Before I go any further let me make it clear that I am not an expert. This is the first time that I have taken anyone to court. My clients are generally very happy with my work and I have never before had such a problem to get paid. What I am giving you is my experience with the system when using it to try and get my money out of ICFBA Holdings Ltd.
The first place you have to go is Money Claim Online This is the Online service for the HM Courts. The main website contains lots of useful information and is the source for all of the Civil Procedure Rules. These CPRs as they are known are how civil cases are managed. If you are thinking of taking someone to Court these are what you need to read. You also need to read the Practice Directions attached to each CPR as these give further instructions or interpretations of the CPRs. As it turned out, the ICFBA hadn't bothered to read them and made a couple of fundamental mistakes in defending their case.
At first glance Money Claim Online seems a bit daunting. However read the notes of what you have to do and it really is much easier than you think. There is also a link on the main page to PD 7e which tells you about how to use Money Claim Online. The main things that you need is the Defendant's address - that's the person that owes you money - and a brief outline of the case; oh yes and a way of paying online. The fees vary depending upon how much you are owed, but for me satisfaction was more important than the money.
The court will then send your debtor a notice of issue. This is called "serving". A strange term, but it simply means that you send the papers to the defendant. Or rather the court will. You will get an acknowledgemet through the post that it has been "served" and the debtor then has 28 days in which to file their defence or an Acknowledgement of Service. If they send an Acknowledgement of Service, they then get 28 days from that to file their defence.
So now I was in the system. I had filled my case, it had been served and the ICFBA had acknowledged the claim. So let battle commence.
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The story of how a single consultant took on ICFBA Holdings Ltd, (Gibralter) won the case but didn't get any money because they fled the country by dumping the company and setting up a new one.
