Small Claims Court

The process is deliberately simple.

A demand letter comes first. In Lagos the claimant must have served a written demand on the defendant before filing, and evidence of that demand goes in with the claim. That requirement alone resolves a proportion of disputes without any filing.

The claim is then filed at the small claims court of the magisterial district where the defendant resides or carries on business, or where the cause of action arose. Forms are prescribed and short.

The defendant is served and files an admission, a defence or a counterclaim within the time the rules allow.

A hearing follows quickly, and the court works to a target timeline measured in weeks rather than years. Legal representation is permitted but not required, and the procedure is designed so that an ordinary person can present their own case.

Judgment is then enforced through the ordinary machinery, including garnishee proceedings against the defendant's bank account.

The Lagos limit was set at five million naira when the court was established, and limits are periodically reviewed, so confirm the current figure and the current practice direction before filing.

The practical value is highest for exactly the claims that were previously abandoned. An unpaid invoice. A deposit not refunded. A loan to somebody who stopped responding. A tenant's caution fee withheld without justification. A contractor paid for work never done.

What the court will not entertain is anything outside a liquidated money demand. Land disputes, matrimonial matters, defamation and claims requiring extensive evidence belong elsewhere, and employment claims fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Industrial Court.

The demand letter requirement is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a formality. A clear letter stating what is owed, why, what evidence supports it and a deadline, sent with proof of delivery, is both a filing requirement and the single most effective thing a creditor can do. A large share of these disputes settle at that stage.

Awareness remains the limiting factor. The courts exist, they work, and most Nigerians with a recoverable debt do not know they are there.

Three forums, suited to different claims.

The small claims court hears liquidated money demands up to its limit, on simplified forms, without requiring a lawyer, and to a short timeline. It is the right forum for a straightforward debt.

The ordinary magistrate court has wider civil jurisdiction up to its own monetary limit and handles matters that are not simple money demands, including recovery of premises. Procedure is more formal.

The High Court has unlimited civil jurisdiction and hears land matters, larger claims and anything complex. It is slower and considerably more expensive.

Specialist courts sit alongside these: the National Industrial Court for employment and trade disputes, the Federal High Court for defined federal subject matter, and customary and Sharia courts within their own systems.

Filing in the wrong forum wastes months, because the case is struck out for want of jurisdiction rather than decided.

The monetary limit excludes larger claims, which must go to the ordinary courts.

The subject matter is narrow. Only liquidated money demands qualify, so a dispute about the quality of work, or about who owns something, does not fit.

Availability is uneven. Not every state has established one, so a creditor outside those states has no equivalent.

And judgment is not payment. A successful claimant still has to enforce, and a defendant with no traceable assets leaves the creditor with a piece of paper.