court of competent jurisdiction

odds_on

I've been reading the MUD Act and it keeps mentioning a "court of competent jurisdiction" as the court to go to if an ower has failed to pay the management service charges.

Is the small claims court a court of competent jurisdiction?

Or does one have to go to the next court in line, which I think may be the circuit court?

Pro Hoc Vice

I would think Small Claims court is excluded as I don't think it has jurisdiction for debts. The court would then be District Court it has a jurisdiction from €0 to €15,000 then the Circuit Court from €15,001 to €75,000 any figure above that the High Court.

If a case was launched last week the figures would have been different as the jurisdiction changed last Monday. There has also been a very large increase in stamp duty.

Marcusm

The Smalls Claims Procedure is simply part of the District Court rather than a seperate court. It would not apply as the management company would not have standing (see extract from rules below). Jurisdiction would be decided byt he amount of the claim as per usual?

Type of claims dealt with

(a) a claim for goods or services bought for private use from someone selling them in the course of a business (consumer claims)
(b) a claim for goods or services bought for business use from someone selling them in the course of a business (business claims)
(c) a claim for minor damage to property (but excluding personal injuries)
(d) a claim for the non-return of a rent deposit for certain kinds of rented properties. For example, a holiday home or a room / flat in a premises where the owner also lives provided that a claim does not exceed €2,000.

sawdoubters

http://www.prtb.ie/about-prtb/privacy/terms-of-use

odds_on

Infosys said:

I would think Small Claims court is excluded as I don't think it has jurisdiction for debts.

I was reading the MUD Act to see why there was so much difficulty in getting non payers of the service charges in developments to pay up. It seems to me that the problem the most management companies is the non payment of the charge.

Obviously, if the non paying owner cannot be taken to the small claims court, then a solicitor is required for any other court, adding to the expense and time required to get the service charges paid.

thank you for rely.

Marcusm said:

It would not apply as the management company would not have standing (see extract from rules below). Jurisdiction would be decided byt he amount of the claim as per usual?

Although the amount of the claim may be less than €2000, from the rest of your post, it would seem to be outside the scope of the small claims court as it would be classed as a debt and does not figure in the three options you quoted.
many thanks for your reply.

Sawdoubters, you suggested the PRTB so I can only assume that you only read the last paragraph of the previous post. My original question was what was a "court of competent jurisdiction" as the court to go to if an ower has failed to pay the management service charges.

This is obviously outside the scope of the PRTB.
Thanks anyway.