How Can I Have Court Papers Served on my Landlord?

BlueBell2

I want to take my LL to court for none return of our deposit. I am presuming court papers need to be served against him rather than the Letting Agent who managed the apartment for him? But i dont know his address and both the LL and LA have not responded to requests for the address.

Can I have papers served c/o the LA?

The landlord and letting agent are claiming we damaged a ceramic hob (we didnt, i have a video of the condition it was in when we moved in & out), and are refusing to use the alternative dispute resolution service from the Deposit scheme with which my deposit is held. The Letting Agent has made up a number of other false issues one of which being he wanted 'confirmation' of payment of bills and Ctax, which I know is bs excuse. Anyway, now he's happy there are no issues with that he claims the deposit scheme dont allow for only undisputed amounts to be returned, which is also bs. Either the LA is incompetent or is still bs'ing me.

He has said i need to pay him the disputed amount within 7 days or they will take me to court. He's threatened this several times but not carried it out. Anyway, now i want to start the action.

Any advice please? thanks

thequant

BlueBell2 wrote: »

I want to take my LL to court for none return of our deposit. I am presuming court papers need to be served against him rather than the Letting Agent who managed the apartment for him? But i dont know his address and both the LL and LA have not responded to requests for the address.

Can I have papers served c/o the LA?

The landlord and letting agent are claiming we damaged a ceramic hob (we didnt, i have a video of the condition it was in when we moved in & out), and are refusing to use the alternative dispute resolution service from the Deposit scheme with which my deposit is held. The Letting Agent has made up a number of other false issues one of which being he wanted 'confirmation' of payment of bills and Ctax, which I know is bs excuse. Anyway, now he's happy there are no issues with that he claims the deposit scheme dont allow for only undisputed amounts to be returned, which is also bs. Either the LA is incompetent or is still bs'ing me.

He has said i need to pay him the disputed amount within 7 days or they will take me to court. He's threatened this several times but not carried it out. Anyway, now i want to start the action.

Any advice please? thanks

First of all wether you or the LL start any court action, then you must exhaust other avenues of settling the dispute, more so if there is an official scheme in place.


If either party does and then wins, then there is a possibility they will not get their costs awarded.


Any more details as to why the LL is taking you to court, as it's not very clear above. I thought LL had withheld your deposit ?


If they are threatening court action, it might be cheaper and easier to let them move first. I.e. you let them claim first and you then counterclaim.

thequant

Oh regarding services of papers, I believe c/o address is allowed. Although problem is if you win by default, it is not to difficult to wrangle out of the judgement by applying for a set aside on the grounds that they didn't receive the court papers.

da_rule

If you want the landlords address, why not go onto the Land Registry website. You can pay £3 for a copy of the land registry entry for the property, which will include the owners name and address. You could then pop round there (if it's local) just to confirm it is correct.

da_rule

Also, was the agent 'managing' the deposit or was it the landlord?

davidmcn

da_rule wrote: »

If you want the landlords address, why not go onto the Land Registry website. You can pay £3 for a copy of the land registry entry for the property, which will include the owners name and address. You could then pop round there (if it's local) just to confirm it is correct.

Worth a try if you can confirm it's the landlord's current address, but it may well be out of date (in fact it may be the property address!).

I think you should be able to serve on the agent if they refuse to divulge the landlord's address, but I'm not sure of the rules in England & Wales (if that's where we're talking about).

thequant

davidmcn wrote: »

Worth a try if you can confirm it's the landlord's current address, but it may well be out of date (in fact it may be the property address!).

I think you should be able to serve on the agent if they refuse to divulge the landlord's address, but I'm not sure of the rules in England & Wales (if that's where we're talking about).

I don't think serving on the agent would work, it has to be a residential address or business address connected with LL, third parties don't count.


If there's any doubt about whether the LL receives the paperwork, it will be irregular service and a set aside has to be given on mandatory grounds if there is a default judgement.


However CPR, does allow service to be effective if you use a last known address. If you do this, any default judgement should be a bit more watertight, although it is still possible to challenge on discretionary grounds. There's still a high chance of having the judgement set aside, although a judge would be less inclined to give it if the LL was deliberately trying to conceal there address.

BigAunty

Here is some information on finding a landlord's address

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/content/landlords-address

G_M

* What address was on the tenancy agreement "for the serving of notices"? Use that.

* Check the LL's address with the Land Registry here. Use that.

* you can serve on more than one address - better safe than sorry.

* if you paid the deposit via the agent, you can make them a co-defendant in the court action.

BlueBell2

thequant wrote: »

First of all wether you or the LL start any court action, then you must exhaust other avenues of settling the dispute, more so if there is an official scheme in place.


If either party does and then wins, then there is a possibility they will not get their costs awarded.


Any more details as to why the LL is taking you to court, as it's not very clear above. I thought LL had withheld your deposit ?


If they are threatening court action, it might be cheaper and easier to let them move first. I.e. you let them claim first and you then counterclaim.

Thanks for your reply. I read up on my options and rights as a tenant months ago and have taken every opportunity to exhaust all other avenues. Its the LA who is refusing to use ADR not me. I have asked him and the LL on numerous occassions in person, by email & letter but they refuse. I have mentioned to both that courts wont look kindly on the situation if they refuse ADR so either they are stupid or just trying to bs me and drag this out and wear me down.

The main issue is over a ceramic glass hob which had marks on the rings when i moved in. I made a video of the entire flat and clearly highlighted in the video all the things that were wrong including the hob. The LA and LL swing between denial there were any marks before i moved in and accusing us of making them worse. We havent made them worse and have evidence of this.

The LA bought a replacement hob and wants to charge us 75% of the cost. I am not giving them a penny for it as we did not damage it or make it worse.

Because i wont agree to pay for this the LA is refusing to release the undisputed money from the deposit scheme, claiming the scheme does not allow for this, which is rubbish. The LA is either professionaly incompetent or just trying to wind me up.

In order to get some money out of me they have been threatening court action for months but never followed it through. I would be happy if they did do it as it would save me the cost of raising the action and would highlight to court how outrageously they are behaving, trying to bully and intimidate me into paying for something we didnt do.

The other issues are; a broken curtain 'hold back', which I acknowledged I bumped into and broke at the time. I offered to replace it then and asked where i could obtain one. They never replied. As the same style hold backs are no longer available they want to charge me for the replacment of 4 new ones and fitting costs. As i understand it i am only liable for 'like for like' damages, therefore I am only agreeing to pay for 1.

There is also a £50 charge for spot cleaning on moving out (a skirting board, a shower door and abit of lint on the washing machine door). I have refused to pay this as the kitchen was filthy when we moved in, it hadnt been touched, i spent hours cleaning the oven, grill, fridge etc The LA was very well aware of this. So as i feel we left it in better condition than we found it i do not feel we should have to pay this however i will accept an adjudicator or courts decision if they decide otherwise. The LA said he would drop this charge if we paid for the replacement hob.

The tenancy agreement only has the LL address as c/o of the LA's office. Whilst the LL has other rental properties I think he is himself renting at the moment.

da_rule

If it's a care of address then serve it on that.

You need to send a letter before claim first though. I would send one to the LL at the c/o address and one to the Letting Agency, telling them that if they do not tell you the address of the LL you will name them as co-defendants. This might spark some action from them. No one likes being sued.