small claims tribunal

[yc9]

Hi all,

I thought I would post my recent experience with Hong Kong's Small Claims Tribunal (SCT), in case others may be interested.

The background: a dispute between my former landlord and myself as to whether my rent had been paid "in advance" or "in arrears." The upshot of this was that he only returned half my rental depost, claiming I hadn't paid the last month's rent. Now, he didn't have a case (the tenancy clearly specified "in advance"), but anyway he didn't pay (even after several months) and hence the services of the Small Claims Tribunal were required.

The building itself is easy to find. Wanchai Tower is right next to Immigration Tower so I'm sure no one here is going to have any problems finding it. The SCT is on the 4th floor.

I don't know what exactly I was expecting (marble columns?), but the SCT doesn't look like a court, really. It looks like a standard government building (though much less activity than, say, the Immigration Department), with a window you walk up to to request or hand in forms (and another one nearby for paying fees). Unlike Immigration they don't have forms you can just take, you have to ask for the forms where you specify who you are suing and why.

They also had some filled-out forms for standard issues you could refer to as examples. The part that surprised me is that when you fill in your claim you're not supposed to provide evidence. It is only at a later stage, if the defendant actually disputes the claim, that you have to actually bring along the original documents etc supporting your claim.

And then, when you hand in your forms, the clerk seems to do some kind of check to make sure you did it properly. In my case I was supposed to sign somewhere I hadn't, but she definitely read what I'd written (they speak good English btw)--I think to ensure that it made some kind of sense, not just sign in all the right places--before accepting the claim form. But she didn't take any documents besides the claim, that was for later. She also at that time scheduled a date for the first hearing.

And that, I must say, was it. The landlord agreed to pay and I got a call from them saying that he'd paid and I did not have to go to the hearing. About a week later I got a cheque in the mail from the Judiciary (issued by them, not the landlord) with the remainder of my deposit plus the filing fee. At that stage the money goes through the court system, I guess to avoid disputes about whether the money was really paid or bounced cheques or so on.

So, anyway, the process worked. I guess my landlord needed a harder deadline than just me emailing him saying "please pay by x date" which he was happy to just ignore. But anyway the process provided that and I got the money back a few weeks (maybe 6 weeks) after I filed the claim.

Some other observations: most of the claims are either companies or the government suing people who haven't paid their bills (credit card, utilities, and so on), in big batches. "individual" cases like mine are comparatively rare. I suppose that makes sense when you think about it but it was definitely not what I expected when I walked in.

[Gruntfuttock]

Sounds like you were pretty happy with that bit of the Hong Kong bureaucracy then?

[yc9]

That part of it, yes. But, being from a country where even renewing one's driver's license is a pain (and let's not even mention the IRS), I pretty much like all the bureaucracy I see here.

[kmn911]

Thanks for sharing YC9