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    • Thanks BankFodder for your latest, I'm in complete agreement on the subject of mediation and will be choosing to decline mediation, the longer timeline is not an issue for me, I will happily let the going to court run it's course. I really appreciate the support from the Consumer Action Group. I'll post the email text I'm sending to Evri's small claims in answer to their recent defence response. Regards, J
    • Sec127 (3) repealed, now gone. S. 127(3)-(5) repealed (6.4.2007) by Consumer Credit Act 2006 (c. 14), ss. {15}, 70, 71(2), {Sch. 4} (with Sch. 3 para. 11); S.I. 2007/123, art. 3(2), Sch. 2
    • We used to recommend that people accept mediation but our advice has changed. The mediation process is unclear. Before you can embark on it you have to agree that you are prepared to enter a compromise – and that means that you agree that you are prepared to give up some of your rights even though you are completely in the right and you are entitled to hundred percent of your money and even though EVRi are simply trying to obstruct you in order to discourage you and also to put others who might want to follow your example off from claiming and even though they have a legitimate basis for reimbursement. Mediation is not transparent. In addition to having to sign up that you are prepared to give up some of your rights, you will also have to agree not to reveal any details of the mediation – including the result of the mediation – so that the whole thing is kept secret. This is not open justice. Mediation has nothing to do with justice. The only way of getting justice is to make sure that this matter goes to trial unless EVRi or the other parcel delivery companies put their hands up and accept the responsibility even if they do it is a gesture of goodwill. Going to trial and winning at trial produces a judgement which we can then add to our small collection to assist other people who are in a similar boat. EVRi had been leading you around by the nose since at least January – and probably last year as well – and their whole purpose is simply to drag it out, to place obstacles in your way, to deter other people, and to make you wish that you'd never started the process and that you are prepared to give up your 300 quid. You shouldn't stand for it. You should take control. EVRi would prefer that you went to mediation and if nothing else that is one excellent reason why you should decline mediation and go to court. If it's good for them it's bad for you. On mediation form, you should sign that you are not prepared to compromise and that you are not prepared to keep the result secret but that you want to share the results with other people in similar circumstances. This means that the mediation won't go ahead. It will take slightly longer and you will have to pay a court fee but you will get that back when you win and you will have much greater satisfaction. Also, once you go the whole process, you will learn even more about bringing a small claim in the County Court so that if this kind of thing happens again you will know what to do and you will go ahead without any hesitation. Finally, if you call EVRi's bluff and refuse mediation and go to trial, there is a chance – maybe not a big chance – but there is a chance that they will agree to pay out your claim before trial simply in order to avoid a judgement. Another judgement against them will simply hurt the position even more and they really don't want this. 300 quid plus your costs is peanuts to them. They don't care about it. They will set it off against tax so the taxpayer will make their contribution. It's all about maintaining their business model of not being liable for anything, and limiting or excluding liability contrary to section 57 and section 72 of the consumer rights act.     And incidentally, there is a myth that if you refuse mediation that somehow it will go against you and the judge will take a dim view and be critical of you. This is precisely a myth. It's not true. It would be highly improper if any judge decided the case against you on anything other than the facts and the law of the case. So don't worry about that. The downside of declining mediation is that your case will take slightly longer. The upside is that if you win you will get all your money and you will have a judgement in your favour which will help others. The chances of you winning in this case are better than 95% and of course you would then receive 100% of your claim plus costs
    • Nice to hear a positive story about a company on this form for a change. Thank you
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      The judge's reasoning is very useful and will certainly be helpful in any other cases relating to third-party rights where the customer has contracted with the courier company by using a broker.
      This is generally speaking the problem with using PackLink who are domiciled in Spain and very conveniently out of reach of the British justice system.

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Hi, 

 

I am finishing off my witness statement today and was wondering if anyone can advise on whether I am adding too much/too little detail? 

 

I have attached page 1 as an example of how it looks.

 

I have numbered all of my evidence and have referenced them.

 

Having never done this before, I want to get it right!

Witness Statement (unfinished).pdf

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Lookin fine....give it a good conclusion and what you wish the court to grant and use the updated statement of truth at the end.

 

2.2 The form of the statement of truth verifying a witness statement should be as follows: “I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.”

 

2.4 The statement of truth must be in the witness’s own language.

 

2.5 A statement of truth must be dated with the date on which it was signed.

 

Andy

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Hi,

 

Attached is a draft of my final summary. I would be grateful if there is someone who can advise if I have got this right or not.

 

My full witness statement is done and I have referenced each piece of evidence and have each document numbered with that reference in a folder with corresponding numbered file dividers.

 

Thanks

Draft end statement.pdf

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Numbering has disappeared...correct and upload as one final document.

 

Andy 

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Okay...possibly a little too much detail but it covers the problem in detail. I notice you have not once referred/relying to the Consumer Rights Act 2015...may be prudent to throw in a paragraph re the contract and the unsatisfactory work and material not fit for purpose.

 

Andy

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Thank you for your reply. To be honest, I was concerned that I had gone into too much detail and did reduce it slightly last night without losing the points I want to make.

 

If you have any guidance on which parts I can reduce further please feel free to say.

 

I will definitely add a paragraph about the Consumer Rights Act...thanks for the prompt.

 

Can I ask.... when I received the Defendants response to my claim, Bank Fodder asked me to breakdown his comments and do a response which I did. At what point do I get to put my response to this forward?  Will that be at the hearing? 

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I personally would try to get it down to 3 pages tops....keep it snappy succinct and to the point.....you dont want the Judge to get bored by page 2.

 

Your response to the defence should be included in the above your witness statement...you wont be afforded any further opportunities to submit anything else. Your WS is your last response.

We could do with some help from you.

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Do I submit the document that I did for Bank Fodder or do I need to add my comments into the WS?

 

For example, the defendant has said he removed x amount of waste from site and i know he didnt....can I ask for proof of  receipts for the tonnebridge at the waste site? 

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Hi,

 

I instructed an expert witness on 1st August as per court directions (the defendant failed to respond to the choices I sent to him and I was therefore able to choose on behalf of us both)

 

The defendant complained to the Court on 12th August about my choice of witness and is refusing to pay his half of the cost.

 

I have had to pay the full amount in order to secure the survey and get the report done in time to meet the directions deadline of 31st August.

 

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach the non payment? Do I notify the court and add this to my claim?

 

Thank you

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At the end of the case – and when judgement is given to you, you must ask the court to award you costs and also in view of the defendant's unreasonable conduct in the litigation, to exercise discretion to award you litigant in person costs.

In advance you should have prepared a spreadsheet listing out the hours that you have spent dealing with this and any expenses incurred.

Make sure it is all carefully laid out and doesn't look as if you are simply out to grab some extra money.

You can claim an hourly rate which I think is currently £18 per hour and also any expenses and include in the expenses the cost of any inspections.

You will have to ask for costs immediately the judgement is given. The judge may consider that it is at an end and so as soon as the judgement is given you will have to thank the judge and ask whether you can bring up the question of costs.

You have to do this immediately because otherwise the judge may simply wind up the papers and go onto the next case. Don't necessarily wait to be asked.
Bring up the question of costs as soon as the judgements given – but certainly during the case, you might make one or two references to the defendant's unreasonable behaviour but don't make a song and dance of it because that is not the central issue. The defendant's unreasonable behaviour is something that should be brought up immediately after the judgement.

I suggest you start preparing your spreadsheet now and if you want you can post it up here for us to see.

List out the hours which have been spent – if you can identify particular tasks which you spent time on then detail those and also any dates – detail those as well.

You might be looking at 20 hours to 30 hours of costs. If you had to wait in for any inspections and miss time off work then detail these as well.

A spreadsheet might have several categories – hours spent, expenses incurred for time off work, expenses incurred travel, expenses incurred paying for reports – blah blah blah.

Don't forget at an early stage it will be advantageous to you to point out to the court that this is a defendant who routinely falsely misrepresents himself on the Internet as to his qualifications and accreditations.
If you can get that in early then the judge will have that in mind when hearing any evidence from the defendant.

 

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I haven't been following this thread recently but are there orders of the court requiring these documents to be filed or is it simply the usual process?

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Once he fails to obey the order of the court, you can ask the court to strike out his defence and give you judgement and also ask for your costs – and this would be a reasonable moment to attach your costs spreadsheet as well. (Another reason why you should get it going now).

However, it might be worth waiting until he compounds the problem by failing to comply with the order relating to supply an expert witness report by 31 August.

When the court refers to the expert with this report, is is the one that you are both meant to agree upon before commissioning the report? And for which you have now undertaken completely at your own expense?

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On 21/07/2021 at 11:16, smithy49 said:

Thanks for your advice.

 

The court letter says that if we dont receive a response from him by 4pm on 29th July we can instruct the surveyor of our choice. 

 

We have to instruct a Surveyor by 4pm on 2nd August and send them copies of the court letter, our claim and the defendants response. 

 

We have the details of a groundwork expert who is highly regarded in his field. He has said he can do it but I am unsure if we can use him with him not being a Chartered Surveyor. He is qualified to act as an expert witness.

 

If we are unable to get 3 x CVs before 26th July then it might be our only choice to put him forward. 


BF, this may well mean that D (the defendant) hasn’t failed to comply, as the court has given D the option:

1) Agree before 4pm July 29th, or

2) Accept C’s choice of expert if not agreed before 4pm July 29th.

 

So I doubt the court will strike out the defence merely because D didn’t choose option 1).

Thus the court won’t strike it out of their own volition over that alone, and an application for strike out by the OP would be an expensive gambit that is unlikely to succeed.

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Thanks.

The way I read it is that it is – And, not Or.

Maybe the OP can clarify.

In terms of incurring costs asking for the strikeout, I don't know why I had in mind that there was no need to make an application order when informing the court that an order had been breached.

I agree that the court may decline to strikeout, but I was going to suggest putting the pressure on by making a strikeout request after the 16th and then another one after the end of the month when the second deadline was missed.

In fact I was going to suggest leaving the first letter a few days so that it was sent off about the 22nd or 23rd of August and then followed up by the second one in the first couple of days of September.

Even if the strike outs are not granted, it all goes on the record and I certainly think that that would be helpful when the court was deciding whether or not to award LIP costs.

However, if a letter to the court informing them that the orders had been breached, costs money then I agree – it's not worth it.

 

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Ok. Just to clarify, the defendant had until 29th July to choose an expert witness  but didnt so I instructed one myself but as a joint instruction.

 

The defendant emailed the Court on 12th Aug to say he wasnt happy with my choice of expert and that he was late to respond because he had been looking after his poorly grandparent (his reason to me was that he had been on a short break away).

 

He has been emailing me since 12th aug to complain about the witness and has asked me to postpone the survey until he hears back from the Court. I have paid for the witness in full myself now as  I was at risk of losing the appointment and missing the court deadline of 31st Aug.

 

The Expert Witness report will reach the court by 31st August but will have been paid for by me. I have also served my WS on the Defendant and to the Court. 

 

If I dont receive his WS by 4pm on 16th Aug then he has failed to comply with the directions again.

 

I am going to take a look at the strike out procedure now to get it into  my head.

 

Thank you

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Do you have it in writing from him that he claimed that he was on a short break away?

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Well if you do decide to inform the court that he has not complied with the court order, I think it would be worth very briefly pointed out that the initial reason for not complying with the timescale may have been untrue because he has given different reasons to you and to the court.

If you do this then I would lay out very simply in one or two sentences and with the examples attached.

If it does go to hearing then you should definitely point this out as part of your argument that this person is generally speaking unreliable and tends to be manipulative both in advertising and professional representation as well as dealing with this litigation.

This should def may be referred to when asking the court to make an award of LIP costs

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I'll do that, thank you.

 

He has emailed the court to complain about my choice of Expert Witness on the grounds that he isnt a driveway tradesman and it is "unfair" to the defendant. However, the initial assessments I got done after we first complained were from tradesman and he has discounted them in his response to my claim as he said they are trying to profit. 

 

I am going ahead with the Expert Witness survey this coming week in order to meet the deadline of 31st August. I spoke to a Clerk at the Court who said the defendants email had been sent to the Judge but if I was complying with the directions then it wasnt an issue.

 

Do I bring this up with the Court now or down the line? I very much doubt the Judge will have an issue with the Expert Witness, he is a very experienced and credible choice.

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