Help being taken to small claims court.

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I inherited a flat from my great aunt and have just sold it. The FTB that bought it wanted most of the furniture and as I already have a house and don’t need it I agreed to leave most things. Most of the furniture is 15 plus years old but my aunt had amazing taste and didn’t stint on quality.
One of the things left was a sofa bed, probably @10 years old and I’ve never used it.
The FTB are now requesting £1500 as the sofa bed mechanism doesn’t work so won’t pull out. They are pissed!
At first they text me wanting money and when I said that the sofa wasn’t integral and wasn’t paid for so I wasn’t going to buy them a new sofa they have gone to the small claims court.
I have spoken with my solicitor and he said that they never asked for the condition of the sofa and didn’t pay money for the sofa so they don’t have a leg to stand in but do they? Would the courts side with them?
I have no receipts for the furniture and didn’t even know about the bed not working.
Anyone experienced anything like this?

I hope you will be putting in a claim for your costs, OP.

It was via teams but I only saw and spoke to the mediator. I didn’t hear or see the other party. But you could tell the mediator just wanted to get an agreement and pretty much knew from the onset and both our starting points that would never happen.

Wow, sorry you went through this there seems to be a lot of CF’er around!

This is still going?!

They are bonkers!

Oh yes I kid you not! At least I’ve not found one person who thinks the CF’er are in the right. Just need the courts to say the same. Roll on Feb I’m ready!!!

I was just thinking about this thread this weekend, following the Dyson lady thread.

Flipping heck, I can’t believe this is actually happening to you!

<marks calendar>

I’ve recently had a similar small claim made against me. It was an unreasonable claim and the judge struck it out. Because it was such a silly claim, I asked if I could claim any costs. The judge said yes, but only if they could be evidenced there and then by showing receipts to the court usher. It was only a token amount, but very satisfying and the claimant was extremely put out!
So make sure you turn up with all possible receipts & invoices- travel, photocopies, lever arch files etc. The more unreasonable the claim, the more likely the judge is to award costs.

Thank you, that’s good to know. At the moment this has only cost my time and effort, nothing that I can evidence by a receipt. I will have to take a day off work to go to the court date but I don’t think my work would give me a letter showing my hourly rate.

Postage, paper for printing out ? Even if it's 30p it's the principle!

You didn't sell them the sofa bed. You sold them a house and agreed to leave some furniture, condition as seen. They're cheeky fuckers and you can just block them. It's utterly preposterous frankly.

I have in the past done letters confirming a loss of salary. Ask HR/Payroll.

She can't really, they're in court next month.

This comment aged well!

@TheFormidableMrsC sorry, of course. Thank you.
I mean there's no way they'll win surely? It sounds almost like joke it could've even been taken to court? They didn't check the sofa bed and accepted the furniture as seen. As a bonus. They're not entitled to a sofa bed that works as a bed as part of the property sale.
The stuff is what it is, keep it or throw it away.
I certainly hope so anyway! I'd be seething if I were OP. Not worried, just pissed at those twats.

This

RTFT.

Yes I think we all feel the same. It's a joke isn't it? Will have to wait and see what happens 😕

When I won at the small claims court the judge asked what DH (with me) and I did for a living. Then awarded a day rate based on our job title.

@nodramaplz and @SunOnTheRiver believe you me I wish this was a drama free zone. But none of this is my doing. I’m going to court as some CF’er want £1,000 for something that was free. Would you give someone £1,000 for something you gave someone for free?

Yes as pp have said, just take a copy of your payslip to show your approximate daily rate. You don't need to show the claimant, just show the judge. It is capped anyway at £95 per person per day, and the court can't award you more than this for lost earnings even if your actual rate is much higher.
Direct costs like travel and parking (show your ticket, or if you drive, just show the judge the distance on Google Maps on your phone and claim it at £0.45 per mile ) are also claimable when you win.

@MadameBethune thank you I’ll do this. I can show a payslip and I’ll need to drive in and park in the city centre for 3+hrs. So I can show all those.

By the way, if you are employed and have had to take a day of leave, you have not lost money unless it is unpaid leave. There is no compensation for losing a day of your holiday allowance unfortunately. So the lost earnings payment only really applies to self employed people who are actually out of pocket.

Sorry I haven’t posted for awhile. The 2 week mark came and went last Friday. They waited till 11:45pm to send through a ruck of paperwork. Most of it was just the documents for the sale of the flat and copies of messages by myself and solicitors and finally a receipt for the sofas removal. No invoice for a new sofa.
The messages from their solicitor says there was no recourse via the sale but they could go to small claims court, so it looks like they have just take that advice verbatim and not thought if it was a sane thing to do or not!
I just want to get this over and done with now, but I have used this as an excuse to buy a lovely new suit. Every cloud and all that.

Arses. Sounds like a satisfying 'oh do fuck off' from their solicitor to them, though!