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I particularly like having an interim charging order application returned from X County Court with a covering letter from X County Court telling me that the case has been transferred to X County Court. That particular gaffe let the defendant sell their property before the interim order was made.

I also like being able to get all the way to trial without the defendant ever having filed an actual defence (by which I mean, the 'I want to defend the claim' box was ticked but no reasons filled in) because the court never got around to considering any strike-out or summary judgment requests.

Or that time it took me 2 years (no exaggeration) to get judgment in default against a defendant, because the County Court kept losing the paperwork. In the end I had to apply for summary judgment (which, interestingly, shouldn't have been possible).

Or the time that the court bounced a charging order application because I'd tried to pay two application fees (there were two defendants as tenants in common). After arguing with them for ages I just sent them one fee, whereupon it was returned to me as apparently I needed two.

Or about 50% of the time that a request for default judgment with contractual interest is bounced because the interest claimed is not the court rate of 8%.

Or at the court counter where I was told I needed 5 copies of a consent order to be stamped. There were only 2 parties (which I believe means that I needed 3 copies).

Or the time I sent a single consent order to the court via email and was told I needed to send it X+1 times because there were X parties. When I said they could just print it X+1 times, I was told that wasn't possible.

And woe betide anyone actually trying to phone the court to check something. You can spend literally hours trying to get through.

Closing courts isn't the issue. The issue is the shockingly low quality of some court staff, and an inability to get anything before a judge quickly. It's not possible to offer an efficient service to clients when you're being hamstrung by court errors. The MoJ needs to employ and train more people on the frontline.