People who stand up for something they believe in are not always successful when their problem turns into a legal battle.

As a court case in York showed last week, residents who try to help their community can face huge financial hardship when they find the law is against them. So should people think long and hard before trying to seek compensation through the courts? KAREN GRATTAGE reports.

Three years ago Promenade Working Men's Club signed an agreement with a property developer in the hope of saving their struggling community facility.

But on Thursday its four public-spirited trustees finally admitted defeat - and faced up to a joint debt of £33,000 between them.

Lindsay Ward, supervising solicitor at York's College of Law, said it showed the importance of taking independent legal advice before entering into such contracts, rather than facing costly litigation later.

The problems began when the club, in St Benedict Road, York, faced financial hardship and began looking for a business partner.

"We had built up debts of £100,000," said former trustee Maurice Bridge. "A great deal of that was to the brewery but there were other smaller debts.

"The brewery gave us the option of paying extra for each barrel to recover the cash - but that would have taken a long time."

The trustees were delighted when builder John Guildford, whose father was a long standing member, offered to help.

Mr Guildford made a £100,000 loan to the club for a year, and the members agreed in return he could knock down the club and build a smaller facility along with 18 flats to sell for profit.

A formal document was drawn up, but it included a clause making Mr Guildford the owner for a further £80,000 if the loan was not repaid.

"The document was taken to our secretary and signed without any of the trustees reading it," admitted Mr Bridge.

At the end of the year, Mr Guildford gained planning permission for the new club - but with a reduced number of ten flats rather than 18.

He said members refused to back the plans because they did not include accommodation for the club steward.

Last May the builder began legal proceedings to evict the 150 members and eventually sold the land for a six-figure sum.

But when the trustees launched their legal battle - under the full instructions of members - they found mounting costs were making it impossible to continue.

"We agreed we would fight until we ran out of the money, but this happened a lot sooner than we expected," said Mr Bridge.

But even though the trustees halted their legal action, Mr Guildford had built up a huge bill from solicitors and a barrister and an out of court settlement awarded him £60,000.

The four trustees scraped together what cash they could - but still have a £33,000 debt and fear they may even lose their homes as a result.

Ms Ward said: "The predicament that the four trustees find themselves in really illustrates the benefit of people taking legal advice before problems arise rather than when they have arisen.

"Without knowing the specifics of the case it may be that the four trustees had insufficient knowledge about the legal and financial implications of being trustees as opposed to simply being members of a group."

York Citizens Advice Bureau said the number of clients coming to them in the midst of such complex legal wrangles were rare.

But its general service co-ordinator Rosemary Suttill sited one case of a York woman who won a court battle begun by her ex-husband.

"But he absconded to New Zealand without paying his own solicitors' bills and a claim was made against his ex-wife as the other party in the case," said Ms Suttill.

"Justice is not always fair. At the CAB we tend not to get involved when people are instructing solicitors, but we can advise people before they seek legal advice and in cases of financial hardship after cases such as this."

But she stressed advisors could not offer a solution - they could only lay out the options.

"People may not be able to afford to go to court and even if they do, they might not win," she said.

Some solicitors take up cases on a pro bono basis, which means they work without being paid to highlight a problem with the law.

The College of Law has launched a scheme allowing trainee solicitors to give free legal advice to community groups and hopes to extend it to York in the future. But the problems faced by social clubs such as Promenade may not be over and even back in 2002 one steward was warning that construction firms were "circling like sharks".

Keith Allen, of the York branch of the Club and Institute Union, urged: "Members, officers or trustees please be wary" to avoid the situation of "these four unfortunate people who will now have a financial headache for some years to come."

Updated: 10:09 Monday, January 09, 2006