dizzy

Rent on my new property is >20% less than rent paid by previous tenants

Thanks all. The order was for payment in full. My LL has yet to oblige although he still has some time before the deadline. I had assumed that there would be some discussion of the repayment schedule at the hearing but when I quizzed the judge about it, he said it was for me to sort out. Thus I hope I will have the opportunity to set this should my LL not pay up. Very much thinking of setting up an order for information if he misses the deadline.

Court judgment - the judge ruled in our favour in full! All of the claim including deposit, repayment of money for cleaning, interest and costs. My LL didn't bother to turn up, although he had notified the court that he wasn't going to be there, relying on his existing "evidence". The judge was quite scathing about the LL's claims and complimented me on the documentation and its presentation. He said it was very clear that we'd been good tenants. So that's half the battle over......now for the tricky part of getting the money back!

Well, I've sent him a copy of the hearing letter, by recorded delivery, along with the copy of the hearing documentation that I have to send him. Unfortunately, I think there's a high probability that you'll be proved right. At least I would have the satisfaction(?) of knowing he was telling porky-pies and I doubt the court would like it either.

Finally!!! A hearing date scheduled in a couple of weeks! The court had the cheek to demand all documentation within a few days, after keeping me waiting for months!!! And my suspicions about the mediation were confirmed - complete waste of time. :angry: They couldnt contact my LL and eventually gave up after much pestering from me to get on with it. Still, roll on the hearing......I wonder if my LL will bother to turn up!

Update - the judge instructed us to mediate. Waste of time in my opinion and we are still waiting to hear something from the court, six weeks after sending the forms.

Well, I received the allocation questionnaire and it was returned to the court several weeks ago. Nothing back so far. Any idea how long it takes before a court date is confirmed? I guess it all depends on the local court and how busy they are. The allocation questionnaire asks for your availability over the next 4 months! Hope it doesn't take that long to arrange a date!

Against my better judgment, I've decided not to accept the offer and to dispute the rest of the claim. It's not a common sense or unemotional decision and it wasn't easy to make. The disputed part of the claim is only a small fraction of the whole but, as I said previously, for me this is about both the money and the principle. I'm not being greedy, I don't feel greedy - I just wasn't prepared to accept some of the rubbish the LL wrote on the claim form. Besides, I don't think he's got a leg to stand on. I've written to the LL and tried to persuade him to drop the dispute. Not sure if that will have an effect but the costs are likely to exceed the value of the disputed monies.

I put in a cheeky offer of £150k on a £210k asking price for the property I was renting because I knew the landlord was in trouble with his repayments and it had been on the market about 9 month. It was rejected as I expected but at least I know the EA passed it on. About six months later it was sold for £200k.

I need to give this some more thought but I guess the sensible, unemotional decision is to accept the £800. Regarding the rate of repayment and the LL's financial situation (according to the admission form): 1) LL claims to have been unemployed for over a year. 2) LL claims his bank account is overdrawn. 3) LL claims to be lodging. 4) LL claims to be getting £50/week from others. 5) LL claims to have three loans requiring about £100/month. 6) LL also claims that he is currently trying to recover money owed to him by his company which is being held by customs and this is the reason he cannot pay immediately. If all this is true, I struggle to see how he can even afford to pay back £50/month. So I would be reluctant to increase the rate of repayment for fear of getting nothing. I now know he has sold the property we rented recently, at a significant profit. So you would have thought he would have some spare funds, although he previously talked about selling up because there was another property he wanted to buy. So I take his claims with a pinch of salt (see previous post) but maybe better to play safe.

Received the documents from the court. My claim was for £850 plus fees, interest and costs. 1) LL has admitted to £800, being equal to the deposit. 2) LL has disputed £50 which it was agreed he would pay us for cleaning when we first moved in. 3) LL has offered to pay £50/month. 4) LL disputes £50 because he claims he already "gave £50 from the rent direct to the agent" and also (rather confusingly) states that he only "received £750 one month instead of £800" for the rent. So which was it??! In fairness, he has always claimed that he gave the money to the agent. However, the agent says they never got it. What he doesn't do is deny that he agreed to pay us. What is for sure is that we never got the money we deserved! 5) LL has also written a defence (not sure why as he has ticked the admit box). LL claims the following: He had to get the property professionally cleaned after we moved out (which is a joke, as it was spotless) and used the £50 to clean it. We left before AST ended (true but only after we received an eviction date from the lender because he wasnt paying the mortgage and after numerous attempts, failed to confirm that he had sorted it out) so he kept the deposit. (he also failed to explain why he kept it) So, what to do now? Obviously I'm happy about the £800 admission, although not so much the rate of payback but his claims about the cleaning have really wound me up. :angry: Property was dirty when we moved in (we have photos), was spotless when we moved out (we have photos and witnesses) so I am really tempted to reject the offer and go for the full claim. Although the cleaning money agreement was not written down, he has not denied that it was made and we have a letter from the agent confirming that there was an agreement. Also there was no inventory. LL has admitted £800 but what about the court fee? Can I just add that onto the amount owed? And interest too or is that added on automatically?

Thanks for the pat on the back Chris_86 but unless I see 100% of the amount owed back in my hand, I´m not going to be 100% satisfied. If it´s a derisory offer we are almost back to square one except that we know that good service has been made. As I understand it, a part admission can even include a counterclaim. So as happy? says, I will just have to wait to see what offer is on the table. Does anyone know who is responsible for payment of the court fee, if the defendant is only admitting part of the claim? Is this split between claimant and defendant? For example, it would seem a bit harsh on the defendant if he had to pay the full £80 court fee and was only admitting to £100 of a £800 claim. However, if he admitted, say, £700 of the £800, you would think he should pay most, if not all, of the court charge.

Well, have to admit wasnt expecting this. Just had notification that LL has part admitted to the claim Quite what this means, I dont know. I guess it could almost mean anything in terms of the financial value of the claim but his defence will make very interesting reading nonetheless! I suppose that at least I now know that the claim has been served and he has not fallen off the edge of a cliff! Although there still maybe address related issues down the line, depending on his circumstances and whether he has notified the court of his actual address or not.

Happy?, just a point of confusion here. You say that service may not be made at the address as the defendant may no longer be there and without good service judgement cannot be entered. However, in your earlier post, you state that the court would consider the address he gave for the contract (i.e the same address) as effective for service. My feeling is that it ought to be effective for service as you are supposed to be able to use the last known address of the defendant. Also, the advice from a solicitor I consulted was that the court would think it a feeble excuse if he argued that he had not received the claim because it was sent to his parents. Well, in all honesty, I actually don't know that the address is his parents but I have concluded this because an acquaintance told me that the parents lived in that area and because the signatures on my recorded delivery receipts share the same surname as my ex LL. So in this case, how do you know whether you have got good service or not? Neither the court nor I know whether he is living there or not. I guess you will only find out when he doesn't pay up and the baillifs return empty handed?

Well I guess that depends on the claimant. Personally, for me it's about both. On one side, it's a big hole in the pocket to lose the best part of a grand. On the other, would I sit back and do nothing even if I only had a small chance of seeing the money? No, probably not. I want my ex LL to face up to his actions, to know that I'm chasing him, to think twice about doing it to the next victim and, if all else fails, to get a CCJ so that he struggles to get a mortgage for his latest BTL. True, I'd be much more satisfied if I saw my deposit again but I know there's a risk I won't. I weighed up claiming or doing nothing and there was only really one option for me. Anyway, the claim is already submitted, so I guess that's the simple part over. My ex LL is now running out of time to respond before I force a judgement. I never expected the claim to prompt him to refund me or even to issue a response. Expect he will lie low and think he will get away with it - all I have to do is turn into Columbo and track him down! That's why I think that my claim requires much more in terms of the value of my own time than the monetary value associated with processing the claim. By the way, Muttley, this depends on the value of your claim, so for me it was £80. I've already checked through the edited electoral roll and now the unedited electoral roll without success. Obviously my ex LL is much more into stealing than he is into democracy!

A naive question: I had been led to believe a particular property was sold 5-6 months ago but it has yet to appear on Rightmove's sold prices database. According to Rightmove, it can take 3 months between a sale and the Land Registry picking it up and then a further month before it is published on their website. Still, that's only 4 months and I noted that a sale in May 2007 in the same postcode is on Rightmove already. Does this mean that the property was not sold after all? Or is some sale information delayed or even missed by either the Land Registry or Rightmove? Are they as reliable as each other seeing as Rightmove get their data directly from the LR? Anyone have an idea of the actual timeframe between sales and data being available? Or does it vary wildly?

Well, that's my claim form submitted. Gave the LL a very generous period to respond and no response received. Thanks all for the advice. I actually took the precaution of contacting a solicitor who advised using the LL's last known address (i.e LL's parents) for the claim. The court would think it a feeble excuse if he tried to argue that he never received the claim form. If the claim is successful and he doesn't pay up, he advised using a tracing agent to find out his true address. Anyone have any experience of using tracing agents or know of any particularly good agents?

I've never seen a title register but wouldn't this just tell me the LL's address at the time he bought the property? Don't think this would be any help as he lived in the property for a time and I believe he has moved to his parents and maybe moved again since.

This has happened to me. Basically outcome very much depends on whether your LL has a BTL mortgage or not. If BTL, the tenant has rights and normally the Lender will come to an arrangement with tenant. If LL doesn't have Lender's permission to let, the Lender will not recognise the tenant and will normally evict on repossession. You can pretty much forget about compensation from the LL, who would presumably be in a dire financial position. In this circumstance, i'd advise not paying a penny more and getting out as soon as possible. Think this situation is not that uncommon as there are a few threads on this and other fora. In terms of guarding against it, I guess that going through a reputable agent should be a good start. You can request info on the LL's mortgage type and financial position, although of course this isn't often forthcoming - they usually demand to see the tenant's ability to pay but not vice versa! We ended up requesting a clause in the contract about LL having Lender's approval (which is not in a standard AST as far as I know) but don't really know if this provides much protection if worst was to happen.

Hang on, at the risk of looking stupid......... As far as I understand, the 6.5% gross is 6.5% (rising to 6.75%) for the first six months, at which point you can take your money. Only if you leave it for another six months, during which the rate drops back 1% to 5.75% would you have an gross rate of 6.25%. What I don't understand is Tesco's table of interest rates for annual/monthly interest payments. http://www.tescofinance.com/personal/finan.../important.html These rates appear to be without bonus. So why should there be any difference between the gross and the AER for the annual rates? i.e. for £15k - £49,999 And I would have thought the AER for monthly interest should be greater than the gross. But it appears to be more less than the gross above 15k and more than the gross less than 15k. A quick back of the envelope calculation gives me 6.96% gross (including bonus) for the first 6 months if I calculate monthly interest for the equivalent 6.75% rate. Still a bit confused. Can anyone clarify?

I expect my LL will try to be as obstructive as possible even though am I claiming costs. I expect this will be a lengthy process and will end up causing me more inconvenience than it will my LL. However, I am determined to see this through mainly because of the way my LL has lied throughout the tenancy, while we went out of our way to help him. I am more angry about his behaviour than about the money but by the time the claim goes in he will owe into four figures. Well, he still has a few days to reply to my latest letter before I submit the claim form but I'm not holding my breath!

Thanks. Decided to write one last warning letter to LL - although doubt it will work. Then if no reply in a couple of weeks, i'm firing the claim in. Do you have an option to get the claim sent recorded? It looked like they automatically send it first class when you claim online.

Increasing to 6.25% on 1st August. Just opening one

Congratulations Muttley on finally getting your deposit back I was following your story a while back and it's good to know things turned out well. Thanks for your electoral roll suggestion. I just tried it but unfortunately, the LL doesn't appear after 2004 so he's probably on the private register. Looks like I'll have to choose between his parents and business address. Think I'll go with the parents as he gave the address during the tenancy. Couple of other questions: Is the wording of the actual claim important? I know there's particular recommended wording for claiming interest but does the rest matter as long as you give the general picture? What are the rules about claiming loss of earnings? I earn a salary so if I go to court, I wont actually lose earnings but will have to use hard-earned holiday. Can I still claim?

I'm in the process of generating a claim in the small claims court to recover my deposit from my ex-landlord. He has given no reason for withholding deposit and not responded to our letters/phone calls. :angry: My main concern is getting the correct address for my landlord on the claim form. I believe the contact address he gave during the tenancy may well be his parents address (whether he lives there or not) and I gather that he has already sold the property we previously rented. He spoke about selling up and buying another property, so he may well be living elsewhere. I strongly predict that he will ignore the claim and that bailliffs will be required to reclaim the debt. If I give his what I believe to be his parents address, would bailliffs be able to recover the debt from this address, even if he doesnt live there? Or is this going to make it very difficult to get my money back? Do I have any other options? Is there anyway to find out for sure where he is living? I think I may have worked out his business address but using this didnt seem like a good idea. Any advice appreciated, particularly from anyone who has been through the small claims procedures before. Or even any general advice about claims for deposits.