We owe £11,000 to a storage company and wanted to negotiate

In
cases like this, I never suggest making an offer. I suggest sending a cheque not to to sols but to storage co.
Armed with a cheque in the hand for some of the amount that a person wants,
compared to an argument over the whole of the amount, (and arguments that the
person may win or lose) the cheque in the hand is a pretty powerful incentive
to accept it.

So
consider deciding how much you would like to pay the claimant (you need to make
it attractive enough) and send it with a covering letter headed "without
prejudice save as to costs". That means that the person cannot produce the
letter in court as any proof that you admit owing any money at all.

Tell
the claimant in the letter that you are offering this money in full and final
settlement of all claims against you, past, present and future, including legal
costs and that by cashing it they accept it as such. Tell the person that if he/she
does not accept it, they should return the cheque to you and if they issue
legal proceedings, you will defend them on the basis of A, B, C, whatever.

Do tell the claimant that this is not
your money (because you do not have it) and that it has come from someone else
who has agreed to discharge the debt for you.

Tell
the claimant that if he/she does not understand the significance of the letter,
he/she should take independent legal advice.

I
can tell you this approach works nine times out of 10, provided the offer is
reasonable and not derisory.

For legal reasons which I will not bore you with but which
go back several hundred years, the cheque must not come from you, but most come
from a third party, friend, relative, solicitor, our accountant, neighbour,
girlfriend, wife, husband, whoever, just not from you.

Here is some rather heavy reading http://www.voltimum.co.uk/news/2312/cm/the-law----full-and-final-settlement-.html

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On Monday, the judgement is likely to be set aside. Quite simply
because you have responded to everything and the correspondence went to an old
address presumably through the solicitor's fault (either accidentally or
intentionally!).

It then means that you are back to negotiation and in that
respect, I still think you can rely on the letter and the cached cheque if
indeed it has been cashed.

You could raise this with the judge on Monday and say that this
issue has now been resolved because you sent the letter (let the judge have the
letter) and they have cash the cheque (if they have) so there is no need for it
to return to court.

The other side may object to that and the judge will either
decide to deal with it therein then or he will set the judgement aside and wait
for another hearing when the whole thing will be decided.

Please remember that there appears to be no issue over the fact
that you owe £11,000. It is now a case of whether they will accept (if they
have not cash the cheque) £9500 including costs. If not, the argument is not
over the £11,000 but it is over the solicitor's costs and if this goes to a
full trial, they will most certainly be over £5000

On the basis of what information you have given me, I cannot see
how there can yet be £5000 of the legal costs although there will be if this
goes to a full trial.

If that happens, and they lose, their client is going to get
nothing in all probability will probably not please them very much