Small Claims Court fees

Barney224

Hi, just wondering if I took someone to the small claims court and won, would I get my €25 back as well as the claim amount?

I'm looking to try and claim back €90 from a trader, but not sure it's worth it if I have to pay €25

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058294881/small-claims-court-fees

No. The small claims procedure is a simplified procedure, and one of the simplification is that there are no awards of costs. If you win, the loser does not pay your costs.

On the plus side, if you lose, you do not pay the winner's costs.

Barney224

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120548975#Comment_120548975

OK thanks. But obviously if I win the case, he has to pay back the €90 he owes me?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549467#Comment_120549467

Yes. But it's up to you to collect it, and if he is sulky about it it might be more trouble than it's worth.

Barney224

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549552#Comment_120549552

But is he not legally obliged to pay back the money as per the court's decision? Sorry, confused as to the process here!

NUTLEY BOY

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549562#Comment_120549562

Getting an award against a defendant and then obtaining satisfaction of it are two separate processes.

Suppose that you get an award of €90 and the defendant does not pay. You will have to take further legal steps to enforce payment and that can create additional costs and trouble.

Breezy_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549701#Comment_120549701

So its a waste of time.

Not much better than the wrc.

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551293#Comment_120551293

Depends on who you are dealing with. Both can be very effective in certain situations.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551293#Comment_120551293

No, it's not a waste of time.

Your problem here is that you are suing for only €90, and paying only €25 towards the cost of the process. How much do you think the taxpayer should pay to help you recover your €90? Are you expecting guards, sheriffs etc to take responsibility for managing this, drop other business, go out to this guy's house, seize his goods, advertise and then conduct a public auction until they have raised €90 to pay you? How much would that cost? Or are you expecting some other bunch of officials to devote their time, at my expense, to collecting your €90 by some other method? It ain't gonna happen. And why should it? The person who should be most willing to spend time and money collecting the €90 that is owed to you is you yourself. If your debtor doesn't pay, you're going to have to drive this forward, and you're going to have to pay what it costs.

You can use the District Court to collect a €90 debt, but the system isn't designed with that in mind. The jurisdictional limit of the small claims procedure is up to €2,000. The processes, and the costs of those processes, are designed to be commensurate with claims of that kind of value.

None of this means that the system is useless, even for small amounts. While it costs you a disproportionate amount of time and money to pursue a €90 debt, it will equally cost your debtor a disproportionate amount of time and money to continually evade payment. Therefore, if you're willing to commence the process, the chances that he will pay up to make the problem go away are quite good. Most small business take exactly this attitude, so most small claims courts judgments are collected without undue difficulty. But nobody can guarantee that this will be so in your particular case.

(The same is true for the WRC. People continue to avail its processes because, mostly, they are very useful. You seem to take the position that if you can find an edge case such as this one where the small claims court or the WRC is not guaranteed to produce a simple, cheap and satisfactory outcome then it is completely useless.)

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551293#Comment_120551293

For €90 it is basically a waste of time, yes. If by a trader you mean an individual I wouldn't even consider the effort of doing it for €90.

For a few hundred it is usually worth it and an established business will usually pay.