Money Box Live: Small Claims Court
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is it time to turn to the small claims court?
It’s only 9 days into the New Year and your relaxed demeanour may have already waned. Especially if faced with a mountain of Christmas presents that never worked and a feeling of resentment about the botched boiler repair.
Help is at hand in the form of the small claims court – a low cost way for you to claim what you feel you are owed by an individual or small business, providing it's not more than £10,000.
In the past year a little over 2 million claims were raised in England and Wales, 39,000 of them via the Government's newly launched online service. They boast that the fastest claim was lodged and paid in under two hours.
Today our panel discusses the effectiveness of the system for getting you your money back:. Helen Dewdney aka The Complaining Cow and consumer champion Benjamyn Damazar, regular user of the small claims court process Stephen Gerlis, retired district court judge.
Presenter: Paul Lewis Producer: Alex Lewis Editor: John Murphy
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.4 | My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:10.8 | The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that. |
| 0:17.5 | With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to |
| 0:22.4 | helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put |
| 0:28.3 | together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life, |
| 0:35.0 | check out BBC Sounds. |
| 0:41.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, it all comes down to money. If you're a consumer and something doesn't work, |
| 0:46.3 | but you can't get a refund, or you pay someone to do a job and they fail to get it right. |
| 0:50.3 | An insurer won't pay up when an accident gives you extra costs or you pay for a |
| 0:55.2 | service but it turns out to be rubbish. In all cases you have a claim for money against the |
| 1:00.0 | individual or firm that failed to honour its side of the deal. Well, there is an easy way, relatively, |
| 1:06.2 | to enforce those rights. In England and Wales you can make an online court claim for money, and if it's |
| 1:11.7 | to less than £10,000, the procedure should be simple and cheap. Similar procedures apply in |
| 1:16.9 | Scotland and Northern Ireland, though not online. Overall, they're usually called small claims |
| 1:22.0 | courts, and they're there to be used when all else fails. In the past year alone, more than |
| 1:26.4 | two million claims were raised |
| 1:27.9 | in England and Wales, 39,000 of them via the government's newly launched online service. It |
| 1:34.0 | boasts that the fastest claim was lodged and paid in less than two hours. So how does this |
| 1:39.6 | system work? How easy is it really? And what are the risks? With me today is Helen Doudney, who runs |
| 1:44.9 | the complaining cow website and specialises Helen. I think it's fair to say in complaining and |
| 1:50.2 | getting a result. How do you make sure you've got yourself ready for this, though, if you finally |
... |
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