Winning a court case

Given that we have created a society in which lawyers (and accountants - but that part of the story I will leave for another day) can always find work and usually lead relatively easy lives (which is more often than not the case for the incompetent ones as well), it intrigues me how rarely some of us ever encounter them.

My father hardly had any dealings with them, apart from when he bought the (small, terraced) house that he had, and when he had to detail his belongings at the end of his life - a will possibly overstates it though.

Myself I have had to deal with them three times when buying and selling the various places that I owned between the ages of 27 and 39. Then there were the visits to see them after my father died (in 1988) and similarly following my mother's death in 2000. Her property was eventually sold for a price that would not have bought a decent sized bathroom in the South-East of England. In 38 years after my father originally bought it, it hardly became the desired object in the best area of town, it was simply what they could afford.

Since 2000 I had had little by way of dealings with lawyers. No need, and anyway they are an extravagance that I would not be able to afford, normally.

Until the business arose about chasing up the customers who had not paid me, that is. I contacted a team of lawyers in Antwerp, Belgium, about chasing up the money that I was owed by JTI Development in France and 2BTranslated in Galmaarden, Belgium (see my previous posts on the subject). Their collection service works on the "No collection, no payment" principle. It took several weeks to get moving.

The first stage they carried out efficiently. When it came to taking it to the second stage though, I would have needed €250 for both cases in the small claims court in France and Belgium to pursue the matter. Being permanently broke (as these people had not paid me what I was owed, and finding another job required getting past the stupid predominant ageism out there), this meant 3-4 wasted months to find the money.

JTI eventually beat me to the punch and went into insolvency in June this year - not before they had failed to pay several other people for the translation work undertaken! Rogues!

We have meanwhile been pursuing 2BT, who at the last count were still in business. For the first time in my life (at my age!) I was represented as a plaintiff in a court case. In Herne in Belgium (a relatively obscure place which I have never visited, but important in its own region). Not merely did I have my case presented in court (I was not present I hasten to add) - I won!

By default. 2BT failed to put in an appearance, so the next step is for the Belgian courts to send in the bailiffs and get my money. I suspect that this might be summat of a Pyrrhic victory though - I would not be surprised if they too decided to liquidate themselves out of trouble. If they do pay up, apparently I am guaranteed 85% of my money due (1,494 * 85/100 = app 1,269 Euro). Peanuts to the billionaires out there, but it will put my personal accounts back on the positive side of the balance, and the German tax authorities will get the money that they are due without problems.

So it all comes down to the people who have owed me money for 11 months finally being honest and honourable enough to pay up. Whether the court system can handle that we will have to see.