Money Claim Online: Issuing a Claim Step by Step

There are three ways to start a money claim in the county court, and picking the wrong one wastes time.

Money Claim Online (MCOL) is the established service at moneyclaim.gov.uk. It is built for claims for a specified (fixed) sum — an unpaid invoice, a loan not repaid, a refund refused. You cannot use it for an unspecified claim where you are asking the court to assess damages, and you cannot use it for a claim that is not for money at all.

The newer HMCTS money-claims service at gov.uk/make-money-claim is a separate, more modern digital service. Which service your claim qualifies for depends on the parties and the type of claim, so check the eligibility questions on the GOV.UK start page before assuming MCOL is the right door.

Paper form N1, filed at the Civil National Business Centre, is the fallback and the only option in several common situations:

• You are applying for Help with Fees — MCOL cannot process a fee remission.
• There are more than two defendants, or more than one claimant.
• A defendant has no address in England or Wales.
• The defendant is a government department or agency — HMCTS, HMRC, the DVLA and the like are excluded from MCOL.
• The claim is for an unspecified amount, or for something other than money.
• Your particulars of claim will not fit in 1,080 characters and you would rather file them in full at the outset.

Getting the basics wrong at this stage is expensive, because the fee is not refunded if you have to discontinue and re-issue. Check all of the following first:

• You have completed the pre-action steps. A letter before action is expected in every case, and where a business is chasing a debt from an individual the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims imposes a strict 30-day sequence. Issuing early risks a costs sanction.
• You are suing the right legal person. For a limited company, take the exact registered name and registered office address from the Companies House register — a trading name is not a legal person and a claim against one may be a nullity. For a partnership, you can normally sue in the firm name. For a sole trader, name the individual and add "trading as" the business name.
• The address is current. The court will serve at the address you give. If the defendant has moved, the claim can still result in a judgment they never knew about — which they will then apply to set aside, usually successfully, leaving you back at the start and out of pocket.
• The claim is not time-barred. Most simple contract debts must be brought within six years under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980.
• The sum is fixed and you can evidence it. Have the contract, invoices, receipts, photographs and correspondence to hand.
• The defendant can actually pay. A judgment against someone with no income and no assets is a piece of paper.

You will also need to register for an MCOL account with a user ID and password, and have a debit or credit card ready — the fee is taken at the point of issue.

MCOL asks for the amount claimed, then whether you are claiming interest, then for the particulars of claim.

The amount is the principal sum only. Interest and the court fee are added separately, and neither counts towards the value for fee-banding or track-allocation purposes. The maximum figure MCOL will accept is £99,999.99 — the service is for claims of less than £100,000.

Interest. If you are claiming it, you must say on what basis. Between businesses, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives statutory interest at the Bank of England base rate plus 8% and a fixed recovery sum of £40, £70 or £100 by size of debt. Otherwise, section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 allows the county court to award simple interest at such rate as it thinks fit — claimants conventionally claim 8% a year, mirroring the judgment-debt rate, but the rate is discretionary. You will be asked for the rate, the date interest runs from, and the daily rate.

The particulars box is the part people get wrong. It is limited to 24 lines of 45 characters, 1,080 characters in total. That is roughly a long paragraph. You must still say enough to tell the defendant what the claim is about: who the parties are, what was agreed, when, what went wrong, and how the sum is made up. Write it out in a text editor first, count the characters, and cut ruthlessly.

If your particulars genuinely will not fit, you can indicate that particulars will follow and serve them separately within 14 days of service of the claim form under CPR 7.4 — but you must then serve them yourself and file a copy at court within 7 days of doing so. For most straightforward debts it is simpler to compress the particulars to fit.

The fee depends on the amount claimed, not on which service you use. The bands are:

• Up to £300 — £35
• £300.01 to £500 — £50
• £500.01 to £1,000 — £70
• £1,000.01 to £1,500 — £80
• £1,500.01 to £3,000 — £115
• £3,000.01 to £5,000 — £205
• £5,000.01 to £10,000 — £455
• £10,000.01 to £200,000 — 5% of the amount claimed
• More than £200,000 — £10,000

The fee is paid by card when you submit and is added to the sum claimed, so a successful claimant normally recovers it from the defendant. Further fees fall due later — a hearing fee if the claim is defended and listed, and separate fees if you have to enforce the judgment.

If you need Help with Fees you cannot use MCOL. Apply for the fee remission first and issue on paper form N1, or use whichever digital service accepts a Help with Fees reference.

Once you submit and pay, the court issues the claim and sends it to the defendant. MCOL then does something you need to diarise carefully: it allows 5 days from the date of issue for service, so the deemed "date of service" is the fifth day after issue. Every subsequent deadline runs from that deemed date, not from the day you submitted the claim and not from the day the defendant actually opened the envelope.

From the deemed date of service, the defendant has 14 calendar days to file a response. If they file an acknowledgment of service within that window, the period for filing a defence extends to 28 days after service of the particulars of claim under CPR 15.4. The parties can also agree a further extension of up to 28 days under CPR 15.5, provided the defendant notifies the court in writing.

Two further timing rules matter:

• Under CPR 7.5, a claim form issued for service within the jurisdiction must be served within four months of issue. MCOL handles service for you, so this rarely bites — but if service fails and you need to re-serve, the four-month clock is the outer limit.
• If particulars of claim are served separately from the claim form, CPR 7.4 requires them to be served within 14 days of service of the claim form, and in any event within the four-month service period.

You can track the claim's status in your MCOL account. If the claim is returned undelivered, do not simply request judgment — a judgment obtained on bad service is liable to be set aside, and you will have wasted the fee.

Four things can happen once the response period runs.

The defendant pays. Notify the court that the claim is settled. If they pay the judgment sum in full within one calendar month of judgment, the judgment can be cancelled from the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines rather than merely marked satisfied.

The defendant admits. They may admit the whole claim and offer payment in instalments, or admit part of it. You then decide whether to accept the offer. If you accept, judgment is entered on those terms. If you reject a proposed rate of payment, a court officer or judge determines it.

The defendant defends. The claim leaves the online track and moves to a county court hearing centre. Both sides receive a directions questionnaire (form N180), which asks about free mediation, witnesses and dates to avoid. A judge then allocates the claim to a track and gives directions. A separate hearing fee falls due before the hearing, and failing to pay it results in the claim being struck out.

The defendant does nothing. Once the 14 days from deemed service have passed with no acknowledgment and no defence, you can request judgment in default through your MCOL account. You choose whether to ask for payment immediately, by a set date, or by instalments. The court enters judgment without a hearing and the debt becomes a County Court Judgment. If it is not paid, enforcement is a separate application with its own fee.