Small Claims Procedure (Book)
Applies to England and Wales only
Now in stock.
Now directly from The Consumer Action Group - £17.10 plus £1.00 p&p.
TO BUY THIS BOOK - CLICK ON THIS LINK The Consumer Action Group
If you want to feel in control of your ltitigation and take control of your Consumer Rights then this book is for you.
Small Claims Procedure: A Practical Guide
Judge Patricia Pearl a District Judge at the County Court has produced an excellent guide to the whole business of litigating in the small claims court.
This is not only a book that is going to be useful to you if you are suing your bank for bank charges. This is going to be invaluable to you in any aspect at all where you attempt to Reclaim the Right. This book is much larger that I would normally have expected to be recommending for the lay person seeking to bring their own action in the County Court without professional legal help. At 300 pages I would normally have expected something far more technical and less successful than Patricia Pearl’s book.
However this book is beautifully laid out informative, explanatory, full of detailed tables, check lists, cross references, sample forms and many many reminders as to the basic principles of each particular stage that Patricia Pearl happens to be dealing with at that particular point.
As can be expected the book deals with all aspects of bringing a case to court from the preliminary steps of attempting to negotiate, attempting to achieve an out of court settlement before the action starts, letters before action, drafting the claim and there are helpful forms included in the book where the steps to be taken are outlined on the forms themselves.
Patricia Pearl goes through the business of filling out a claim form from dealing with the identity of the claimant and the defendant all the way through to dealing with the value of the claim with the amount claimed, calculating the court fee and of course this knotty problem that we all have of what interest to apply to the claim for bank charges. She then talks about the defence and of course the allocation questionnaire.
The book goes on to talk about costs in the Small Claims Court and a very good chapter on the hearing itself, lots of information about what is expected of you and how to conduct it.
Finally Patricia Pearl deals with the whole question of applications to set aside judgement which is something we are finding more and more on the Forum as the banks are receiving judgements against them for the return of bank charges. She then goes on to discuss the process of enforcing the judgement..
In the last chapter or so of the book Patricia Pearl deals with drafting of various documents including drafting letters before action and includes samples, she deals with other correspondence gives examples of advice on drafting claims, defences, counter claims, admissions -- and once again deals with the calculations of statutory interest.
Eventually a number of appendices deal with various issues including court fees, costs and appendix 5 contains a very useful selection of sample forms.
It is difficult to see how any particular aspect of small claims process has been not dealt with in this book. Any litigant in person who uses this book as his guide will find that he has very few questions to ask at the end. At £17.10 this is not a cheap book but on the other hand no law books are cheap. This book has the advantage of qualifying for free delivery under the Amazon rules. However, for a little extra, you can buy it directly from us and help this site as well. We can't cut it as low as Amazon - sorry.
I have been looking at quite a number of much smaller guides that I first imagined would be more far more suitable for the users of The Consumer Action Group forum but in fact when I compare them to this book by Patricia Pearl I find that they are really very scant in the amount of information that they give and they are still as much as half of the price of Patricia Pearl’s book but probably less than a quarter of the value.
This book demystifies the Small Claims process and is wholeheartedly recommended for anyone who wants to feel in control of their litigation.
The following is taken directly from Amazon's own website:
Book Description
There is very little of authority published for professionals and non-professionals on practice and procedure in small claims matters, at a time when the inexorable rise in the size of limits means that more and more actions will be handled by these relatively informal procedures.
Patricia Pearl is a District Judge in a busy county court, hearing actions across the full spectrum of work, including consumer law, debt collection, road traffic and cases related to personal injury, employment and landlord and tenant. Her book is practical and authoritative.
Synopsis
"Solicitors should not neglect small claims work...within a few years [it] could be more than 90% of all county court actions." Suzanne Burn, Law Society Gazette. There is very little published for professionals on practice and procedure in small claims matters, at a time when the inexorable rise in the size of limits means that more and more actions will be handled by these relatively informal procedures. Patricia Pearl is a District Judge in a busy county court, hearing actions across the full spectrum of work, including consumer law, debt collection, road traffic and cases related to personal injury, employment and landlord and tenant. Her book is practical and authoritative, its contents including: financial limits, cases excluded and choice of county court; commencing proceedings, defending proceedings and the pre-arbitration hearing; preparations for the hearing, lay representatives; the hearing - practice, evidence and presentation issues; challenging the result; precedents; enforcement; fees and terms.
From the Publisher
Not the cheapest book on small claims work. Not the longest. But definitely the best - written by a judge who can write and who understands the needs of all court users. One reviewer even said of this book "all law books should be written like this"!
About the Author
Patricia Pearl is a District Judge in Watford County Court. She was formerly a solicitor
£17.10 plus £1.00 p&p directly from The Consumer Action Group
