Most small money claims are yours to run. Some are emphatically not, and knowing which is which is worth more than any drafting.
We help people represent themselves. It would be easy to write ten articles telling you that you never need anyone else. That would be a lie, and it would eventually hurt somebody, so here is the other side of it: the situations where the right answer is to stop reading and go and find a professional.
When something other than money is at stake
The small claims track is built for money disputes of modest size. Once the thing at risk is your home, your children, your liberty or your ability to work, you are in a different world with different rules and consequences that do not reverse.
Possession proceedings that could put you out of your home. Anything in the family court concerning where a child lives or how much they see a parent. Any criminal allegation at all. Immigration and asylum, where an error can be permanent. Regulatory or disciplinary proceedings that could end your career. In each of these, get advice. Legal aid still exists for more of these than people assume, and the check takes minutes.
When the money is large enough to change the arithmetic
The reason a solicitor could not take your three thousand pound claim is that CPR 27.14 stops the winner recovering their legal costs on the small claims track. Above that track the calculation inverts. On the fast track and multi-track, costs generally follow the event — the loser usually pays a substantial part of the winner’s bill. Suddenly a solicitor is not an expense you can never recover. They are an expense the other side may end up paying.
So if your claim is comfortably above ten thousand pounds, or the other side has already instructed solicitors and the sums are serious, get a quote before you assume you cannot afford one. The rule that shut the door on the small claim opens it here.
When you are injured, and time is running
Personal injury has its own economics. Many firms act on a conditional fee basis, so the up-front cost is not the barrier people expect. It also has hard limitation periods, and those periods end the claim absolutely when they pass. If your case involves an injury, speak to someone early. This is not a place to learn by doing.
When the other side is not what you thought
Some defendants change the nature of the problem. If the company you are claiming against has entered insolvency, ordinary claims are largely suspended and the route is entirely different. If the dispute has become cross-border. If someone has applied for an injunction against you, or you need one urgently. If you have been served with anything you do not recognise and the deadline is days away. These are moments to get help rather than to research.
When you cannot carry it
This one is rarely written down, so we will. Litigation is heavy. It arrives in envelopes at bad moments and it sits in your chest for months. If you are unwell, grieving, caring for someone, or simply at the end of what you can hold, that is a real and sufficient reason to hand it to somebody else. Deciding you have not got this in you is not a failure of nerve. It is an accurate assessment, and acting on it early is cheaper than acting on it late.
What is genuinely yours to run
Having said all that: an undisputed invoice, a deposit not returned, a builder who took the money and vanished, goods that never arrived, a contract plainly broken, a defence to a claim you know is wrong. Money, under ten thousand pounds, with documents you actually hold. That is the track working exactly as designed — a district judge, a table, and a conversation about what happened.
Before you spend anything, the free routes are real: Citizens Advice, Support Through Court, and Help with Fees if the fee itself is the obstacle.
And if it is one of the ordinary ones, the work is not the hearing. It is turning what happened into what the court needs to read. That is what Chris does with you — the right form, the right structure, ready for you to check, sign and file as your own.
*We would rather lose your thirty pounds than have you lose your house.*