'without predudice' letter

Bungarm2001

Well, it is looking more and more like we are going to have to bite the bullet and serve two of our ex-tenants with small claims court summons.

We have never had to do this before because when we have chased for arrears in the past, the tenants have always paid up (eventually) before we ever came close to the small claims road.

I've got a pretty good grasp on what I as the LL am required to do, apart from sending a letter to the tenants where the contents are marked 'without predudice.'

I seem to remember someone on here posted an example of one, but I can't find it now...lost the link. Also, did this same person post an example of a letter marked 'Pre action' being the last and final correspondence before aplying to the court. If anyone has a link to either of these I would be extremly grateful. As I said, I have never been in this postion before so any advice etc will be very gratefully received.

A bit of background; 3 sharers signed up jointly and severally on a 12 month AST June 2007.
One left without warning in December, but continued paying rent until Feb.
Other two paid normally until May then stopped.
After writing to all three, we heard nothing more from the one who left, but did receive a few quid from the other two, nowhere near what they owed though, just a token gesture.
They stayed until August, with promises to pay, and after writing to them we were actually paid off by the relative of one person and we now have no claim on that particular tenant.
We are now resolved to go after the one tenant who left in December and owes 4 months, and the one who stayed and now owes us 5 months rent.

We have had no offers to pay from either of them.

Mutton_Geoff

If it ever gets to the small claims court, then they will want to see that you have made every attempt to negotiate. I wouldn't bother with the "without prejudice" wording but simply send a letter before action, eg:


LETTER BEFORE ACTION

Dear Mr Bloggs, you owe me £xx in unpaid rent. Unless this is paid in full within the next seven days, proceedings will be issued to recover this amount plus costs.

Ignoring this letter *will* increase the amount you owe and could result in a county court judgement against you.


Send that off and in ten days time if no money, simply issue proceedings via the excellent government run www.moneyclaim.gov.uk website.

neas

Your figures dont add up?

One tenant who left december paid till feb (02) andyou are claiming his portion till june (06) so maximum 4 months.

Other tenant left August paid till may (05) and you are claiming his portion till August (08) 3-4 months? or are you trying to charge him rent for may,june, july, august, september? Which as you say he wasn't actually in the property then.

I'd be careful over-egging claims in court as any form of 'greed' will be looked dimly on i guess.

sooz

Why, when they started messing you around, did you not serve notice? You say you had a contact with all 3 jointly & severally until June 08. Therefore your claim is against all 3 - regardless of the fact that the relative of one has paid a share of the debt, they all remain liable.

tbs624

Bungarm- you say these 3 tenants were a J&SL contract, yet say that you have no claim on the third tenant whose relative paid up? Did you offer some sort of "full and final settlement" terms to that one tenant?

You could have written one standard letter requesting the full amount outstanding for that FT and addressed a copy to each of them, then simply named all 3 as joint defendants on one claim but matters have been muddied by allowing the two other tenants to stay on outside the original FT.

Presumably you are now intending issuing the one claim against the remaining two tenants,to cover the FT shortfall plus the periodic shortfall?

Did you have any guarantors for this lot? If so, have you sent a notification of unpaid rent to those guarantors?

Using the term Letter Before Action, I would write to the tenants giving a statement of rent payments and arrears under the whole contract, plus the periodic, then briefly list the previous attempts that have been made by you to get resolve and say that you are now making a final request for the outstanding monies to be paid within the next 7 days.

Include the line that, although you would prefer that this matter was settled amicably, if you haven’t received payment by that date, then you will issue court proceedings, and your claim will include interest on the arrears plus the courts costs. You could also add that they should be aware that a CCJ against their name will affect their future credit rating.

IMO Mutton Geoff's line about "will increase the amount you owe" is insufficient: you need to specifify what those other costs in the claim will be.

You may want to sign up to Tessa Shepperson’s Landlordlaw site http://www.landlordlaw.co.uk/page.ihtml?id=300&step=2&page=mem or clarify with the legal bods at the rla or landlords.org .uk

Premier_2

tbs624 wrote:

...IMO Mutton Geoff's line about "will increase the amount you owe" is insufficient: you need to specifify what those other costs in the claim will be...

Mutton Geoff's draft does state what would be sought. i.e. "this amount [£xx] plus costs"

There is no way the costs can be quantified at the outset as it would depend on when the defendant settles the matter and what eventually is involved in recovering the debt.

tbs624

Premier wrote: »

Mutton Geoff's draft does state what would be sought. i.e. "this amount [£xx] plus costs"

There is no way the costs can be quantified at the outset as it would depend on when the defendant settles the matter and what eventually is involved in recovering the debt.

Who said said anything about the costs being "quantified at the outset" Premier? You do love to read parts into other people's posts that just don't exist.

My post contained the acronym IMO - by all means have an opinion that differs from mine, but don't mis-attribute: the phrase was "interest on the arrears plus court costs" - nothing to do with "quantified at the outset."

Bungarm2001

tbs624 wrote: »

Bungarm- you say these 3 tenants were a J&SL contract, yet say that you have no claim on the third tenant whose relative paid up? Did you offer some sort of "full and final settlement" terms to that one tenant?

This is where it gets complicated. We have/had our LA dealing with this when the first tenant (T1) left without warning or indicating anything was wrong. As soon as T1 stopped any contact with the LA, and stopped paying the rent, the LA wrote to all three pointing out their responsibilities as j&sl tenants, but the two who were left at the property went beserk and totally refused to have anything to do with paying their friends arrears. A few weerks further on and they also stopped paying.

tbs624 wrote: »

You could have written one standard letter requesting the full amount outstanding for that FT and addressed a copy to each of them, then simply named all 3 as joint defendants on one claim but matters have been muddied by allowing the two other tenants to stay on outside the original FT. Presumably you are now intending issuing the one claim against the remaining two tenants,to cover the FT shortfall plus the periodic shortfall?

Yes, if this is possible. The agent has tried their best to do this the right way, but has had to on several occassions call the police when the remaining 2 tenants have been in the office and threatening all sorts. There have been several thinly veiled threats about damaging the property too, but alas no witnesses.

My OH did go and see the remainders at this point and actually managed to get some sense out of them...seems that they had a real grudge against the agent because he forgot their names?!? Later on they accused the LA of fraud, and then later admitted that the accusation was untrue. My OH and the remaining 2 plus the LA had a meeting in the office and each one admitted finally that they were in serious arrears and promised to pay as much as they could. One tenant did pay a couple of hundred, the other paid a small amount the following week. We DID agree at this meeting to let them stay on as periodic until August, stupidly probably, but at this point, we were seriously worried about any damage they might cause to the property in retaliation. We were still waiting to hear from T1 whose AST ended, like the others, in June.

tbs624 wrote: »

Did you have any guarantors for this lot? If so, have you sent a notification of unpaid rent to those guarantors?

Yes, we have a guarantor for T1 and one for one of the tenants, T2, who stayed until August. This tenants' (T2) guarantor came straight to the office after receiving the letter about unpaid rent and kicked up a hell of a fuss. Once again, the LA was threatened with all sorts and was on the verge of calling the cops. The guarantor absolutely refused to pay anything for July and August saying that as far as they were concerned, the contract ended in June at that is what they would pay up to. If this wasn't acceptable, then the attitude was, "take us to court, then try and get the money when you win. I'll offer a £ a month and it'll be accepted."

Since we were getting nowhere with T1 or tenant 3 (T3) we decided to take the 'offer' in full an final settlement of their share of the arrears. T3 also paid us a cheque hoping to be 'let off' too, but surprise surprise, cheque bounced and at this point, the LA washed his hands of the whole thing.

tbs624 wrote: »

Using the term Letter Before Action, I would write to the tenants giving a statement of rent payments and arrears under the whole contract, plus the periodic, then briefly list the previous attempts that have been made by you to get resolve and say that you are now making a final request for the outstanding monies to be paid within the next 7 days.

Is seven days notice enough? I see on the RLA website that they use 28 days, which I feel is far too long. Would 14 days be better or are there some sort of court guidelines abot this? I can't seem to find any.

tbs624 wrote: »

Include the line that, although you would prefer that this matter was settled amicably, if you haven’t received payment by that date, then you will issue court proceedings, and your claim will include interest on the arrears plus the courts costs. You could also add that they should be aware that a CCJ against their name will affect their future credit rating.

tbs624 wrote: »

IMO Mutton Geoff's line about "will increase the amount you owe" is insufficient: you need to specifify what those other costs in the claim will be.

You may want to sign up to Tessa Shepperson’s Landlordlaw site http://www.landlordlaw.co.uk/page.ihtml?id=300&step=2&page=mem or clarify with the legal bods at the rla or landlords.org .uk

So, you can see, a bit complicated. I think the LA did a couple of things wrong.....


Thanks for taking the time to reply. Landlordlaw looks like a very very good source of reference.

sooz

What a charming bunch of tenants.

As tbs asked, did you sign anything agreeing to full & final settlement for one tenant's share when you accepted some money?

If not, I'd be very tempted to name all tenants, plus their guarantors on your small claims action.

They need to realise that this is a problem for all of them, due to their own stupidity & naievety. If they weren't prepared to either trust or pay for eachother, then they shouldn't have signed a joint contract.

Bungarm2001

sooz wrote: »

Why, when they started messing you around, did you not serve notice? You say you had a contact with all 3 jointly & severally until June 08. Therefore your claim is against all 3 - regardless of the fact that the relative of one has paid a share of the debt, they all remain liable.

We were very worried about further damage being caused to the property. The LA who was dealing with all this had had several run ins with the two that stayed involving the police being called to the office. The worse incident was triggered off by the remaining 2 receiving a letter pointing out that regardless how many people were living there, they wre ALL liable for the full house rent. Serving notice was considered, but we decided on the softly softly approach...probably, in retrospect, completey the wrong thing to do.

silvercar

Good luck with it. I have a similar situation but the tenant is still living there.

My aim is for the tenant to pay off the arrears and remain. Bad enough having to chase for arrears, to evict someone from there home is beyond what I want to do.

Anyone know if a letter before action could be construed as harrassment? When my aim is a gentle warning that I will have no option to take matters further if the situation isn't resolved.