garthwd wrote:
I have received my court date, 6th May. However, the form says I need to pay a hearing fee of £100 unless I make an application for a fee concession. I thought the £70 I have paid when I logged the case on the Moneywise website was the hearing fee. Am I mistaken?
Garth
Unfortunately Her Majesty's Court Service likes its fees and has to set them to cover its costs.
The initial fee was the issue fee which covers you up to the Allocation Questionnaire stage (as your claim is a Small Claim under £1500 there was no AQ fee to pay). The hearing fee is the next one to pay.
Bear in mind that the majority (probably around 90%) of County Court claims never actually go as far as a hearing - they either settle, are discontinued or end with a Default Judgment (ie: when the defendant doesn't respond judgment is entered as a paper exercise - normally without a judge even seeing the case). This is the main reason for new fees at different stages.
As with the issue fee the hearing fee will be automatically added on to your claim.
From the hearing fee you're being asked to pay your total claim must be between £1000 & £1500. If you can settle the case & get written confirmation of this to the court 7 days before the hearing then you will normally get the fee refunded.
Depending on how long you've got to pay the fee this could possibly be something you can use to force Comet to come to an agreement (ie: pay up or another £100 is being added to the claim).
There shouldn't be any more fees to pay after this one unless you have to enforce the judgment (sending in the bailiffs etc.).
PS: Just in case I forget to tell you - if this does go to hearing (knowing Comet this is unlikely) then, when the judge tells you that you've won, don't forget to ask for travel costs & loss of earnings for the day (they won't normally allow over around £50).
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