Estate Agent is taking me to court while court administrative errors in his favour

OliverStone

thequant wrote: »

The immediate problem here is not the dispute but the process which could end up in a default judgement against the OP.


OP, can you give us a timeline of your correspondence from the court ?


e.g. when you get the claim form ? have you acknowledged service yet ? how have you been communicating with them ? etc etc

I received the claim form on 07 May 2014 and made the second complaint to the court service for administrative errors on 15 May 2014 (the first complaint for administrative errors was on 28 April 2014). I sent back the defence form a week ago. I will be in the north of England from tomorrow (I live in London).

G_M

1) it appears you have rent arrears - you do not say how much, but if S8 ground 8 was used and you owe 2+ months rent, you will be evicted.

2) since you have already had documents go missing to the court, relying on email is just plain mad. Send by post recorded delivery.

3) Since you are away, contact the court and ask for a porstponement. Do this by phone and follow up in writing. If they agree on the phone, note the date/time and name of who you are speaking to.

dancingfairy

Did the first claim against the administration relate to this case?
Has there been a previous case against the landlord?
I'm concerned about what steps you took before you did the work yourself and took the money out of the rent.
You haven't answered whether you followed the shelter process or what process you did follow.
I'm not convinced that relying on complaining about administrative errors (which you are obviously entitled to do) is necessarily going to help. The main underlying problem appears to be the rent arrears. I suggest you take advice as to whether you have handled the process correctly. If you have then great, if not then you may need to pay off the rent arrears and find a different way to recoup the money spent on repairs (ie small claims court).
If you provide more info on the background people may be able to help further.
df

OliverStone

G_M wrote: »

1) it appears you have rent arrears - you do not say how much, but if S8 ground 8 was used and you owe 2+ months rent, you will be evicted.

2) since you have already had documents go missing to the court, relying on email is just plain mad. Send by post recorded delivery.

3) Since you are away, contact the court and ask for a porstponement. Do this by phone and follow up in writing. If they agree on the phone, note the date/time and name of who you are speaking to.

1) The money I used for repairs is over 2 months rent. At the first step I tried to recover my expense by contacting the estate agent without success, I then made a small claim which process seems slow and pending.

2) My first complaint for administrative errors were only by email but the second one was by special delivery : the court service is claiming to not have any trace of my first complaint (sent by email) and other documents.

3) I tried this without success.

thequant

OliverStone wrote: »

I received the claim form on 07 May 2014 and made the second complaint to the court service for administrative errors on 15 May 2014 (the first complaint for administrative errors was on 28 April 2014). I sent back the defence form a week ago. I will be in the north of England from tomorrow (I live in London).

If you have acknowledged service, sent in defence but have yet to be sent the allocation questionnaire you shouldn't be sending in documents unless you have a court order doing so.


No point making complaints about the court system at this stage, you need to be focussing on winning your case.


At the beginning of the claim and towards the end of a claim, there are some strict deadlines you cannot miss. however in between (where you are now) things are not so strict.


I have had an allocation questionnaire go missing in the past, courtesy of the court staff, so I know they are not perfect. However the situation was easily resolved.


Also do not rely on email for servicing of any documents, the effectiveness of email for servicing documents is hazy and ultimately will come down to the judge on the day as to wether it's acceptable of not.


Do everything in writing and use email as the back up.

martindow

Another vote for phoning the court. They obviously can't advise on the validity of your case or give legal advice but they are usually very helpful on matters of process and what you should do. Then follow up with a letter to confirm whatever you have been told as already suggested. I would use Special Delivery rather than Recorded for sending anything important. SD is fully tracked guaranteed next working day and very reliable - Recorded goes with the rest of the post and often does nor get a signature or update on the web site.

How much is the disputed amount? If you pay it down to less than two months rent an S8 will fail, so you can avoid eviction now but it is almost certain you'll be served with an S21 to leave at the end of the fixed term.

It doesn't seem that you used the correct procedure to do these repairs so long term you are going to be pursued for the shortfall.

G_M

OliverStone wrote: »

1) At the first step I tried to recover my expense by contacting the estate agent without success, I then made a small claim which process seems slow and pending.

So you arranged, and paid for, the repairs without having followed the process. Yes?

Then you asked the agent for the money? Yes?

Then you went to court. Yes?

Finally you stopped paying rent. Yes?

Conclusion: you have rent arreas. You owe the rent. You can pay it, or be evicted.

jjlandlord

They say you owe them rent, you say they owe you money for the repairs.
So what you should do regarding the possession proceedings is counter claim for the money you think they owe you: If the court agrees with you it will remove any arrears and the possession proceedings will fail.
You'd likely receive a s.21 notice afterwards, but that's another story.

The errors are based on documents I sent and that the court service states they have never received.

Not receiving documents is not an administrative error.