The quickest way to sue someone for money in England and Wales is a government website most people have never heard of: www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk. No solicitor, no paper N1 posted to a court office, no queue. You answer its questions, pay the issue fee, and your claim exists.
It says BETA in the corner, and people find that unnerving — as if the court might be practising. It is not. The Money Claims service is HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s own portal, the claims it issues are real County Court claims, and the judgments it produces are real judgments. The badge just means the service is still being improved while it runs, which is why it asks for your feedback in the header.
What most people have not caught up with
Two things about this service are genuinely new, and together they change who can afford justice.
There is no ceiling on the claim. The old assumptions — online is only for small claims, £10,000 tops — are out of date. Following the 181st Practice Direction update, the Money Claims service takes claims with no upper limit on the amount. £900 for an unreturned deposit or a six-figure contract claim: same portal, same screens, same account.
And the fee can be zero. The issue fee scales with the claim — but Help with Fees is assessed on your income and savings, not on the size of your claim. Qualify, and the fee is reduced or removed entirely. A person on Universal Credit with a strong six-figure claim can put it before a court without paying an issue fee at all. Most people have no idea that is true.
A court claim of any size, started from your kitchen table, for a fee that can be nothing. That is what this service is — and why knowing how to use it properly matters.
Here is the whole journey, honestly described — including the part nobody warns you about: the messages it shows you afterwards, which read like bad news and mostly are not.
Step 1 — build the claim before you touch the portal
The service asks you, in plain screens, who you are claiming against, what happened, and how much you want. The screens are simple. The answers are where claims are won or lost: the amount with interest calculated properly, the timeline in order, and particulars that say what was agreed, what was paid, what was broken and what you are owed — in numbered, factual sentences rather than a paragraph of frustration.
That preparation is what Chris does with you. Tell it what happened in your own words and it works the matter up to a professional standard: the letter before action the pre-action rules expect you to send first, the interest calculation, and every answer the portal will ask for, in the order it asks — ready for the next step.
Step 2 — open the service and paste your answers in
Create your account at moneyclaims.service.gov.uk (a GOV.UK One Login). Then make the claim: the portal walks you through its questions and you paste in the answers you prepared, question by question. You stay the claimant. You press submit. Nobody does the filing for you, and that is exactly as it should be — it is your claim, made in your name.
The issue fee scales with the amount claimed — check the current figure on the EX50 fee schedule on the day you file, and check Help with Fees first: if you are on a low income or certain benefits the fee can be reduced or removed, and you can even apply for a refund within three months of paying if you qualified at the time.
Step 3 — after you press submit: the clock and the outcomes
Once the claim is issued, the defendant’s time to respond runs from the date of issue — and the deadline lands at 4pm on the final day. Do not count from when they say they received it; the portal shows the operative dates on your claim, and those are the ones that count.
From there, one of four things happens:
They pay. The best ending. It happens more often than people expect, because an issued claim proves you are serious.
They admit — in full or in part, sometimes with an offer to pay by instalments you can accept or refuse.
They defend. The case becomes a defended claim: directions questionnaires, allocation to a track, and a hearing if it does not settle. Chris drafts every document that stage needs with you.
They ignore it. After the deadline you can request a County Court Judgment by default through the same dashboard — a real CCJ, entered because the claim went unanswered.
The status messages, decoded
The dashboard speaks in short status lines, and several of them frighten people unnecessarily. What they actually mean:
“The claim will continue by post.” Not a rejection. Your claim has moved out of the digital service into the ordinary paper process — usually because something about it needs a court officer or a judge, or the digital route does not handle that step yet. The claim is alive; correspondence now comes by letter, so watch the post.
“We’re checking your Help with Fees application.” Exactly what it says. Nothing is wrong; the claim waits while the fee remission is assessed.
“Your Help with Fees application has been rejected.” Disappointing but not terminal — you can pay the fee and continue, and if your circumstances were misassessed you can ask for the decision to be looked at again.
“You requested a County Court Judgment against…” Your default judgment request is in. If it is entered, you have a CCJ — and winning on paper is only half the job. If they still do not pay, enforcement is the other half: our warrant of control guide covers what comes next.
“Wait for the court to review the case.” A judge or court officer has something to look at. Nothing is required from you until the dashboard or a letter says so.
What the service will not do
It will not write your particulars, calculate your interest, or tell you whether your deadline arithmetic is right. It is a filing channel, and a good one — but it assumes you arrive with the claim already built. That is the gap Chris fills: the thinking and drafting to a professional standard, before the portal, so that what you paste in is worth issuing. And if the claim is defended, the same case file carries you through directions, evidence and the hearing bundle.
Before anything costs you money, the free routes are real: Citizens Advice will talk a claim through with you, and GOV.UK’s own guide sets out the process in plain terms.
The portal files it. The preparation wins it.