Small claims court - can it be used against UK subject currently living in France?

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

DH needs to take a guy to small claims court. This guy has a flat in London but currently resides in France. Can we use the local small claims court for this? Thanks.

I think you can but you'll have a lot of trouble actually getting any money out of him if he refuses to pay unless he has a uk bank account.

Thanks, SP. I'm sure he has a UK bank acount as he's renting out his flat in London. DH will start proceedings on Monday.

hang on a minute - it has just occured to me that you might actually need the account details too. cod will know, so bumping for her.

Haven't read through it all, but at first glance it looks like this might have some useful stuff.

Thanks for the replies and the link. I read a bit around it and it seems that the European Small Claims Court isn't operational yet, it's just been approved (?) in June this year but still has to go through the European Parliament. Reading more around the subject it seems that DH's future win will be for his principles only as there's no way he can actually make the bastard pay up. Oh well, a lesson not to deal with ex-pats in the future (this was for some plumbing work DH did on this guy's flat in the Uk which he rents out).