Step 2: fill in the claim form

You need to send a ‘claim form’ to your local county court and pay a fee to start the process - get the N1 claim form and the notes on how to complete it on GOV.UK.

Send the claim form if you haven’t had a reply to your letter before action after 14 days (or whatever other period you specified) or if you haven’t managed to reach an agreement out of court.

If you didn’t send a letter before action because you’d have missed the deadline, you should explain this on the claim form.

Start by writing:

• your full name and address in the ‘claimant’ section of the form
• the name and address of the person or business you’re taking action against in the ‘defendant’ section of the form
• what your claim is about and what you want - do this in the ‘brief details of the claim’ section
• that you’re making a claim under ‘Part 4 of the Equality Act 2010’

Make sure you get the name of the defendant right - if you name the wrong person or serve it on the wrong person, the court might say your claim isn’t valid - this is known as ‘striking out’ your case.

If you need help, speak to an adviser at any time - the process can be complicated.

If you’re not sure what to put, you can see an example of a completed claim form [ 18 mb]. 

If you can’t view the example and you’re not sure what to put on your claim form you can get help from your nearest Citizens Advice.

Complete the ‘value’ section

If you’re claiming money for discrimination, put the amount in the value section. If you’re not asking for money, you should leave this section blank.

You don’t have to give a specific amount - a range will do. Claims can follow 3 different routes depending mainly on how much money is being claimed. Each of these routes is called a ‘track’ and covers a certain amount. The limits of each track are:

• not more than £10,000 - small claims track

• not more than £25,000 - fast track
• over £25,000 - multi-track

Read more about how to work out how much you can claim. 

Complete the ‘particulars of claim’ section

Explain what happened and give the facts in the order they happened. You’ll need to use the evidence you’ve collected to prove these facts in court.

If you don’t have much time, you can send the form first and send the ‘particulars of claim’ up to 14 days later. On the claim form cross out the words ‘attached’ if you’re sending them later. You could use this time to put your particulars of claim together or to negotiate.

If you’re sending the particulars of claim with your claim form and you’ve typed them on separate sheets, you can just say ‘see attached sheets’ and attach them to the form.

If you’re planning to ask the court to issue the claim but want to send it to the defendant yourself, you don’t have to attach the particulars of claim at this point. Make sure you send them with the claim form within 4 months of issuing. Read more about when you might want to send the form yourself.

Make sure you mention:

• why you think you were discriminated against - you’ll need to give the protected characteristic

• the type of discrimination, for example direct discrimination - if there’s more than one that you want to raise, mention them all

• the comparator if it's direct discrimination (you don't have to do this but it's a good idea) - work out who the comparator is

• the provision, criterion or practice which is discriminatory (if it’s indirect discrimination) and why it puts you and other people with your protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage compared to people who don’t share it

• that you’re being treated unfavourably because of something linked to your disability (if it’s discrimination arising from disability) and explain how

• the effect it’s had on you - this could be money you’ve lost or the emotional impact
• the provision, criterion or practice, feature of the property or lack of an auxiliary aid that puts you at a substantial disadvantage compared to someone who isn’t disabled (if it’s a failure to make a reasonable adjustment for your disability) and explain why they’re under a duty to make the adjustment

Describing the circumstances

You need to say which part of the law covers your circumstances - it might be more than one.

If you’re being discriminated against by someone who’s managing a property or tenancies, you should say the discrimination happened during the ‘management of premises’. This is the legal term that covers most things landlords do, like collecting rent and dealing with repairs. You need to say you’re bringing the claim under section 35 of the Equality Act 2010.

If your problem happened during the selling or renting of homes, you can say the discrimination happened during the ‘disposal of premises’. For example, if a landlord refused to show you a particular property because of your race or religion. You need to say you’re bringing the claim under section 33 of the Equality Act 2010.

Say the problem is about ‘permission for disposal of premises’ if the discrimination is by someone who needs to agree to the selling or renting of homes. For example, your landlord might have refused to let you sublet a room in your flat because of the tenant’s religion. You need to say you’re bringing the claim under section 34 of Equality At 2010.

If the problem is about reasonable adjustments, say who the ‘controller of the premises’ is. This could be the person who rents it out or manages it. You should also say that they failed to make reasonable adjustments under section 20 and 36 of the Equality Act 2010 and that you’re bringing the claim under section 21 of the Equality Act 2010.

You’ll then need to say what happened and why it was against the law.

Asking for what you want to happen

Make sure you ask for what you want to happen, like something to be changed. You should say this even if you’ve already asked for money in the ‘value’ section.

You can ask for the discrimination to stop by saying you want an ‘injunction’. This is a way of asking the court to order whoever is discriminating against you to either do something or stop doing something. This could be something like:

• a housing association changing a policy that discriminates against disabled people
• a landlord making a reasonable adjustment
• an estate agent stopping a way of working that discriminates against people of a certain religion

If you run out of space for the particulars of claim

You can write more on a separate page if you can’t fit all the details of the particulars of claim into the box. If you’re using a separate page, write in the box “see attached particulars of claim” or “see attached sheets” if you are just continuing to write on a separate page.

Write:

• ‘Particulars of claim’ at the top
• that you’re the ‘Claimant’ and the person or business you’re making a claim against is the ‘Defendant’
• the claim number if you have one
• the name of the court

Say on the claim form that you’ve attached the particulars of claim.

Write which part of the law covers your claim

You should also say that you’re claiming under ‘Part 4 of the Equality Act 2010’. 

Next write what type of discrimination happened:

Sign the ‘statement of truth’

Make sure you sign the ‘statement of truth’ at the bottom of the form. This means you agree that everything you’ve written is true.

If you used an extra sheet with the ‘particulars of the claim’ on, write another statement of truth there and sign it. Copy the wording from the main claim form.

If you’re not sure what to write, you can see an example of particulars of claim [ 64 kb]. If you can’t access the document you can see this version, but this doesn’t show the formatting the court uses. If you don’t use the format given in the court rules, your case could be affected negatively. You can get help from your nearest Citizens Advice if you’re worried about formatting your document.