Small claim - CCJ?

yea33

Hi,

I've had my ex-landlord make a small claim against myself and my ex-flatmate as we disputed the amount of desposit they wanted to return to us and they refused to go down the arbitration route.

I'm also currently in the process of buying a house so need for nothing else to appear on my credit report at all in the next couple of weeks (even temporarily) in case the mortgage lender checks my file again before completion.

Am I right in thinking that if we admitted part of the claim, a CCJ would appear on my credit file and would then be taken off if we paid within a month? If this is the case I'm guessing that defending the full amount would be the way to go (even if we admitted some small deposit deductions later on) as nothing would appear until after the hearing? Any help appreciated - I've struggled to find a definitive answer elsewhere.

molerat

Nothing will appear on your file until the judge has awarded the ccj and you fail to pay it within 28 days. Judge will not be happy with LL refusing to use the arbitration process which is there to reduce the number of cases going to court, have you made an offer to the LL ?

yea33

We don't communicate with the LL himself, only someone who works in his office, but they have been unwilling to negotiate from the outset and have said all along they wanted to use small claims (ultimately adding some extra charges on in the process!) - not really sure why they've done this as it's obviously more time-consuming and costly, other than either to scare us or they've been stung in arbitration before.

It won't let me post links as I'm new but there's more detail on the case on a thread called Deposit - Small Claims on the House Buying, Selling and Renting board.

The total of the items we actually agree with comes to less than £100. The other thing is that if we admit to these items, the landlord already holds the deposit (it's protected under MyDeposits which I think is where the LL continues to hold the money) so I assume we wouldn't actually have to pay over any money? The instructions with the forms etc don't seem to really be set up for cases like this where the claimant already has the money.

jo5ephedward5

If the deposit is with 'my deposit' then contact them and they should get involved - they will decide whats fair and return the difference - at least that's what happened when I was in this situation - the scheme is there to protect you.