Latest news with #smallclaims
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Number of small claims court cases have more than halved since 2019
The public is lodging fewer cases year on year to the small claims court, according to data released to The Irish Times. In all, 2,081 such cases were lodged last year – a 55 per cent decrease from 2019 when 4,627 cases were brought. Courts Service spokesperson Gerry Curran said the reasons behind the decline were 'varied' and there might be 'a greater awareness among goods and service providers of the process and a willingness to settle complaints more quickly'. He also said 'the pandemic caused a downturn in the levels of business across various civil areas of the courts, as some commercial and consumer activity waned during much of this period'. READ MORE Small claims cases are a procedure for consumers and businesses based the State to resolve disputes up to €2,000 without need of a solicitor. These make up about 3 per cent of all District Court cases. For a fee of €25 people can bring claims concerning goods, services, damage to property or non-return of key money – which is a rent deposit for a room in a house where a landlord lives or for a holiday home. Electrical goods, furniture and fittings and holidays are the most common types of claims for goods and services. Overall, 65 per cent of cases are settled without going to court. This usually happens when the court registrar contacts both sides in the dispute after a small claim is lodged. Just under a quarter of cases lodged are heard by a judge. The likelihood of a claim succeeding once it makes it to court is quite high. Last year 70 per cent of the 478 cases which went ahead with a hearing were successful. The Courts Service said it had upgraded its website to explain the small claims process more clearly, with a guide to the procedure and notes on how to make a claim. 'We don't want one of the reasons people do not proceed with a small claim to be that they do not understand the process or it is too complex to proceed with,' Mr Curran said. 'An increased awareness of the small claims procedure and the simplification of the online process should see an increase in activity.' The Courts Service said claimants could not request a remedy for time spent dealing with the issue, emotional distress or costs related to making the claim. Debt cases, personal injury claims, disputes over hire purchase/leasing agreements, claims about residential rental deposits where the landlord does not live in the property, insurance matters and claims against government bodies are also excluded. For parties based in another EU country, the European small claims procedure should be used.
Irish Times
16-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Ryanair's booking practices ‘an absolute disgrace', says District Court judge
A District Court judge has labelled Ryanair's booking practices 'an absolute disgrace' in a small claims case taken by a woman who was seeking €950 from the airline. On January 9th, Katie Graham booked return flights through the Ryanair app for her family to visit Turin, Italy, for a week-long skiing holiday in February. She received a reservation number, a prompt to check in for the flight and instructions to get to the airport. 'I genuinely thought everything was okay. There were only three weeks between booking the flights and leaving for the holiday and I was very busy. I did not check back into anything until the day before when I went to check in and an error message saying 'Oops, there's a problem with your booking' came up,' Ms Graham said. READ MORE She drove to the airport with her husband at 11pm for the departure and tried to check in at the Ryanair desk. They told her that her booking was not successful and the flight to Turin was now full. 'We had a hotel booked, a car booked. The kids' bags were packed. We were travelling with another family. It was an absolute nightmare,' she said. Graham and her husband found an alternative: to fly to Milan, then drive to Turin, at a cost of €1,301.98. 'It did put a strain on the holiday, but we got on with it', she told the court at Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Ms Graham said when she went to book the Turin flight in January she did not receive a pop-up message to say her payment had been denied and that as such her booking was not complete. She told the court she wanted €950 for the cost of the Milan flights – which she said she booked arising from Ryanair's error – to be returned to her. Counsel for Ryanair said 'ordinarily' a pop-up message would appear when the payment failed. However, the defence could not 'definitively' say if there had been a technical error when Ms Graham was booking her flights. Judge Stephanie Coggans noticed the 'complete imbalance of power' between Ryanair and the claimant. She said her job was to 'ensure as level a playing field as possible' in these matters. It seemed reasonable to the judge that Ms Graham believed she had booked the Turin flights. She said Ms Graham's claim 'absolutely succeeds on the basis of not receiving the error message'. However, a technical issue with Ms Graham's banking app that had required her to use a family member's card instead to book the flights to Milan meant the judge could not grant the relief sought as it was not Ms Graham's bank account in question. 'I want to do it, but I can't', Judge Coggans said. Although Ms Graham said she was 'quite disappointed', she said the court was 'really well run' and admired the judge's attitude towards claimants. In a separate hearing, passengers Joanna and Keith Troughton argued they should have received a last call when waiting at the gate in Dublin Airport to board their morning flight to London. They were unaware of the boarding process and missed their Ryanair flight, costing them an extra €300 to buy new flights later that morning. While again the judge disapproved of the way Ryanair had dealt with their complaint, she said the claimants should have double checked the flight was boarding at the gate. 'Something I see in the paperwork is Ryanair constantly using forceful methods of enforcement,' she said. Speaking to the airline's counsel, the judge said: 'It wouldn't kill [Ryanair] to be halfway polite to people.'
The Sun
27-06-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Businesswoman forced to pay £15,000 to her landlord after misreading the T&C's
A businesswoman had to pay £15k to her landlord after misreading the T&C's in her tenancy agreement – leading her business to go bust. Faye Finaro, 40, was looking to lease her first office building for her start-up recruitment company in 2016 and found a good spot in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. 1 She said she felt "pressured" to sign the 20-page contract there and then and was offered a discount as incentive. Alongside her then-business partner, Faye signed the tenancy agreement for the commercial premises - without reading it in detail - and got the keys the same day. They realised days later that it had no internet, nor could they get access to the server room to have it installed. It became "impossible" to work without Wi-Fi – using dongles for their staff - and Faye tried to hand in notice after four months to move the business elsewhere. That was when they learned they'd unwittingly agreed to an 18-month break clause - after not reading the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement properly - and they had to keep paying the £1,200-a-month in rent until that point. When they refused, the landlord took them to small claims court - and they lost their case, as the break clause had been mentioned in the contract. Faye and her business partner were ordered to pay £15k - their unpaid rent plus interest - in monthly instalments. It decimated her personal credit rating for several years after too - and she ended up having to close the business. Faye, who now runs a beauty service app called SOSBeauty, said: "We tried to tell them that we needed to go away and think about it before agreeing. "But they started adding extras to help us make a flash decision and, in the end, we signed on the spot. "The same week we realised there was no internet, or access to the server to install it; that wasn't mentioned in the agreement - they just omitted it." After moving in in January 2016, they handed in their notice in April and were moved out by July, but started getting letters demanding their unpaid rent which is when they were told there were 11 months left on their break clause – which amounted to £13,200 - plus £1,800 interest. In January 2017, they were taken to Mansfield Magistrates' and County Court – where they were told they had to pay the money they owed because they signed the contract. Faye said: "I had to pay £15,000 on an instalment plan as we were personal guarantors on the property. "It was a huge setback and impacted how our business started; because of the default on my credit file, it led to the downfall of the business. "We couldn't access funding because the bank lenders saw me as too high risk." But in 2023, she launched her new business, SOSBeauty, "on a shoestring" - borrowing investments from friends. Now, CEO Faye has teamed up with Adobe to share her story to highlight how their Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant can help make it easier to find the small print in contracts. She said she's been able to build a "powerhouse" out of her new business and has since fully restored her high credit rating, but she still looks back on the "horrific" period of her life. Michi Alexander, at Adobe, said: "Faye's story is more common than you'd think - 65% of business leaders admit to signing contracts they don't fully grasp. "We're using AI to make contracts clearer, easier to compare and understand, with verified answers and built-in data security." Faye added: "I'd advise someone else - don't be scared to ask questions, and to ask for help. "Don't put too much trust in landlords that have their own interests at heart - get other tenants' opinions too. She added: "The Adobe software would have been really useful when I was on the spot there. "I often check legal things using Chat GPT but you still need to use the right prompts to get the right information, so if you don't know what to ask, it's hard. "So, if I'd had something like that in which was specifically tailored to contracts, we would have been able to check."
Times
18-06-2025
- Times
We nearly missed our daughter's wedding, with no flight compensation
In September my wife and I were due to fly to Calgary in Canada for our daughter's wedding. When we got to Heathrow for our flight with the Canadian airline WestJet we were told that the plane's air conditioning had failed. We waited around for several hours while WestJet tried to fix it, but eventually the flight was cancelled. WestJet offered us an alternative flight a few days later, which we turned down because it would have meant missing our daughter's wedding. We asked for a refund of our flight fare, which WestJet has paid. We then made alternative plans to fly to Calgary via Edinburgh the next day. When we got back to the UK we claimed compensation of £520 each. WestJet finally responded six weeks later to say that it wasn't able to approve our claim. It said that our flight disruption was caused by unplanned aircraft maintenance that needed to be carried out for safety reasons, which meant that we are not entitled to compensation. This was nonsense. All airlines flying from the UK are liable to pay a fixed amount of compensation for delays, unless they can claim there was an exceptional circumstance. I said its explanation was wrong, but it now appears to be ignoring me. I then planned to get my money back through the small claims court but WestJet won't provide an address in England or Wales, which means that I can't issue a claim online. Instead I would need the court's permission to serve the claim in Canada and would also have to pay for someone to serve the papers over there. That doesn't seem worth it for a £1,040 claim. Surely it's not right that WestJet is able to dodge its responsibilities in this way? Patrick, address supplied Katherine Denham writes Under UK law airlines must pay compensation if passengers travelling from the UK arrive at their destination three hours late. Each passenger can get up to £520 compensation, with the amount depending on the length of the delay, the amount of notice given and the distance of the flight. The only exception is if the delay or cancellation is caused by an extraordinary circumstance that was outside the airline's control, such as poor weather conditions. As you know, unplanned maintenance does not count as an extraordinary circumstance, so I could see no reason why WestJet had not paid you the compensation you are entitled to. WestJet initially told me that you had never submitted a claim. Given that it had rejected your claim last year, I thought this made no sense. When I pointed this out to the company, it then explained that it thought you had claimed under Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR). Under those rules, compensation doesn't apply when flights are cancelled due to a 'situation that's within the airline's control but which is required for safety purposes'. Yet you showed me an email sent to WestJet that made it clear that you were claiming under the EU legislation EC261, which the UK rules are based on, so I thought it was very strange that it believed you were claiming under Canadian law. WestJet couldn't explain why it had logged this as an APPR claim, but thankfully I was able to get the company to pay you the £1,040 compensation you were owed. It said: 'WestJet sincerely apologises to the guests for their experience. We're grateful that Patrick has received his due compensation and can put this matter to rest.' You said: 'Thank you, it's amazing how fast companies move when you step in. I now wonder how many of the hundreds of other people on the flight were paid the compensation they are entitled to.' I stopped driving at 95. Will I ever see my insurance refund? In April I told my car insurer LV that I had sold my car. I shall soon be 95 and, after many decades of trouble-free motoring, I decided to quit while I was ahead and stop driving. LV agreed to refund the rest of my annual car insurance premium, amounting to £417. It said it would send this money to my HSBC credit card, which I had used to pay the original premium. I told LV that this would not work because HSBC had closed that account last August. I was assured that once the payment had bounced back to LV, it would contact me for instructions as to where to pay this refund. When I didn't hear anything, I called LV a week later and was told that the payment had not been returned by HSBC. LV said I should speak to HSBC and gave me a reference number to try to trace the payment. But HSBC said it had no evidence of £417 ever having been sent. I went back to LV to make a complaint, but have not heard back. I am spending hours on the telephone trying to sort out what would appear to be a relatively straightforward transaction. This is very stressful, particularly when, in this age of electronic banking, one would have reasonably expected my £417 to have been refunded within days, if not minutes. I'm exasperated. Peter, Dorset Katherine Denham writes I thought it was very unfair of the two companies to send you from pillar to post to retrieve your money. It's normal for companies to make refunds to the original payment card — if the payment bounces back, the firm should then get in touch to confirm your new payment details. I spoke to Allianz, the parent company of LV General Insurance, which said it had sent the money: 'While we're sorry for the time and inconvenience this caused, our service team followed our anti-money laundering processes.' So where was your refund? It turned out that HSBC had the payment after all. Usually a transaction contains information to help a bank return it to the sender, but this particular payment didn't. As HSBC didn't know where to send the money, it kept it in a holding account until it knew what to do with it. When it later established that the money belonged to you, it sent it to your active HSBC credit card. There were clearly some communication issues with the bank, and HSBC acknowledged that you were also disconnected during one call. In light of this it has given you £75 as a gesture of goodwill. HSBC said: 'This is an unusual case where a refund was sent back to a closed credit card without sufficient information for us to send it on. We are pleased the money has now been sent to its rightful home and we wish our customer all the best following his 75 years of incident-free driving.' You said: 'Please accept my grateful thanks for the part you played in this strange affair.' • £859,789 The amount Your Money Matters has saved readers this year If you have a money problem you would like Katherine Denham to investigate email yourmoneymatters@
BBC News
17-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Small claims court backlog in Somerset reaches record high
The wait for a small claims hearing in Somerset has reached record levels, new figures data from the Ministry of Justice show the average wait time for a small claims case to be heard at Taunton County Court in the three months to March was one year and 21 solicitor James McNally told BBC Radio Somerset: "The backlog is huge. The small claims court limit has been increased from £5k to £10k but there's also been a huge number of courts across the UK that have closed and a lot of court staff have been made redundant."The Ministry of Justice said they are recruiting almost 1,000 new judges and tribunal members to help the backlog. Mr McNally said: "Small claims court are there to resolve disputes but I don't think people have the money to settle claims the way they used too."It's not just small claims, it's all type of claims. It used to be, if you had a dispute, the court would step in, and within 12 months you'd be in front of a judge."You could be looking at two or three years before getting to court and it just means claims are progressing and the backlog is growing," he Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said people in need of justice are facing "unacceptable delays" for their day in court. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "Around 97% of county court claims are resolved without the need for a trial but we are taking action to ensure those that do are dealt with quickly."We are investing in the recruitment of about 1,000 judges and tribunal members this year across all courts and tribunals, have funded 74,300 sitting days in the Civil Courts for 2025/26 and are holding more remote hearings."
