HM Courts and Tribunals Service

6. Mr A complains about HMCTS’ dealing with his claims that he submitted in 2024. Specifically, he complains that HMCTS:

• told him in June 2024 that it could deal with both of his claims, one of which was for a specified amount and the other for an unspecified amount, before correcting itself in December 2024 when it told him it could only deal with his specified amount claim, • mislaid two lots of paperwork, • sent him an incomplete NB9 form, and • told him that his defendant’s defence was being treated as an admission when the court actually treated it as a defence.

7. Due to this he says he has experienced stress, incurred unnecessary costs, missed the opportunity to act correctly if he had known his defendant’s defence was being treated as a defence and not an admission, and wasted his time.

8. He would like an explanation and apology and compensation of £51.15.

9. In June 2024, Mr A contacted HMCTS regarding two claims. One of which was for a specified amount and the other for an unspecified amount.

10. In October, HMCTS created one case for Mr A, which was the claim for the specified amount.

11. In November, Mr A contacted HMCTS about his second claim for an unspecified amount, as he had received no updates.

12. In December, HMCTS told Mr A that it could not deal with his claim for an unspecified amount. Mr A also contacted HMCTS on 18 December telling it that the defence he had been sent was wrongly stated as a full admission in the system.

Specified and unspecified claims

15. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the event complained about had a negative effect which the organisation has not put right. Having done so we have found that HMCTS has already done enough to put right the impact of these events.

16. Mr A said that in June 2024 he contacted HMCTS via telephone where it ‘confirmed, on more than one occasion’ that it could deal with both claims he submitted. He said one of his claims was for a specified amount and the other was for an unspecified amount. He said HMCTS later corrected itself in December, when it told him it could only deal with his claim for the specified amount. He said this mis-advice meant that ‘50% of the total paperwork that was sent on three occasions, together with all the associated printing, postage and stationery, was totally unnecessary’.

17. HMCTS said that because Mr A’s unspecified claim ‘didn’t include the amount [he] was claiming or the relevant fee’, his ‘claim wasn’t issued’ and was returned to him.

18. PART 16, STATEMENTS OF CASE, Civil Procedure Rules, states that if a money claim is made, then the claimant must specify the value of the claim, or the financial band the claim falls into. As this is set out in the Civil Procedure Rules, HMCTS cannot accept a claim unless it meets this requirement.

19. As HMCTS only keeps call recordings for 30 days, we are unable to say that HMCTS misinformed Mr A in June 2023 with regards to his unspecified amount claim. This is because there is not enough evidence available for us to make a fair, evidence-based decision on this point. We can see, however, that there was some confusion for Mr A as to whether his claim for an unspecified amount was accepted or not. This is because he submitted this claim in June 2023 and was only updated six months later in December when he was told it was rejected.

20. PHSO’s Guidance on Financial Remedy states that a one-off instance of service failure or maladministration, where the impact is of a short duration, and there are no other adverse effects, should be remedied by the organisation providing an apology. As Mr A’s claim for an unspecified amount could never have been accepted by HMCTS, as it did not meet the Civil Procedure Rules requirements, we can only look at how long it took HMCTS to tell Mr A that his claim would not be accepted. We do not doubt that Mr A was upset and frustrated to find out after 6 months that his claim could not be progressed.

21. As a basis for comparison, we have seen that Mr A submitted a separate claim in June 2023 for a specified financial amount, which was accepted and issued by HMCTS on 25 October. This shows that the processing time difference between Mr A’s accepted claim and his unaccepted claim is roughly 8 weeks.

22. We have seen that in its final complaint response to Mr A and in another letter dated 9 December 2025, HMCTS provided an explanation as to why his claim for an unspecified amount could not be accepted. We have also seen that HMCTS said that because it only keeps recordings of calls for 30 days, it has been unable ‘to confirm what was discussed’ in the call from June 2023, but it said it was ‘sorry if [he was] given some incorrect information’. Overall, we are satisfied that HMCTS has acted in line with our Guidance on Financial Remedy when providing an explanation and apology to Mr A.

Mislaid paperwork

23. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and although it looks as if Mr A’s paperwork was temporarily misplaced, we can see that HMCTS has already done enough to put things right.

24. Mr A said that HMCTS has ‘not acknowledged the fact that they mislaid two lots of paperwork, for both claims’ even though it issued a data incident reference for the first time it lost them.

25. HMCTS said in its first contact response that ‘the team has advised that they have both claims in your file’ and that Mr A’s claim for an unspecified amount ‘was not lost but overlooked’. It said that on a call with Mr A on 6 December 2023, a member of staff was unable to locate Mr A’s claim for an unspecified amount. HMCTS also said in its letter dated 9 December 2025 that Mr A’s unspecified claim was incorrectly added to his other claim’s court file, which caused a delay in telling him that his unspecified claim couldn’t be issued.

26. HMCTS should take all reasonable care to look after a claimant’s paperwork and make sure it is not lost or misplaced. Because HMCTS issued a data incident reference, and Mr A had to chase HMCTS in December for an update on his claim, it appears that HMCTS, as it has said, did temporarily misplace some of Mr A’s paperwork. We believe it would also be fair to say that if Mr A had not contacted HMCTS on 6 December for an update on his unspecified claim, then he may have had to have waited longer than he did to be told the claim couldn’t be issued.

27. PHSO’s Guidance on Financial Remedy states that a one-off instance of service failure or maladministration, where the impact is of a short duration, and there are no other adverse effects, should be remedied by the organisation providing an apology.

28. In HMCTS’s letter to Mr A dated 9 December 2025, we have seen that HMCTS has provided an apology and explanation as to what happened with Mr A’s paperwork. It said ‘having looked into this, I’ve found that the unspecified claim was initially added to the court file [of the specified claim]. Because of this, we didn’t inform you that we couldn’t issue the claim until December 2024. I appreciate that this was very frustrating and I’m sorry for this delay’.

29. As we have explained above, we are satisfied that HMCTS has now done enough to put right the impact of the temporary misplacement of his paperwork and the delay this caused.

NB9 form and defendant’s defence

30. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not found any indications that something has gone wrong.

31. Mr A said that HMCTS sent him an incomplete NB9 form. He also said that HMCTS told him that the defence the defendant submitted was being treated as a full admission, when it was actually a defence and should therefore have been treated as such.

32. HMCTS said it sent the defendant’s NB9 form to Mr A on 20 November 2024, with a letter, as it was received from the court. It said ‘the NB9 form is usually used for a defence and counterclaim. While the defendant stated in the NB9 form that they wished to dispute the claim they also stated that the company has ceased trading. If the defendant is no longer trading, it is classified as an admission to the claim’.

33. HMCTS’ guidance Make a Defence or Counter Claim (Specified Amount): Form NB9 shows how an NB9 form should be completed by a defendant. This is information a defendant should read and consider before completing the form. As the form is for a defendant to complete, HMCTS cannot amend the form nor enter any additional details if they are missing.

34. HMCTS Internal Guidance states that if a defendant has ceased trading, then any defence submitted should be treated as a full admission.

35. We have seen that HMCTS sent the defendant’s NB9 form to Mr A on 20 November 2024, and that HMCTS did not make any changes to the form, as it is not allowed to do so. We have also seen that when the defendant’s defence was submitted, HMCTS correctly treated it as an admission.

36. Due to the above we are not able to say that HMCTS did not act correctly when dealing with the defendant’s NB9 form and defence, nor when it passed these on to Mr A and told him the defence was being treated as an admission.

37. We understand that Mr A may find our decisions frustrating after all he has been through, the stress he has experienced, and the time it has taken.

1. We are sorry to hear of the stress and costs Mr A has experienced whilst dealing with HM Courts & Tribunal Services (HMCTS). We can see how his dealings with HMCTS would have caused him frustration.

2. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about HMCTS.

3. For Mr A’s complaint that HMCTS initially told him it could deal with both his specified and unspecified claims, before later correcting itself, we have decided that HMCTS has already done enough to put right the impact of this mistake.

4. For Mr A’s complaints about mislaid paperwork, the NB9 form, and that the defendant’s defence was treated as an admission when he said it should have been treated as a defence, we have seen no indication that anything went seriously wrong.

5. We can see how Mr A may find our decisions frustrating after all he has been through. We have provided a detailed explanation below to show how we made each of our decisions.