Cost of damage exceeds desposit

ILW

Does the tenant have any money?

may_fair

Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) 27.1

...the small claims track will be the normal track for –

• any claim which has a financial value of not more than £5,000 subject to the special provisions about claims for personal injuries and housing disrepair claims;
• any claim for personal injuries which has a financial value of not more than £5,000 where the claim for damages for personal injuries is not more than £1,000; and
• any claim which includes a claim by a tenant of residential premises against his landlord for repairs or other work to the premises where the estimated cost of the repairs or other work is not more than £1,000 and the financial value of any other claim for damages is not more than £1,000)

BlueBlond

Oh, that's such good news! Thank you, Benji and May_fair.

Meatballs

BlueBlond wrote: »

We certainly won't be using the same letting agent again. They lost us £300 just by not putting what we asked to be put into the claim before the 10 day negotiation prior to it being referred to the Dispute Resolution Service. They also failed to tell us that one tenant had moved out and been replaced by someone we'd never heard of!

Do you even have a contract/agreement with the new tenant? Can you prove the state of the property when the new tenant moved in? Hard to prove they caused any damage, and successfully pursue them otherwise ?

sequence

As above, do you have proof of the state of the property before and after the tenant you didn't even know lived there moved in ? What proof do you have?

It seems unlikely that you will have this, if you weren't aware of a new tenant, which would make going to court pointless.

BlueBlond

We aren't planning to take the new tenant to court, he wasn't really a tenant, either a guest or being sub-let to, we don't know. It was a breach of our tenancy agreement if it was sub-letting, though.

Basically, our legal tenants are married, they split up from each other, he left and she then moved in the new bloke. The tenancy agreement was unchanged, and we knew nothing about this, so the original tenants are still liable. The one that left is in breach of not giving a forwarding address and not occupying the property as his principle residence. He has been a bit of an idiot basically because he should have given notice to quit so that we could issue his wife a new agreement (or otherwise!) and he wouldn't have been liable from that point.

Both legal tenants have full-time professional careers, I think they have the money.

Poppy9

BlueBlond wrote: »

Basically, our legal tenants are married, they split up from each other, he left and she then moved in the new bloke. The tenancy agreement was unchanged, and we knew nothing about this, so the original tenants are still liable. The one that left is in breach of not giving a forwarding address and not occupying the property as his principle residence. He has been a bit of an idiot basically because he should have given notice to quit so that we could issue his wife a new agreement (or otherwise!) and he wouldn't have been liable from that point.

.

Have a bit of compassion for the man. He split up with his wife, she moved in another fella immediately! I think his mind was elsewhere!

may_fair

BlueBlond wrote: »

If we go through the dispute resolution process and aren't happy with the outcome can we go to court after that and claim for the full amount (not just the deposit amount)?

If you use the scheme's dispute resolution service and lose, you *can* still claim against the T for whatever losses you wish; you *don't* have to accept their decision (although they will of course distribute the deposit according to their decision).

For example, if you claim the full amount of the deposit (£2,000?) and ADR awards you £1,000, so that you're still £2,000 out of pocket, you can bring a county court claim against T for £2,000.

As your losses exceed the deposit, you may as well claim the whole £3,000 in the county court. You're also more likely to get a fair result in court; anecdotal evidence suggests that ADR tends to favour the tenant's side.

BlueBlond

Thank you, may_fair, that's what I was wondering but if we can take the whole lot to court that makes more sense. We probably won't win it all (lack of evidence) but at least we'll know we did what we could.

Poppy, I do have compassion, sorry if it didn't come over that way. I think he was a bit of an idiot but most of us are capable of being a bit of an idiot at times, I know I've been. I've honestly said a lot worse about his wife!

He is going to get such a horrible shock when we find him (hopefully tomorrow) and he finds out he missed the 10 working days of negotiation. In a way, court might be fairer because there's another chance to negotiate, but either way he's going to be left defending a case with very little evidence or first-hand facts. Not something I'd wish on anyone.

Benji

BlueBlond wrote: »

but either way he's going to be left defending a case with very little evidence or first-hand facts. Not something I'd wish on anyone.

If you are claiming for damages, the tenant has nothing to prove - the onus of proof is entirely on you.