From the 19th March 2012 all claims for money only started in the County Court and not already subject to special procedures under the CPR will now be known as “designated money claims”. All of these claims must now be sent to the County Court Money Claims Centre which is based in Salford. The claims will then technically be issued out of the Northampton County Court.
For these money claims the Business Centre in Salford will be the administrative office. When you issue your proceedings you will be required to specify which is your “preferred court” for dealing with matters if the claim gets transferred. The usual rules on transfer will still apply so the claim will if against an individual be transferred to his or her home court. This centre will deal with all matters up to and including the filing of allocation questionnaires. Only at that point will the claim be transferred out.
This is a significant change and reduction in the work which local County Courts will handle in the first instance. Generally for many people issuing money claims themselves it may be easier to simply use Money Claims Online to deal with making the claim rather than paper applications. We wait to see what if any further effects these changes may have on the Courts. You should be aware that if you are contemplating enforcing via the High Court (e.g. by Sheriffs Officers) you may be better advised to issue your claim out of the local High Court District Registry although the rules on financial limits still apply.