My Small Claims Court experience

by gassygassy Thu Jan 11, 2024 6:20 pm

I won't name names but this is what happened to me.

I have just completed the process of making a small claim against a motorhome dealer who told me that the Comfortmatic based Fiat I placed a deposit on (in May 23) was the new automatic. I had told them I didn't want the Comfortmatic, but I wanted the new 'fully automatic'. I didn't realise that the motorhome I placed the deposit on was a Comfortmatic. You can say I'm daft, I ought to know the difference, but I didn't. I had never investigated or looked at a Comfortmatic but I had read quite a few reports of the driving problems, the gearbox faults and the high costs of maintenance and repairs. That is why I knew that I didn't want one. The dealer salesman assured me it was the new version of Fiat's automatic. This is what the case hinged around.

The evening that I placed the £3000 deposit on one, I realised that it was indeed a Comfortmatic so it was misrepresented and I emailed the dealer to say I was cancelling the order because it was a Comfortmatic that I had said I didn't want. I requested the return of the £3000. They refunded £2500, retaining £500 'for expenses'. I replied that I would allow them to retain £50 for their expense of printing four sheets of invoice and for transferring the deposit money. They rejected this claiming their £500 expenses were justified. I started the small claims process to recover the £500. I have made two small claims courts claims on two previous occasions and the process was simple and quick and successful.

However it appears that nowadays the process is neither simple nor quick. I started the process in June 2023 and the case was heard on 8 January 2024. By this time my claim had risen to about £700 because I was allowed to claim court fees, plus interest (which the court system calculated from start to court hearing). My pile of paperwork was now 34 pages of statements and correspondence plus another thick wedge of paper for associated documentation.

The court hearing duly took place at the start of January 2024. My wife and I were witnesses, as we were both there when we went to look at the motorhome. The judge asked the defendant (there were three representatives of the motorhome dealer who constituted 'the defendant') to justify their £500 expenses, in which they claimed £90 an hour plus VAT for three of their salesmen's time, plus that the claimant should pay the insurance of something he doesn't own until such time as the dealer sold the vehicle, also that the claimant should pay the defendant's interest on the loan they had to buy and stock the motorhome until it was sold three months later, etc etc. The judge demolished their expenses claim well and truly. One of the defendant's witnesses who 'had written' (actually I think it was the boss who wrote it) a witness statement had 'left the company before Christmas'. So he wasn't there to defend his statement. He was the one who most firmly confirmed that the vehicle had the new automatic gearbox, and should have known better. The judge asked the defendant why the witness was not in court and the defendant said "He has left the company". It seemed fairly obvious that the salesman had been sacked following my starting the claim process, so the judge asked if he had left 'under a cloud'. 'No', said the arrogant defendant. 'Why did he leave?' asked the judge. ' He found another job' said the defendant. 'When did he he leave?' asked the judge, knowing that the truth would be 'in June, when we found out he had failed to sell this rubbish Comfortmatic'. 'He left before Christmas' the arrogant defendant said. He would have been sacked in June, which is 'before Christmas' so the defendant wasn't lying.

I was exceptionally impressed with the insight and perception of the judge. He noticed that the defendant present in court claimed in his witness statement that I drove the motorhome from the dealership to a turning point, and back again. Whereas the statement of the absent witness said that he (the other (sacked) salesman) had driven it to the turning point and that I had driven it back. That was true. The judge pointed out this discrepancy in the two witness statements of the two salesmen, so he must have read and inwardly digested all of them, and there was a total of six statements from the defendant and another six from me. The court system kept asking us for more witness statements for some reason, we didn't just bombard the court and the other party with them.

The hearing started at 2pm. We sat in a proper court room, although the 'judge' didn't wear a wig, there wasn't a typographer (or whatever the recorder is called) - everything that was said was clearly recorded as we all had microphones and the judge had a tablet he was referring to. I was quite nervous, because the chief boss of the defendant company was very agressive and arrogant. That always helps the defendant of course, and puts doubts in the mind of the judge as to whether they are telling the whole truth.

At 3:20 the judge called a 20 minute recess while he reviewed the statements and drew his verdict. When we returned he spent a long time going through the pertinent facts of the case as he saw them. He found that the defendants claim for expenses was not justified, he found the differences between the two salesmen's statements, and he said he was impressed by my wife's response to a question he had asked, thus:

Judge: when you were stopped at the turning point, are you absolutely sure that you asked the salesman if this was a comfortmatic, and that the saleman said no, it was the new automatic.

Wife: I can't be 100% sure, but I am 99% sure. I asked the salesman if it was the new automatic and he counted the years on his fingers and said this is one year newer than the change so it must be the fully automatic.

In his summing up the judge said he was impressed by my wife's honesty, that she wasn't claiming to be 100% certain but 99%. He was therefore minded to believe her and her witness statements, and mine, that in fact we had been sold this motorhome as the new automatic and not a comfortmatic. He found in our favour and awarded all the costs plus the return of the £500, totalling nearly £700, and gave the defendant a week to pay.

Something very odd happened in the process. You get emails from 'the court' which is actually 'the on line process' instructing you to do certain things, and if you don't do them the case will be thrown out in favour of the other party. So of course you abandon all other plans and get on with the instructions. During this process you are instructed to pay an initial fee of £50 to register the case. Then you are instructed to pay the court fee, which was £70. A few weeks later I was instructed to pay more court fees of £85. Much later in the process I noticed that I had two separate claim numbers for the one claim. I still don't know why, but one of the two case numbers was what was heard. I have asked 'The court' on line why I was allocated and paid for two claims when there was only ever one. I have had no reply so I think I am going to lose the second £85 fee.