HM Courts and Tribunals Service

4. Mr K complains that while handling his cases in 2025, HMCTS:

• did not tell him his cases transitioned off the MCOL portal • sent documents to a UK address, despite having records he was residing overseas.

5. Mr K believes HMCTS’ errors meant it did not give him a fair opportunity to respond before the court struck out his claim. He also states this caused delays and required him to spend additional time and money restarting the claims process. He described this experience as causing him significant stress, inconvenience, and a loss of trust in HMCTS.

6. By bringing this complaint to us, Mr K wants:

• an acknowledgement of failings • service improvements • a financial remedy.

7. MCOL, is an online service run by HMCTS. It lets people make or respond to a money claim online. It is usually used when someone says another party owes them money.

8. Mr K submitted two separate claims through the MCOL platform, against other parties. Mr K says he thought that as an online service, he could manage his claims digitally from start to finish.

9. When the other parties instructed legal representation, this moved Mr K’s claims off the MCOL platform, and it became a paper-based process. HMCTS say it notified Mr K of this.

10. Mr K says HMCTS did not properly inform him of this change and knew he was residing overseas at that time.

Did not tell him his case transitioned off the MCOL portal

13. 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.

14. Mr K complains that HMCTS did not tell him his case had transitioned off the MCOL portal. Mr K says he was overseas at the time, and this caused him to miss a deadline and lose a court fee.

15. Mr K made two complaints to HMCTS about this. In his first complaint, on 7 May 2025, he said after the defendant filed their defence, the online system displayed the message: ‘the claim will continue by post. Your online account will no longer be updated’.

16. In his second complaint, on 4 June 2025, Mr K said he contacted HMCTS on 28 May 2025 after discovering HMCTS would no longer update his claims through the MCOL portal. In this complaint he wrote: ‘this change appeared only as a text notice within the portal – with no push notification, email, or letter, meaning it could easily go unnoticed’.

17. In its responses to both complaints, HMCTS explained the MCOL service does not provide an end‑to‑end process and both of Mr K’s claims moved off the MCOL portal because the defendants appointed legal representatives. HMCTS explained when this happens, the system automatically transfers the case from MCOL portal to the court which then deals with the case offline (by paper). HMCTS says the MCOL portal has automated alerts and displays the update on its dashboard. HMCTS does not provide additional notifications beyond this.

18. We appreciate that Mr K was representing himself and may have been unfamiliar with the process. We understand because he was overseas, he was particularly reliant on the portal for updates and communication and would have found it worrying to discover that his claims had moved offline without a separate email or letter. We can also understand why he would have preferred HMCTS to tell him about this change through another method of communication.

19. HMCTS provides information online in its MCOL user guide on the GOV.UK website. The user guide explains that once a claim has been transferred, parties need to contact the court for information on the claim’s progress, as the claim will not be updated in MCOL. This makes clear that cases will not necessarily remain online throughout the course of the claim.

20. Our Principles of Good Administration say organisations should be customer focused and help people understand their responsibilities. The evidence shows that HMCTS made information about Mr K’s claims transferring offline available to him in the MCOL portal itself. We are satisfied that HMCTS made the relevant information available and met the expected standard.

21. Our role is not to say how HMCTS should communicate such information to its users. Instead, we consider whether HMCTS reasonably made the information available to Mr K and followed its process when doing so.

22. We understand why Mr K feels strongly about this issue and why the consequences of the claims moving offline were upsetting for him. We have not seen any evidence to support Mr K’s view that HMCTS did not tell him his cases had transitioned off the MCOL portal or HMCTS did not follow its process. Therefore, we have decided not to take any further action on this part of his complaint.

HMCTS sent documents to a UK address

23. Mr K complains that HMCTS sent court documents to a UK address, despite having records that he was residing overseas.

24. Having reviewed HMCTS’s complaint files for the complaints Mr K made on 7 May and 4 June 2025, we cannot see that he raised a specific complaint with HMCTS about it sending court documents to a UK address.

25. We recognise that, in his follow‑up complaint correspondence to HMCTS, Mr K said that because of his case transitioning off the MCOL portal, HMCTS sent a sanctions order to a UK address. However, Mr K appears to have raised this because of his case moving off the MCOL portal, rather than a separate complaint.

26. We understand Mr K’s concern about court documents being sent to a UK address when he says HMCTS knew he was overseas. We recognise why this would have been concerning for him, especially if he felt it affected his ability to respond in time. If Mr K’s is unhappy that HMCTS sent documents to a UK address, instead of his overseas address, he needs to raise this specific concern with HMCTS first and receive a final response before we can consider it.

27. As we are the final stage in the complaints process, we usually expect complainants to complete the organisation’s complaints process first. This allows the organisation the opportunity to investigate the issues raised and put things right. We consider this is often the quickest way to resolve a complaint.

28. If, after completing this process, Mr K remains unhappy, he can then ask a Member of Parliament (MP) to refer his complaint to us for consideration.

29. We appreciate this may be disappointing for Mr K, given the effort he has already made to explain his concerns. Until he completes that process, we will take no further action on this part of his complaint.

1. We have carefully considered Mr K’s complaint about HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS). We would like to thank him for bringing this matter to our attention and recognise that this has been a stressful and frustrating experience for him, particularly as he was trying to manage the claims while overseas.

2. Having considered Mr K’s complaint that HMCTS did not tell him his case had moved off the Money Claim Online (MCOL) portal, we have seen no indication HMCTS got something wrong. We have also not seen any evidence that Mr K has specifically complained to HMCTS about the address it used when sending court documents.

3. Because of this, we have decided to take no further action on his complaint and explain our reasons for this in this statement.