Is it worth taking them to small claims court?

[wilbur]

We have just bought a new house. On top of the purchase price, we also paid £5000 toward the cost of cancelling a conservatory that the vendors had ordered but that we didn't want. We were told that the total cancellation price was £5400 approx. About 2 weeks after we moved in we got Anglian on the doorstep asking where the vendors were as they had not paid the bill. It turns out that not only have they not paid the bill, that they cheated us when telling us what was due to Anglain - they provided a letter from Anglian with the £5400 figure on it, but subsequently baretered them down to £4100 but didn't tell us that. Anyway, I had offered to pay Anglian direct but of course that was refused and we were told that the vendors' solicitor had said they should pass the money to Anglian, not us. Anyway, vendors have now left the country (we think) and no forwarding address. Can we still take them to small claims? Or their solicitor who didn't make sure that all debts were paid before he passed the money on to them? I'm pissed off that there is a bad debt against our new house which I think affects credit ratings, plus I hate the thought that we have been swindled (although that might be just because the vendors left us with so much crappy furniture to get rid of and also fleas!)

Sorry this is so long, but does anyone have any experience or knowledge of this kind of thing?

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Ooh, you don't happen to have a letter from vendors' solicitor saying they should pay? If so you have a good case against him I should think?

If you just handed over the money on their say-so though I'm not sure...

Bastards.

Twiglett's right, the conservatory is between Anglian and the vendors so nothing to do with you, don't even think about paying Anglian a penny. Is up to them to chase the old occupiers if they want.
As for the money you handed over, did this go through your solicitor who handled the house purchase, or was it something you agree separately? If it was arranged as part of the purchase price, then your own solicitor should be your first port of call, I would have thought. Let him/her tackle the vendor's solicitors.

Small claims court is a no-no if you don't have an address for them or even know if they are in the country.

You may be able to get something out of their solicitors if you can show that s/he was negligent in not ensuring that the money was paid, but again I suspect not.

You don't have to deal with Anglian at all if you don't want to as the contract was between then and your vendors.

Thanks for these replies. I wasn't planning to pay Anglian anything and to be fair, Anglian have been very polite and courteous throughout and they wouldn't expect us to pay anything. I just think that it's such a shabby thing to do that the vendors should be made to cough up, plus I hate the fact that even if they had paid the bill, they swindled us out of nearly £900. Which would very mich come in handy right now. Edam - the conservatory money was put as an extra on the house sale contract and I have letters between solicitors saying that that was what the money was for, plus an email from the vendor (it was a private sale so we dealt directly with them) saying that her solicitor had told her not to let me pay Anglian direct. Do you reckon I should talk to my solicitor? I don't really want to have to pay him to sort this out, can't afford it anyway.

bumping just in case any legal eagles are around...