19. To be clear, our decision is solely focussed on the administrative actions of HMCTS staff. It is not our role to investigate the actions of the defendants (the Council) or the judges involved in the cases.
County Court Judgement (CCJ)
20. 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. If we see signs something has gone wrong, we assess whether the organisation has done enough to put right the impact of the issue.
21. Mr F has told us the judgement was initially made in his favour in 2021 and then overturned due to fraudulent information provided by the council to HMCTS. Mr F then told us the judgement was incorrectly entered against him, after it had been set aside, which significantly affected his credit score.
22. Whether applications made are fraudulent is not within our remit to consider or decide. This should be, and has been, considered and decided by a Judge. Therefore, we will not be able to comment further on the allegations HMCTS accepted a fraudulent appeal.
23. HMCTS have responded to Mr F’s complaint, apologising for the mistake and offering him £100 for the inconvenience it caused. We have also seen a Judge ordered the judgement to be removed, meaning this judgement should no longer be against Mr F.
24. Based on the HMCTS Complaint Handling guidance, an offer of £100 is proportionate for an example where a CCJ is wrongly entered, affecting the person’s credit score, but is resolved quickly by HMCTS with no other impact.
25. Mr F has provided us with evidence showing a wider impact. In February 2024, Mr F applied for training to become a driving instructor. Mr F was told he had failed a soft credit check. The training course told him he could still attend the training, however he would not be able to pass a hard credit check to start his own driving instructor franchise. This has shown the mistake HMCTS made had a direct impact on Mr F’s ability to start his own business and potentially gain further income from this. We have not seen any other evidence suggesting there were other issues affecting Mr F’s credit score, other than the incorrect CCJ.
26. The HMCTS Complaints Handling Guidance suggests an error involving an issue with a CCJ causing the person to be rejected for an application solely due to the CCJ would make between £250-£500 a more appropriate remedy offer. We understand the decisions made about ex-gratia payments will be based on the judgement and discretion of HMCTS.
27. We identified the information Mr F provided us would suggest a higher impact that HMCTS previously considered. We contacted HMCTS to ask if they would consider offering a high remedy in line with their Complaint Handling Guidance. HMCTS have agreed to offer Mr F an increased ex-gratia payment of £500.
28. We cannot speculate on what other financial losses may have resulted from this, and we have to make decisions based on the evidence provided to us. Based on this, and our own principles of remedy, we feel £500 is an appropriate remedy for the evidenced impact of this mistake.
29. We therefore consider our actions have resolved any outstanding injustice related to this specific administrative mistake and will be taking no further action. On conclusion of our investigation HMCTS will write to Mr F with details on how to accept the new higher remedy offer.
Evidence Handling in 2024 and 2025
30. Mr F has told us he does not believe HMCTS provided his complete evidence bundles for consideration over the course of his court case. He tells us this included: • an application to vary a charging order for a decision in April 2024 • an incorrect record of his claim when a judge considered an application for a default judgement in February 2025.
31. HMCTS have responded to Mr F’s claims stating the applications to vary the charging order in 2024 and the record of his claim in 2025 were put on file for the judge to consider. It advised Mr F to raise his concerns to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) if he was unhappy with how a judge has behaved and noted HMCTS cannot comment or review a decision a judge has made.
32. The final response from HMCTS states it found no indication the documents and evidence Mr F submitted had not been filed for consideration by a judge.
33. HMCTS’s administrative role is only to take the evidence and applications each party provides and put it on file for a Judge to decide. HMCTS staff are not legally trained and do not make decisions on what is put forward.
34. As a publicly funded organisation, we must be proportionate in our investigations. This means we must weigh up the time and resources we put into investigating a complaint with the benefits of any potential outcomes. We appreciate Mr F feels there were documents missing, and HMCTS has stated this is not the case.
35. With this complaint, we consider further investigation into comparing what was on file for a judge with what Mr F claims should have been available would not be proportionate. This is because we would be unable to speculate on what decisions a Judge may have made had all the claimed evidence been considered.
36. Ultimately, if Mr F believes a Judge made a decision without considering all the evidence we would consider the appeals process or the JCIO to be the most appropriate routes to challenge this.
37. We therefore will not be taking any further action on this part of the complaint.
Claim of Fraud
38. Mr F complains HMCTS failed to provide his fraud claim to a Judge before they made a judgement in April 2024.
39. HMCTS acknowledged it received Mr F’s fraud claim three days before the hearing date in April 2024. HMCTS advised it takes up to ten working days for it to process correspondence, and HMCTS needed to refer the fraud claim to a judge before it could process the claim. Given the short amount of time between Mr F sending in the claim and the hearing date, this meant it was not possible to present this at the hearing.
40. HMCTS stated it ensured the claim was sent to a judge who decided the claim should not be issued and Mr F should instead formally appeal any decision he felt had come about through fraud.
41. We can see from the written evidence Mr F provided us he suspected previous judgements were made with fraudulent evidence, however we cannot see he made any official applications or appeals about this until April 2024.
42. HMCTS have explained the most appropriate way to challenge a decision a person believes had been obtained by fraud is to appeal the decision through the legal system. We can see Mr F had not taken this route and instead brought a new claim which would clearly take time to process.
43. As Mr F did not follow the most appropriate route to challenge a decision he felt was obtained through fraud, we cannot fault HMCTS for not processing the new claim within three days before the court case. If Mr F wanted his claims of fraud to be heard in the hearing he would have needed prior judicial permission to submit this as evidence to the ongoing court case if the deadline for submissions had already passed. We also consider if Mr F felt this was relevant to the hearing he would have had the opportunity to raise this with a judge during the hearing.
44. For the reasons we have set out above we will not be proposing to look any further at this part of the complaint.
Returned Document Bundle
45. Mr F complains HMCTS inappropriately returned a bundle of documents related to his appeal. Mr F tells us this was a continuation of the poor administration which he feels has affected his case and disadvantaged him in court.
46. We can see HMCTS responded to this in March 2023 outlining the Civil Procedure Rules sets guidelines for appeals and maintained it had appropriately returned Mr F’s appeal bundle as it did not comply with the guidelines.
47. The Civil Procedure Rules (part 52C) outlines the core appeal bundle must only contain the documented listed in the relevant core bundle index. The guidance for preparing a bundle for the court of appeal explains any additional information the person feels is relevant for the appeal that is not included in the core bundle index should be included in a supplementary bundle no more than 350 pages long.
48. In November 2022 HMCTS’s system logged Mr F’s bundles, and noted the supplementary bundle was over 350 pages long. HMCTS returned the bundle and asked for an amended bundle by the end of November 2022.
49. HMCTS asked Mr F to make amendments again in December 2022. In February 2023 HMCTS informed Mr F the core bundle still contained documents that should be in the supplementary bundle, so returned the bundle.
50. We can see Mr F disagreed in February 2023 and stated both bundles did comply with the guidance. In March 2023 HMCTS gave a deadline of mid-March to file a new compliant bundle as it felt it had given Mr F enough time between November 2022 and March 2023 to correct the errors. This deadline was then extended after Mr F requested an extension to make the changes and seek advice.
51. In late March 2023 HMCTS received Mr F’s amended core and supplementary bundles which did comply with the rules and listed these for referral to a judge.
52. In this case, HMCTS could not accept Mr F’s evidence bundles until they complied with the Civil Procedure Rules. We appreciate Mr F disagreed stating his bundles were compliant. We can see HMCTS provided multiple opportunities for Mr F to amend the bundles based on their feedback and gave extensions to the deadlines when Mr F requested this.
53. Overall, we cannot say it was inappropriate for HMCTS to return evidence bundles to Mr F if it concluded they did not with the rules. We also consider HMCTS gave Mr F sufficient time to make the bundles compliant and appropriately referred the bundles to a judge for consideration once they were.
54. We therefore will not be taking any further action on this part of the complaint.
55. We want to thank Mr F for bringing this complaint to us.