Landlord taking deposit dispute to County Court

spacey2012

The rights to claim for others is knows as the "right of audience"
If a contract is in place they can act on behalf as a client only in a legal way.
The problem is defendants must challenge the right of audience and most tend to sit and nod like sheep staring at the wolf.
If challenged the judge can allow an absolute minimum representation of a company solicitor, this is rare and most will demand a barrister is produced.
The defendant retains the right to demand the claimant in benefit (landlord in this case) is produced to bear testament to any contract signature .
Often as landlords have no knowledge the letting firm is trying it on to make a few quid for itself , a request to attend court for questioning can see a case withdrawn very quickly.

The county court subsystem is known as the bare pit as it does have a few opportunities to drag everyone in to the ring and why not, let them all give a day up, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

keyser666

ValHaller wrote: »

The whole point of an embarrassed defence is that you use it if there are not enough details to provide a full defence. LL has not provided enough detail to be able to provide a full defence.

OP is doing the right thing writing to request the detail of the claim - however, OP must not miss the defence deadline waiting for this information if it does not arrive. In which case the embarrassed defence is the one to use.

LL could apply to have an embarrassed defence struck out. Judges don't like procedure being messed with and particularly don't like making rulings which can be appealed. This would probably lead to procedural ruling which might appear to favour the LL. But it would be more a case of giving the LL enough rope to hang himself good and proper in a hearing.

What is particularly evident in this case is that by

• not using the ADR
• not stating a fully formed claim
• giving just 3 days for mediation with the Agent
• going straight to court and still not stating a fully formed claim

the LL is using the court to intimidate OP into coughing up to provide new carpets on the fear of getting a CCJ and messing up his creditworthiness. This claim is not expected by the LL to go as far as court. However OP should not worry too much about the consequences of a CCJ - if it comes to that - and OP is not likely to lose given how vague the current claim is, there will be something like a month to pay before it can be placed on the credit record.

What I think is more likely is that the LL and Agent will become increasingly conciliatory as a hearing approaches if the person who signed the court papers as a solicitor is not actually a solicitor. It may well be worth checking with the Law Society - I am not sure of the process. They may take it to a real solicitor - whom I suspect would not be minded to take forward a court claim signed by a non solicitor in the capacity of solicitor and would in any case have to attempt to recover from failure to state a fully formed claim

OP, please go back to your most recent post and take out the names of the companies involved.

Thanks Van, makes more sense now you have put it that way

mart.vader

One View on the Rights of Audience

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/in-practice/benchmarks/right-audience

martindow

MagnumBI wrote: »

The claimant on the Court Claim form is again, the name of another employee of the Estate Agents, with the address of the Estate Agents given as his address. He has however marked himself as "Claimants Solicitor" rather than "Claimant" at the foot of the form.

You can check if he really is a solicitor by searching for his name here

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/find-a-solicitor/?view=solsearch

spacey2012

mart.vader wrote: »

One View on the Rights of Audience

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/in-practice/benchmarks/right-audience

I did point this out on the parking board that most parking claims are brought by agents outside rights of audience, but it went in one ear and out of the other with them.
Why argue if you can have the case slung straight out prior to sitting.

MagnumBI

martindow wrote: »

You can check if he really is a solicitor by searching for his name here

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/find-a-solicitor/?view=solsearch

Interesting, he does not appear to be in that list.

I received a response to my part 18 request today. The £1122.60 is made up as follows.

ITEM 1: 3 x Carpet Cleaning @ £30 per carpet totaling £90. They have apparently agreed after cleaning these carpets (which I admit, I did not do), they did not need replacing. Possibly the most reasonable I've seen this agency be, I'm quite surprised.

ITEM 2: 1 x Carpet to Lounge Replaced £357.60

ITEM 3: Repaint of whole apartment £375.00

ITEM 4: Supply and fit new freezer compartment door £90

ITEM 5: Repair damaged kitchen unit door £60

ITEM 6: Deep clean to whole property £150

Each item above is marked as invoice available.

So it appears the bulk of the costs are for the replacement of the lounge carpet, repainting and the "deep clean".

The freezer compartment door is for one of those mini freezers inside the refrigerator. I know of 3 other tenants who had theirs replaced while I was there. We had requested this in person near the start of our tenancy when it became loose, however as we had our own fridge/freezer, we didn't use it and didn't chase it up - my negligence.

The damaged kitchen unit door is a door that had entirely come off its hinge below the sink. Again, call it negligence on my part but as it was fine when it was closed and barely used, we never reported this or ever got this fixed.

I know we've all but established their unsigned inventory is useless but worth noting again, of the items above

ITEM 2: The lounge carpet (the one replaced) is present in the inventory but with its condition left blank.

ITEM 3: Of the walls in the property, all have their condition noted except for the kitchen, which is left blank.

Of ITEMS 4 and 5 the freezer and "kitchen units" are included broadly, with their condition marked "good."

I suppose my question is, what now? My thinking was to fire off a request specifically for those invoices.

What do you all think of those amounts and if I were to make a counter offer either as a (low) partial admittance on the court forms or directly to the landlord to appear reasonable, what would you suggest?

BobQ

45002 wrote: »

Yes,I read everything on both forums and I think LL win Will.

IMO

You sound bitter and twisted unless your opinion is based on any unstated reasons.

BobQ

MagnumBI wrote: »

While I'm sure it won't look great that I didn't wish to sit down with them, I think I agree that the agents refusual to use ADR before that, will look equally bad.

There is a lot of difference between refusing to sit down with them in their office and have a discussion and saying that you want it resolved in writing.

Too many people these days want to have deniable conversations to fish for information etc. I think you were right to ask them to debate in writing. To them this is expensive in time but to you it is far more precise and provides both sides with evidence.

Your position should be that you never refused to discuss the matter, but you wanted to do this in a formal setting or in writing since there was already a lack of trust once they refused arbitration.

cte1111

Most of those items look like wear and tear to me. Given how this has been dealt with, I think I would refuse to pay for any of them.

Did you leave the flat generally clean and tidy? If so, then I think you've done your bit. I think I might offer to pay for the carpet cleaning and dispute the rest.

Painting the whole flat and replacing the carpet is surely betterment. Repairs to the freezer door and kitchen unit should have been done by the landlord during the tenancy anyhow, particularly as other tenants have the same repairs done.

anselld

MagnumBI wrote: »

What do you all think of those amounts and if I were to make a counter offer either as a (low) partial admittance on the court forms or directly to the landlord to appear reasonable, what would you suggest?

Even if legitimate, 2 and 3 cannot be allowed in full as this would be betterment (new for old). The deduction must take into account age, condition and expected life of the items being replaced.