording will probably not suffice as a Letter of Claim so may need re-sending with the correct wording) this is reproduced below as i don't have 10 posts to add attachments. As for Fast Track, Small Claims, the only costs we have would be the £245 filing fee. There would not be any solicitor costs. Your advice please, Would you wait for Small Claims or Submit under Fast Track? I would rather small claims, but who am I to know the pros and cons, so your advice on this matter would be invaluable As a side note, both MR X and one of the directors of the LTD company directly (behind our backs) approached our engineers (third party company who we commissioned to draw up the Section 38 road layout design) and tried to purchase it direct from them for £4500, rather than the £9000+ we charged. We have a signed statement from our engineers stating that MR X and the LTD company tried on a few occasions to purchase the drawings behind our backs, but our engineer is a good guy and said no and told us straight away. REPRODUCED LBA sent to Mr X Outstanding Debt: £9,200.00 We are disappointed to note that you have failed to pay the following outstanding invoice(s): - Inv No Inv date Due Amount CENSORED 28/11/12 28/11/12 £9200.00 Total now due: £9,200.00 Please note that we are not claiming interest or late payment fees at this stage if the balance is paid in full within 7 days from the date of service (date of posting 30/01/2013). Should this matter require court action then we will be applying to the court for payment of interest at the rate of 8% above base rate from the date payment was due, in accordance with the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Interest continues to accrue at the rate of £2.14p per day for 8% and the base rate currently being 0.5%. In addition to interest we are also entitled to compensation of £70 under the Act, this will also be waived if the outstanding balance is paid within 7 days. We write to advise that unless we receive payment of £9,200.00 within the next 7 days we will be left with no alternative but to instruct our legal team Lester Aldridge LLP to issue court proceedings against you. If we are forced to issue proceedings against you then we will also be claiming court fees, interest at 8.5%, £70 compensation and fixed solicitors costs on top of the sum outstanding. We trust the above will not be necessary and that we will receive now payment by 08/02/2013. Yours faithfully CENSORED SIG

Hi, thanks in advance for reading this and to anyone willing to help out. I am a sole trader in the construction industry, and have been for 40 years. I was initially contacted to design a road for a client, this involved designing drawings from a Section 38, Section 104, Section 115 and Section 278, for he highways, Water Board etc etc and to get technical approval on each of the agreements. I designed the road in the S.38, liased with the water authority regarding the S.104 and completed all works and provided the drawings in A1 print format and electronically. I have now been requesting payment of the invoice (just over £9,000) since November 2012. I have sent them many invoices, many notices, and more than enough 14 days to pay Notice of intended legal action letters etc etc. The client has still not paid, I have received texts from the client saying I can take him to court he will offer to pay 50p a week, The client, Mr X is working for a LTD Company, so the LTD company is ultimately the main contractor, One of the directors of the LTD company has his wife as the Developer on all the legal documents with the highways and water authority. I delt with the LTD company ONCE in a face to face meating, but all other times it was always with MR X the client. I am taking them to court, I have paid out over £9000 of my own money and need this returned. The advice I really need is who do I put on the N1 form. Mr X, or the LTD Company or the Developer on all the legal forms? Also as the debt is £9k (over £5k threshold) how does that translate to the court process, what are the disadvantages of it not going throught the same process as a debt under £5k. Also from that point, would it worth my while suing seperately for the S38 work, and seperately for the S104 work and so on, meaning I can keep them individually below the £5k limit, or in thery would this not work, or would the court even allow this or would the court want it to be as 1 claim? Thanks in advance, if you require any further information please let me know, I dont want to have to pay solicitors as I dont have the money to do so...... Thanks Steve