Question re. reimbursement of travel expenses and court fee in Small Claims Court

silvercar

croydonrent wrote: »

Hi, yes I have contacted DPS, they can't do anything. I send the notarised statutory declaration form which is currently on its way however all the landlord has to do is to reject it and this will be the end of it.
Re. the email from the agent that I changed many times the process - this is a lie and I can prove it. I am not poor and can pay the travel costs, however it is just a matter of principle that the party who is wrong should pay for the consequences . Anyway, thank you for your comments, it feels more like I am defending myself here rather than getting some supporting feedback . As I said, I have got a personal experience in taking a landlord to court, I have seen how tough the judge was with the dishonest landlord and this time again I have more than sufficient evidence against the landlord and the agent.

Matters of principal can be expensive. A court will have expected you to have exhausted the DPS own procedures.

I do know that following the DPS loops and hurdles can be stressful, but they are there to ensure a fair outcome.

croydonrent wrote: »

What do you mean by saying that "my emotions interfer? I don't agree with that. I am sure if you were in similar situation you would be pretty p---ed off yourself. Do you consider it not unreasonable to close the estate agency and run away without a tel number or any other contact details? How about the agent demanding to return the keys from the flat so that he can arrange the final check out (eg. the return of the keys to the agent as a pre-condition of arranging the check out)? Or the agent not answerinfg the phone when he was more than 100 times (after that he sent an email to the landlord with me on cc that he would be always happy to speak to me on the phone)? Or demanding 300 GBP to replace the carpet where is in fact the amount should ave been GBP 100 and not providing with any estimates or the info abou the age of the carpet? Or asking me to apologise to the landlord because I contacted the landlord in order to find out when they will return my deposit?

If you won't understand than there is nothing I can do, but a court will judge on the appropriate deposit return, nothing else. The judge can't allow himself to get interested in whether an agent answered the phone.

I wish you well, I hope you get your rightful share of the deposit back. The point of these deposit schemes was so that tenants didn't end up having to resort to court.

silvercar

Have you actually tried yourself to deal with DPS?

Well my son did. It was painful and it took about 3 months to get his share of the deposit back. In the end it worked, much to my surprise. I got the impression the landlord was trying to be difficult and stall, when in fact it was the DPS messing around with their procedures.

N79

Mate - I'm not sure your getting this so here is one last try. You will not get the costs of your flights back. It is not the way the small claims court works.

Let me give you a personal example about why it would not be fair to allow full cost claims.

I recently had a T who left a property somewhat dirty after a tenancy. There were some dinner plate sized carpet stains, the curtains had never been cleaned, there was about half an inch of limescale on the draining board, grease on the tiles in the kitchen, mold on the tiles in the bathroom and the T clearly had never heard of the concept of a duster (edit and the oven was a mess). Nothing major, these things happen. The property had been professionally cleaned, all curtains dry cleaned and the carpets were stain free at the start of the tenancy (edit and it was a brand new oven!).

T disputed my claim of around GBP300 for cleaning costs, steam cleaning, dry cleaning etc. I launched small claims court proceedings (I don't do the DPS). I do not live in the UK (I am a far away non resident LL). The T lost. If that T had to pay my flights, accomodation and time costs then they would have had to pay thousands in costs. That would not be very fair on the T as I could simply bully them into submission by threatening ridiculous costs - and likewise a T in your position could bully a LL over costs.

That is the nature of the small claims court. As has been indicated above, some judges may be willing to allow you to appear by telephone - but most wont. It is worth asking!

mlz1413

croydonrent wrote: »

.. I think your saying "it is not anyone's fault that I live abroad now" is not quite correct. It is landlord's fault that he is creating problems and is not returning my money for 2 months, this is quite clear.
You now living abroad and the LL creating problems are NOT connected. But if you think they are then hopefully you can explain it better than this to the judge.

I am not sure why you / your company were not paid when you won your cases.
One company managed to put themselves into liquidation within 5 minutes of telling the baliaffs no directors were on the premises.

The other company have no assets and I found out afterwards we were the 4th court order in as many months, so pointless throwing more money at the situation.

I think the previous landlord was scared sh....less when the judgement was passed in my favour so he paid immediately.
That is the reaction of a basically honest person or someone who can't get into trouble because of their job, and you said previously this LL worked in a government job, so the latter probably applies.

I do worry that you are being an adrenaline junkie wanting that same reaction from this LL, but you know what you want and are prepared to see it through. So best of luck and I'd be interested to know the outcome.

iB1

I can't really help with any of the legalities of the situation but I would suggest two things:

1: Keep it strictly business and don't get personal. It's obviously frustrating, but throwing insults around is unprofessional and paints you in a bad light

2: I don't think you should be posting e-mails verbatim on here with names of landlords, your partner etc. etc. - You don't know who's reading this forum

silvercar

Having checked online this morning, I noticed that you have requested the matter to be put back in to a position of single claim. I have just spoken with The DPS to confirm what I need to do to in relation to this only to be told that they will write to me once you have completed the form and returned it to them, upon receipt of this they allow 14 days for a response. (my comment - his information is a bit outdated - I spoke to DPS as well this morning and they confirmed that they received my notarised and word statutory declaration form. They will send a request for info to the landlord / agent in the next couple of days)

So DPS are admitting that they are still involved in the process and are requesting information in the next couple of days!

N79

croydonrent wrote: »

This way the court can not accuse me of not exporing all the available options before initiating the court proceedings.

Don't worry about that - using DPS arbitration is completely optional and no court will hold it against you if you decide not to use it. A court will, of course, have expected you to negotiate with a LL first but clearly you have a long papertrail for that!

kimbo16

I just read your post whilst looking for help myself and feel I have to let you know that we just won our case but did NOT get reimbursed our court costs???? don't ask me why, we can't work it out and has made the whole process hardly worth bothering with!

I hope you have better luck.