If you are tired of receiving spam mail or you have been jilted or hurt by a business, you have a reason to file suit in small claims court for any damages under NIS 32,800 and a new venture aims to help you with the process.
Civil disagreements abound, but most people never consider pursing a legal course of action for a variety of reasons; some people are simply and others are dissuaded by the bureaucracy. Therefore, simplifying the process would increase the probability that an average person would file a claim. In 2014, the courts received 50,000 small claims suits a substantially smaller figure than the potential volume for small claims.
Tiktaklaw.com allows Israelis to file a small claims suit conveniently online. The site is operated by the partnership of attorneys Eshel and Elkabetz and offers for the first time a quick one-stop shop for filing your suit in a matter of minutes if you have all the relevant documents prepared. TikTak’s competitors, on the other hand, only provide assistance and guidance.
The drafting and formulating of the suit is done online and costs either NIS 190 or 3% of the amount (up to the maximum of NIS 6,190). Currently, most small claims suits filed in Israel are under NIS 5,000. The site even offers to directly pay the court fees either NIS 50 or 1% of the claim, whichever is higher.
How does it work?
First you pick out the area under which the suit falls, and then you fill out the contact details for the plaintiff and the defendant (which requires their ID number, which can be conveniently found for business on a linked site).
After picking a username and password, you can attack the evidence (say, a screenshot of junk mail), and are then prompted to answer a few questions and explain the reasoning behind the claim and the amount demanded.
At this point, a lawyer specializing in the relevant field writes up formal suit. Then the rest of the process can be completed online and the suit filed directly to the court through a website (using a license granted to TikTak by the courts’ management). If you prefer, you can independently file the suit at the courthouse.
At this stage, the court informs the defendant of the claim against him. Back on TikTak’s site, the user will receive updates regarding hearing dates as well as relevant verdicts and court rulings that could help their case. All the information provided by the site is strictly secured.
It must be noted that the plaintiff always represents himself in small claims court.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 2, 2015
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2015