Urgent advice needed

timberflake

Ok, a bit of background first.

I rented an apartment in the city where I live from April 2007 until June 2010.

The was a central courtyard that which you could cross by way of a gantree on the floor we were on. However, a few months after I moved in the doors to this gantree were locked for "Health & Safety" reasons.

Anyway, my landlady and I did not part on good terms (long story), and I have today received an email telling me that she's suing the management company of the building and and her solicitor wants to call me as a witness.

My first question is, am I legally obliged to comply or can I tell her to go whistle? I moved out 9 months ago so really don't know why its my problem!

She's talking about giving her solicitor my work details so they can contact me for a statement, but I really don't want to do this after the way she screwed me over.

So basically my questions is, do I have to do anything she asks or can I tell her where to go?

I was thinking about charging her a fee of £100 for my services haha

Would appreciate some help on this matter.

muskoka

I'm no legal expert and hopefully someone will be along shortly to help you.

However, I'd be very surprised if the landlady could make you be a witness. I would have thought the only way to make you attend court would be to issue a summons, and I'd doubt these circumstances warrant that

As I say, above is no more than my personal opinion

BitterAndTwisted

If you don't want to help your ex-landlady tell her you're not interested in getting involved.

climbgirl

I believe the police can make you be a witness in a criminal case (a friend of mine witnessed something and didn't want to be involved but had no choice!) but I doubt that applies in civil cases.

RAS

Ever heard of a hostile witness?

shortchanged_2

Well you could turn it on it's head and say how she used to disconnect your water supply or cut off your gas supply or something like that.





Only joking by the way.

chewmylegoff

climbgirl wrote: »

I believe the police can make you be a witness in a criminal case (a friend of mine witnessed something and didn't want to be involved but had no choice!) but I doubt that applies in civil cases.

the police cannot make you be a witness in a criminal case - the court (i.e. the judge), however, can summons you to attend (if it receives an application for the same from one of the parties).

the same applies in a civil case - you can receive a witness summons which you have to attend. you could be found to be in contempt of court if you ignore a witness summons (including in a civil case). contempt of court is punishable by imprisonment or by a fine, depends on the court that is hearing the case.

however, you don't have to cooperate with your ex-LL or her solicitor in any way. you can ignore all attempts at communication. if they then take the case to court, they can ask the court to issue a witness summons to call you. if the court issued a witness summons (which it probably would) you would then have to attend.

the chances of them wanting to call you if they don't know what you will say first are pretty slim, as you may turn up to court and give evidence which damages their case.

i would just say that you don't want to assist. if you are contacted at work by the solicitor, politely request that he/she does not contact you again, and in particular does not contact you at work again. then ignore future attempts at communication (unless from the court, of course!). you could make it clear that you will not attend court voluntarily, but i would say just blanking them is better.