HM Courts and Tribunals Service

4. Mr I complains about the service he received from HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). He complains that:

• The Court failed to carry out the standard procedures when serving a Claimant Order on several occasions • The Court used District Judges at a cost to the taxpayer, when this was not required

5. Mr I explained that his business has been financially affected due to the failings by the Court and that taxpayer money has been wasted. He also had to take significant time to deal with the matter, which caused increased stress and frustration.

6. By bringing the complaint to PHSO, he wants us to recommend that HMCTS provide an explanation for the failings. He also feels that financial compensation would be appropriate.

7. Mr I was involved in a court case, in which he had made a Claimant Order. He says the Court failed to follow the proper procedures in serving the Order. This included returning an amended claim form to him due to lack of payment.

8. Following multiple unsuccessful attempts to rectify the situation, Mr I made a complaint to HMCTS. HMCTS advised that he had been given incorrect information about the Court fees, and that unacceptable delays had occurred, and so offered an ex-gratia payment of £50.

10. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us or their MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so. We have discussed this with Mr I to understand the reasons why he could not do so.

11. We can see that HMCTS provided Mr I with multiple responses, the last of which is dated 13 July 2023. We received the complaint from his MP on 10 September 2024, and the MP’s office advised he had contacted them regarding the complaint on 9 July 2024. This means there was a delay of almost a year between Mr I receiving the final response and bringing the case to us.

12. There was a further delay in progressing the case after we received the initial contact from Mr I’s MP. While we received the complainant form, we were not presented with a copy of any of the response from HMCTS. On 20 September 2024, our Intake Team advised Mr I by email that in order to progress the complaint, he would need to provide these. The Team also left him a voicemail to discuss this on 7 October 2024. Mr I spoke to a member of the team later that same day, who advised him what documents we needed. However, these were not then received until 7 November 2025. Adding a further 13 months to the delay.

13. We spoke to Mr I to discuss the delays in him bringing the complaint. He explained that during the period July 2023-2024 he had a lot going on with his business (including moving premises), and this had to take priority over the complaint. He also had some health problems including stress, which made things difficult.

14. He said he also did not know at this point of receiving the final response that the complaint could come to us, he thought he’d reached the end of the process. However, we can see that the response from HMCTS dated 13 July 2023 does direct Mr I to contact PHSO or his MP should he be dissatisfied with the outcome of its investigation.

15. While we understand that Mr I was experiencing a busy time with his business and going through some health issues (in part exacerbated by the stress of these events) there are two very significant delays at play here, and we have not seen that there is reason enough to justify setting the time bar aside.

16. Mr I was informed by HMCTS that he should contact us. If he was unable to due to pressures at work, he could have potentially asked an advocate, or a friend or family member to raise the complaint on his behalf. He could have contact PHSO to inform us that he had a complaint he wanted to bring but that he was struggling to do so, and guidance could have been given. Also, once we were informed about the complaint, it would have been a small step to provide the documents we required, but it took over a year for this to happen.

1. We have carefully considered Mr I’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

2. We were sorry to read of the events which led to Mr I contacting us and recognise that this has been a distressing time for him.

3. We have decided that the complaint falls outside of our time limit, and that there is no justifiable reason for us to put our time limit aside to consider it further