The defendant wants me to use his garage to diagnose the problems and for obvious reasons we don't want him to. I understand we have to pay half the £750 but I need to know if I need to pay the extra £155 because we can't agree on an expert. We've already gone past the deadline so I need this sorting as soon as possible. What is the best way apply to the court for this engineer? I've sent a letter requesting but they said that's not enough. Regards Jack

The court order states 'A single expert is to be instructed jointly by the parties on the engineering issues. If the parties cannot agree on the expert to be instructed by (date), either party may apply to the court.' 'The fees of the expert shall be paid by the parties equally and be limited to £750.' In a nutshell what has happened is I went to look at a car last year and noticed a fuel smell coming from the engine bay, I agreed to place a deposit under the condition that the fuel smell would be checked out and nothing was wrong. A few days later I bought the car as the dealer assured me nothing was wrong. A few weeks after this it became apparent that there were problems with starting and the fuel smell had worsened. The dealer offered to have another look so I took it back, after some heated phone calls I eventually got the car back 10 days later in the same, if not worse condition than before. A few weeks later driving home from work the car lost all power, took it to VW and they said there's no compression in 2 of the pistons and there possible engine damage but can't diagnose without further investigation. The judge has said we need a mechanical engineer to look at the car and determine if the faults were there within 6 months of purchase(which they were!) or after 6 months. As we can't agree I would like the court to pick an engineer so I am wondering how to do this? I've rang the court and the lady said to use an N244 form which costs £155 but the judge said nothing of this. All he said was that they could pick an engineer from a list? Thanks Andy, yes this is small claims track and I opted for a expert in my application. Regards Jack

Hi, I'm currently in court with a dealer due to a fault car being sold to me. We've both been told by the court that we need to fork out £750 between us to gather expert evidence to determine if the car was faulty before 6 months of purchase or after. We were told by the court that if we can't agree on an expert to look at the car then the court would chose for us. After talking to somebody at the court yesterday i've now been told that I need to fill out an N244 form for the court to choose for me and this will cost £155 to do so. Is this correct or can the court just pick one for me? I've already paid a lot of money in court fees and don't have the funds to pay out that much + half the £750 as well. Thanks for any help