Mr S, from Surrey, received a summons to a court hearing, but HM Courts Service (HMCS) did not tell him what it was about. When Mr S contacted them about it they still did not tell him what the hearing was for. Worried about what might happen, Mr S engaged a solicitor. That turned out to be unnecessary because the case was dismissed as trivial. Mr S sought his solicitor’s fees from HMCS and they offered him £605.50.

When we intervened, HMCS thought that they had offered Mr S too much – this was incorrect. We met with HMCS and explained how they should approach the calculation. HMCS then calculated that they owed Mr S £863. They also agreed to pay him £200 for the inconvenience they had caused him.

Mr S had quite a different experience from another complainant who brought a complaint about HMCS to the Ombudsman – a firm of solicitors from Chester who were the claimants in a hearing that the defendant did not attend. The defendant said that the court had not sent him the summons. The court accepted they had made an error and relisted the case.  The solicitors had to attend a further hearing.

HM Courts Service offered to pay an amount that was equivalent to the costs incurred in unnecessarily attending a hearing. We provided reassurance to the solicitors that their complaint had been handled well.