Parent owes me loads of money...

[nally]

I am going to county court tomorrow so that they can decide how much a parent (who owes me loads of money) can afford to pay.

Has anyone gone through this? I was wondering what happens at a county court hearing.

Not gone through it yet but i had a parent who terminated the contract without notice and therefore owes me £720. At first i was all for taking her to court etc, but now i'm starting to think it may be a lot a hassle. Has it been a lot of stress and inconvienience for you to get where you are now?

Are you an NCMA member? If so, you will be appointed a solicitor and will not have to pay legal fees.

Well, it has been going on for 8 months so far. The woman terminated the contract by text message, the week before Christmas and did not pay me anything. She owes me back pay from when the contract starts, wages for December and money for notice period. She then sent me a nasty letter, saying she would only pay me for December, as she didn't want to pay the notice period and accused me of all sorts of things which were untrue.

I then handed it to the solicitors. Over the course of 8 months, she has not responded to the solicitors on several occasions, flung some more nasty accusations, around, lied about NCMA reports which did not exist, had me investigated by Ofsted who agreed it was a case of sour grapes and declared no further action to be taken, she did not reply to the court's claim form, resulting in judgment in my favour, a court order was sent to her demanding she pay her debt, plus interest, plus my legal fees. she then lied saying she had not received the claim form and requested judgment to be set aside and asked for a court hearing.

so we are going to court tomorrow. i have all letters relating to the case, plus have typed up a summary in case I have to say anything.

but am really nervous and feeling sick

No wonder. I feel really sorry for you. The reason the parent in my case terminated the contract was because she expected me to do favours for her and work late, un paid so she could go out and enjoy herself. I said no and she started slagging me off saying how naive i was being and that i was incredibly immature and un reasonable!
I am worrying also that if i do go ahead, the same thing will happen as in your case and she would make un true allegations against me.

I am a member of the scma and i already have my claim form from the solicitor. I was also a bit wary about that as to wether or not everything would be paid for, or if i'd be left with a huge bill at the end.

Glad to hear someone else is going through the same situation. It's not your fault so just keep your head up and go for it. If only people would realise that they were signing a legal document when they sign a contract and there will be re percussions if they break it. Good luck, i hope all goes well

good luck Nally, hope you get a good outcome and hope she is bound to pay in lump sum instead of £5 a week

I think it is likely to be weekly or monthly as she is a single mum on benefits, so probably can't afford loads. She made an initial offer to pay for days worked in December, so I am hoping that maybe she has kept that aside and I can have it as 1st payment. Probably not though as it was such a long time ago. I have requested an Attachment of Earnings order, so if that goes ahead it will come out of her wages at source.

i did this parent owed me £1000 (3 children)
she was a single parent at uni who rented her propertey
first she did all the letter writing wrote nasty things which were untrue then she took the oldest child out of school and disapeererd.
courts found her for me and all she could aford was £1 per week
which she has paid me £3 and then vanished again.
this was 5yrs ago now

hmm...

just to add i dont use NCMA contracts i have my own so maybe you may be in a better position

I know its to late now, But always always get paid in advance, so many CM's get caught out this way, i learnt the hard way to be paid in advance. Never got money owing to me.

I get paid on the 1st of the month, have it written on my NCMA contract, that any payment paid after 9.00am on the first is charged at £5.00 per day late payent, if payment is not made by the 5th of the month care will not be available.

Most parents pay in advance but not this one as she had to wait for tax credits to come in and they would pay her in arrears at the end of the month. Just my luck really!