On Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:28:26 PM UTC, John Rumm wrote:

The money claim online service is a fixed fee (£30 IIRC)...

That's to cover the pre-court adminstration fee. The courts can still award damages against the claimant to cover the defendants costs.

The claims process does however try and get both parties to do a few rounds of negotiation first such that court is the last resort and I would be very surprised if it were to ever get that far given the likely sums of money involved.

Mathew