Taken to Court for “unauthorized occupation”… but I don’t even live there ?! Help !

Guest101

karakus wrote: »

can you elaborate on this? why is it different for the court ?

To put simply, they arent suing you for a 'debt' - which would be an agreed amount. For example - rent is an agreed amount between two parties. It's a debt. They are not obliged to minimise the loss.

They are suing you for 'damages', which is not an agreed amount. They have to prove to the court that they suffered a loss (and minimised that loss where possible) and are suing you for that loss.

So they must prove that they have suffered as a direct result of you being in the property £2400 worth of damages.

Guest101

karakus wrote: »

yes, of course I won't pay them. Looking for a place or a hostel, if not this weekend, definitely the next.

Walde and Xerxes left at the end of February, surely I can ask the judge to split the arrears up until then? Unfortunately this couple had a massive argument with me and the stepdad, they got kicked out and we don’t know where they are, I didn’t text them as I know they won’t reply. They don’t know about the court case yet.


Also there are 3 defendants in the statement but it doesn’t say who is liable to pay the arrears?

See my latest post.

Nothing to do with arrears.

karakus

Guest101 wrote: »

To put simply, they arent suing you for a 'debt' - which would be an agreed amount. For example - rent is an agreed amount between two parties. It's a debt. They are not obliged to minimise the loss.

They are suing you for 'damages', which is not an agreed amount. They have to prove to the court that they suffered a loss (and minimised that loss where possible) and are suing you for that loss.

So they must prove that they have suffered as a direct result of you being in the property £2400 worth of damages.

Thank you for explaining

karakus

Guest101 wrote: »

See my latest post.

Nothing to do with arrears.

I see but in the statement it says arrears but in the letters in the bundle it says "damages for use and occupation" (in they specify they are in NO WAY to be considered rent)

so what are they??

karakus

karakus wrote: »

I see but in the statement it says arrears of £ 2400 but in the letters in the bundle it says "damages for use and occupation" (in they specify they are in NO WAY to be considered rent)

so what are they??

I just edited to bit above to make it clearer

Guest101

karakus wrote: »

Thank you for explaining

I suspect - given that waiting lists are long in most areas, they probably have suffered a loss.

If they had to house someone in emergency accomodation during this time, that loss would be substantial.

What councils (and other organisations) do is to minimise the loss (or costs), instead of paying someone to calculate the exact amounts, they estimate it on a whole spectrum basis.

Courts allow this as it minimises the loss in the grand scheme (something the claimant is required to do). This is why you were asked to pay £145 pw. This was their estimated loss.

ruggedtoast

karakus wrote: »

yes, of course I won't pay them. Looking for a place or a hostel, if not this weekend, definitely the next.

Walde and Xerxes left at the end of February, surely I can ask the judge to split the arrears up until then? Unfortunately this couple had a massive argument with me and the stepdad, they got kicked out and we don’t know where they are, I didn’t text them as I know they won’t reply. They don’t know about the court case yet.


Also there are 3 defendants in the statement but it doesn’t say who is liable to pay the arrears?

You can ask whatever you like. Liability will be established in the court.

The basis seems to be that you want to claim you didn't know what was going on and were misled by the Lindas'.

You said you would like to offer the Lindas' emails to corroborate this. But if you were able to read their emails then why could you not read the letters the council sent you? I don't think not being a native speaker of English is going to help you there if you are just going to substitute one set of correspondence that you didn't want to hear for one that you did.

I also suspect that you stopped paying rent yourself to anyone in December. It would be better if you were honest about that, at least to the court.

Marktheshark

Guest101 wrote: »

This wont be covered by RIPA.

This is far too small scale.

What fraudulent occupation ? Small Scale ?
Not from the councils point it wont be, they will have made sure this one is sewn right up.

Guest101

Marktheshark wrote: »

What fraudulent occupation ? Small Scale ?
Not from the councils point it wont be, they will have made sure this one is sewn right up.

Consider this.

All councils are cash strapped. The council has cost of £2400 currently. Why eat into this with a full RIPA investigation when its not necessary?

They arent investigating fraud, they simply want property back and compensation for damages.

Marktheshark

The fraud team are employed by the council, they wont have issued a CCJ claim without making sure the case is watertight.
They know he has been living there and they will have evidence, where do you think the CID officers who retire at 50 go work ?
Places like this and they will have made very sure they can prove the case.
The evidence bundle will be a foot thick.