Simple procedure: small claims in Scotland

Simple procedure is the route a sheriff court in Scotland uses for straightforward civil claims worth less than £5,000¹. It is an informal court process, designed so that people can raise or defend a claim without needing a solicitor, and it covers most of the disputes that people elsewhere in the UK would call small claims: unpaid invoices, faulty work, disputed bills, rent arrears and similar money matters¹.

If your case is worth more than £5,000, or is complicated, it does not use simple procedure. It goes instead under the ordinary cause procedure, which the sheriff court uses for claims over £5,000 up to a maximum of £100,000¹. Cases involving personal injury or housing are handled under a third route, the summary cause procedure². This page explains what simple procedure covers, what happens when a creditor uses it against you, and where free help is available.

What simple procedure is: claims under £5,000 in the sheriff court

The sheriff courts are the local courts of Scotland, dealing with simple civil and criminal cases, and most court action in Scotland begins there¹. Simple procedure is their informal process for money claims under £5,000¹. Official guidance describes it as the route for a case that is worth less than £5,000 and is not complicated².

The limit matters because it decides which of the three civil procedures your case follows. A claim worth less than £5,000 against a builder who never finished the work, provided it is not complicated, is a simple procedure claim¹. A claim worth more than £5,000, or one that is complicated, is raised under ordinary cause instead, which is a more formal process with its own rules and paperwork². A dispute about a housing matter, or a claim for personal injury, does not use the simple procedure at all³.

The £5,000 figure also matches the small claims limit in Northern Ireland, where a case for not more than £5,000 can be taken to the Small Claims Court without a solicitor⁵. England and Wales work differently: a relatively straightforward claim of £10,000 or less is allocated to the small claims track of the county court, although claims for personal injury or housing disrepair only qualify if they are for less than £1,000⁶. So the same dispute can be a small claim in one part of the UK and something else in another, and the court you use depends on where the case is raised, not where the trader is based. The dedicated guides to the small claims court in England and Wales and small claims in Northern Ireland cover those routes.

Simple procedure is designed to be usable without a lawyer. The forms are standard, the hearings are less formal than other court procedures, and the sheriff is meant to help people who are representing themselves. That informality is the point of the procedure, but it is still a court process with a real outcome: if the court decides against you, the decision is recorded and can be enforced.

Which claims can use simple procedure

A claim can use simple procedure if it is worth less than £5,000 and is not complicated². In practice this covers most everyday money disputes between people, or between a person and a firm: unpaid debts, money owed for goods or services, damage to property below the limit, and similar claims where the facts are straightforward and the amount at stake is small.

If you are the person being claimed against, the papers you receive tell you what is happening and what your options are. A notice served under simple procedure includes the claim form, a response form, a copy of the timetable of the claim, and a Time to Pay application¹. The response form is where you set out whether you admit the claim, dispute it, or want time to pay, and the Time to Pay application is the route to asking for instalments rather than a lump sum.

The notice has to reach you properly. It can be served by email, by first class post, or by sending a sheriff officer¹. Once it arrives, the deadline is short: you must send a response back to the Sheriff Clerk's Office within 21 days of receiving the claim¹. Missing that deadline can mean the claim is decided without your side of it, so the response date is the single most important date in the paperwork.

If you are the one raising the claim, the same structure works in your favour. The timetable that comes with the claim sets out the steps and when they fall due, and the process is built around written forms rather than lengthy hearings. Whether you are pursuer or respondent, it is worth comparing court action with the alternatives first: for many consumer disputes, an ombudsman scheme or mediation may be quicker and cheaper, and the page on ombudsman or small claims court sets out how the two routes differ.

Claims that do not use simple procedure

Three groups of cases sit outside simple procedure. The first is value: anything over £5,000, or any case that is complicated, is raised under ordinary cause instead². The second is subject matter: cases involving personal injury or housing are dealt with under the summary cause procedure, so a personal injury claim, however small, does not use simple procedure². The third group is made up of claims that follow their own special routes in the sheriff court regardless of amount.

Some of those special routes matter to consumers. Repossession cases relating to mortgages and loans are raised as summary applications rather than ordinary cause procedure, following a change in the law designed to give homeowners extra protection⁷. Hire purchase and conditional sale agreements have their own protection: once you have paid at least one third of the total amount payable, or the cost of installing the goods plus one third of the rest, the creditor may not take back the goods against your wishes without a court order, and in Scotland the creditor may need a court order at any time⁸.

Some consumer rights claims also have their own rules about time and place. A claim that a relationship between a lender and borrower is unfair, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, is brought in Scotland in the sheriff court for the district in which the debtor or surety resides or carries on business⁹. The Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 does not impose a period of prescription on such an unfair relationship claim, or on a remedy awarded under the Act, which means these claims are not shut out by the usual time limits that apply to other debts¹⁰. Scottish legal language also differs: where an English court would grant an injunction, a Scottish court grants an interdict, and the consumer rules on unfair contract terms use that Scottish term¹¹.

Finally, some disputes never reach the sheriff court at all because a specialist tribunal or scheme handles them. Tax disputes in Scotland, for example, can be appealed to the Scottish Tribunals at any stage of the dispute process before a settlement is reached¹². Checking which route applies before issuing any paperwork avoids paying for the wrong one.

Simple procedure replaced small claims and summary cause

If you have heard of the small claims procedure or the summary cause procedure in Scotland, those names are now out of date for most purposes. Simple procedure replaced small claims and most summary cause claims on 28 November 2016². The change merged two older procedures into one simpler process, keeping the summary cause route only for the cases that still need it, such as personal injury and housing².

The old names still appear in places, which is worth knowing when you read older advice or check records. The public register of money judgments maintained by Registry Trust contains all simple procedure, small claims and summary cause money decrees granted in the sheriff courts during the preceding six years³. So a decree from before November 2016 may be recorded as a small claim or a summary cause, while anything since is a simple procedure decree, but all three appear on the same register and affect credit files in the same way.

For most people the practical point is simple: whatever it was called in the past, a straightforward money claim under £5,000 in a Scottish court today is a simple procedure claim, and the forms, deadlines and hearings follow the simple procedure rules. If you are dealing with an old decree, the rules that applied are the ones in force when it was granted, and rules 13.5 to 13.7 of the Simple Procedure Rules cover recall, the process for having a decree withdrawn¹³.

If a creditor uses simple procedure to chase a debt

Simple procedure is not only for consumers chasing money: it is also the main route creditors use to pursue debts under £5,000 through the Scottish courts. If a creditor serves a claim on you, the notice will contain the claim form, the response form, the timetable and a Time to Pay application¹, and you have 21 days from receiving the claim to send your response to the Sheriff Clerk's Office¹.

Before court action starts, there are rules about what the creditor must have done. For debts regulated by the Consumer Credit Act, the creditor must already have sent you a default notice, and must give you at least 14 days to comply before starting court action¹. Debts regulated by the Consumer Credit Act generally take five years to become prescribed in Scotland, meaning that after five years without acknowledgement or payment they can no longer be enforced through the courts¹.

If the claim proceeds and a decree is granted against you, it is recorded on the public register and enforcement can follow. But Scotland has several statutory protections that can stop or pause that process:

• Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS): a debt payment programme approved under the scheme protects you while it runs. Where a programme is approved, it is not competent to serve a charge for payment, to commence or execute diligence to enforce payment, or to commit the debtor to prison in respect of the debts being paid under the programme¹⁴. A debtor who is habitually resident in Scotland may apply to the DAS Administrator for approval of a debt payment programme¹⁵, and the programme must provide for the payment of two or more debts¹⁶. The scheme exists to let individuals arrange for their debts to be paid under payment programmes¹⁷.
• Time to pay directions: if your only debt is being paid under a time to pay direction under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, you are not eligible for a DAS debt payment programme, because the direction itself already protects you¹⁸.
• Mental health moratorium: the law now requires Scottish Ministers to make regulations establishing a moratorium on debt recovery action by creditors against individuals who have a mental illness¹⁹.
• Bankruptcy threshold: a creditor petitioning for your bankruptcy must be owed at least £5,000, alone or together with other qualified creditors²⁰. Petitions for sequestration, the Scottish form of bankruptcy, are made to the court by creditors or trustees²¹.

One creditor with a special route is HMRC. In Scotland, HMRC is authorised under Section 128 of the Finance Act 2008 to apply to a sheriff court to obtain a summary warrant for the collection of tax debts, which is a different process from an ordinary simple procedure claim²². The wider options for dealing with problem debt in Scotland, including informal agreements, DAS, protected trust deeds and bankruptcy, are covered in the debt guide²³.

Trying to settle before a creditor can go to court

A creditor cannot jump straight to court. Before a creditor can use the simple procedure, they must show they have tried to arrange a way for you to deal with the debt, such as a settlement¹. This is a genuine precondition, not a formality: the court process expects evidence that repayment was attempted and refused or failed before the claim was raised.

For Consumer Credit Act debts there is a second precondition: the default notice, giving you at least 14 days to comply, must have been sent before court action begins¹. That 14-day window is a last chance to bring the account up to date or to agree arrangements without a decree being recorded against you.

The stages a debt claim passes through, and the protections that apply at each one.

Mediation is also available as an alternative. Alternative Dispute Resolution is a mediation service that can be used before simple procedure and ordinary cause claims go to court, and either you or your creditor can opt for it¹. It aims to help the two sides reach a settlement agreement without a court decision, which avoids a decree appearing on the public register and on credit files. The page on alternative dispute resolution explains how mediation works for consumer disputes more generally.

If you are the person owed money rather than the person owing it, the same logic applies in reverse: before raising a claim, it is worth writing to the other side setting out what you are owed and what you will accept, both because it may resolve the matter and because it shows the court you tried. A claim that settles before the hearing date costs everyone less.

After the decision: 4 weeks before enforcement

When the sheriff decides a simple procedure claim, the decision is called a decree. If it is a money decree against you, enforcement cannot begin immediately: there is a period of four weeks after the decree is granted before enforcement can start¹. That gap exists so the person who lost can pay, apply for time to pay, or take advice before any diligence, such as arrestment of wages or bank funds, begins.

What happens and when, in the weeks and years after a simple procedure decree.

The decree is recorded on the public register maintained by Registry Trust, which holds all simple procedure, small claims and summary cause money decrees granted in the sheriff courts during the preceding six years³. Like a county court judgment in England and Wales, a Scottish decree remains on your credit file for six years from the original judgment date, whether the balance has been paid or not³. That means paying later removes the debt but not the record.

There are only three ways an entry comes off the register sooner: if the decree is recalled by the court, if it was entered in error, or if it is paid in full within one calendar month of the date of the decree³. Paying within that first month is therefore the one route that keeps the decree off the register entirely.

If you pay in full after that month, the entry stays but can be marked as satisfied. To do that, you must get a letter of satisfaction from the pursuer in the action, or the pursuer's solicitor, explaining that the debt has been paid, then send it to the organisation that maintains the public register of Scottish court decrees, with their administration fee and confirmation of your name and address at the time of the decree³. A satisfied entry looks better to lenders than an unpaid one, but it is still visible for the six years.

Where to get help with a simple procedure claim

Free, independent advice is available for both sides of a simple procedure claim. In Scotland, consumeradvice.scot, run by Advice Direct Scotland, is the consumer advice service to contact about a dispute with a trader, including whether court action is the right route²⁶. Citizens Advice Scotland and its local bureaux can help with court forms, deadlines and debt problems, and money advice services can help with a Time to Pay application or a DAS debt payment programme.

For debt problems specifically, the Accountant in Bankruptcy, Scotland's insolvency service, publishes guidance on the options, which in Scotland include an informal agreement, the Debt Arrangement Scheme, a protected trust deed or bankruptcy²³. A money adviser can check whether you qualify for a debt payment programme, which requires habitual residence in Scotland and two or more debts¹⁵, and can advise on the protections a programme gives while it runs¹⁴.

If the dispute is with a financial firm rather than a trader, the Financial Ombudsman Service may be able to decide the complaint without court action, and the page on how to complain to a financial firm explains the steps to take first. Consumer Scotland, the statutory consumer body, publishes signposting information listing organisations that offer advice, financial support and complaint routes, but it does not advise on individual court claims.

Because court rules and procedures differ across the UK, a claim raised in Scotland follows Scottish procedure even where the firm is based elsewhere. The nations guide explains where the wider money rules differ between Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.