Does the defence document sent to claimant have to be signed?

[Tsc2011]

We’ve had huge issues with a builder (significant delays, pestering for money he wasn’t owed, damage to our home) and he’s refused to complete the work.

We were in the process of putting a small claims together when he issued proceedings against us.

Our solicitor has been good in some aspects but when it came to submitting the defence he messed up and we had to issue an amendment to the court as the signed statement of truth had been missing. They now have a signed copy reviewed within the deadline.

I assumed he also sent the amendment to the Claimant but today the Claimant requested the court strike out my defence and issue damages by default to him because he claims the statement of truth wasn’t signed.

My solicitor said he sent the amendment to him but I wasn’t entirely convinced.

As the court has a signed copy are we ok or is this a problem of he didn’t get one?

My solicitor has just confirmed that he, in fact, didn’t send a signed copy to the Claimant as he had assured me he had yesterday.
However, he’s said he’s looked at CPR 22.2 and the requirement for a signed statement of truth is only for documents issued to the court. He said documents served to the Claimany don’t need a signature.

Can anyone advise if this is correct?

Is there an order setting out what you had to do re the defence? What did it say - file or file and serve? Or did you simply refile with the court within the time limit for filing a defence in the first place?

I can see nothing within CPR 22 (either the rule or practice direction) that says any statements of truth do not have to be on statements of case sent to the other party. Perhaps ask your solicitor where it says in CPR 22 that statements of case served on the other party do not have to be signed with a statement of truth.

Even if the Claimant issues an application I strongly suspect he will fail to strike out in these circumstances. Has a signed defence now been sent to him? And what's the timeline (date of issue, date of service of original defence, date of service of signed defence)?

And think about changing solicitor - there's mucking up, but he/s mucked up twice and then lied about it. I'd certainly be making a complaint to his firm.

Thanks for your reply.

The claim was made on the new portal and I also received a copy in the post.

All it said was that I have to respond by the given date via the portal. I tried to do this but after completing all the sections the portal wouldn’t go through to the submission page.

My solicitor sent the response to the court via email and I followed up with another email containing the documents again plus the N9B (solicitor had forgotten to complete!).

I phoned the court and they said the portal has a common fault where it won’t let people submit responses. They checked the file and said they had all the documents and it couldn’t be claimed that I hadn’t responded. They definitely have the signed copy and they received it within the deadline.

The deadline was 20 days ago (we’ve just received a response from the claimant to my counterclaim). My solicitor sent him a signed copy yesterday which he said was out of courtesy but not necessary.

The claim email and the paperwork didn’t say anywhere that we had to serve papers to the other party. The only reason we did was because my solicitor said that’s what usually happens. If I was doing this on my own I wouldn’t have known to do that (but then if the portal wasn’t working I would have sent a paper response instead which is what the website says to do)

I checked the gov website which just says this:

If the claim was made using the Online Civil Money Claims serviceYour claim number will include ‘MC’ if the claim was made using the Online Civil Money Claims service.
To respond using a paper form, send the form to:
Civil Money Claims
HMCTS CMC
PO Box 12747
Harlow
CM20 9RA

The solicitor is through my insurer so I’m not sure what my options are for changing at this stage. I made my feelings quite clear and he seems to have pulled his finger out but then, obviously, lied.