Unpaid rent

jayship

A family member has rented out individual rooms in a flat and the tenant has not paid rent for several months. A Section 8 notice has been served as required. However he has failed to move out and is making excuses.The landlord has been generous despite not having received rent for over 4 months as the tenant lost his job.

Unfortunately this has not worked and now wants to seek possession using The Sheriffs Office to speed up the process rather than the county court. The tenant was on AST which has expired. The deposit has been protected as required by law. He wants to know if this is possible.

Online county court judgement was issued for the outstanding rent and the tenant has accepted liability. It is unlikely that outstanding debt will be ever paid. He only wants the property back so he can re-let asap.


Thoughts and advice from forum members will be appreciated.

thesaint

Where is the property? Scotland?

Guest101

I think the OP means escalating to the high court for enforcement.


Which is completely unnecessary in this case.

Guest101

jayship wrote: »

A family member has rented out individual rooms in a flat and the tenant has not paid rent for several months. A Section 8 notice has been served as required. However he has failed to move out and is making excuses. - So the LL goes to court. The landlord has been generous despite not having received rent for over 4 months as the tenant lost his job. - Generous how?

Unfortunately this has not worked and now wants to seek possession using The Sheriffs Office - He still needs to go to the county court first! to speed up the process rather than the county court. - When you apply, you ask for the order to be escalated to the high court. <need a reason> The tenant was on AST which has expired. The deposit has been protected as required by law. He wants to know if this is possible.

Online county court judgement was issued for the outstanding rent and the tenant has accepted liability. It is unlikely that outstanding debt will be ever paid. He only wants the property back so he can re-let asap. - Why did he go to court for the unpaid rent, but not the possession order?


Thoughts and advice from forum members will be appreciated.

Your post is confusing, please clarify as above.

Pixie5740

The AST (which hasn't expired, there is still a valid tenancy in place despite the section 8 notice and the arrears) can only be ended by a court or the tenant. In this case it sounds unlikely the tenant will end the tenancy. So the landlord will need to go to court to get an eviction notice granted. Then the landlord will have the option of getting the county court bailiffs to physically remove the tenant from the property or the landlord can have the warrant transferred to the High Court and a High Court Enforcement Officer (I think this is who you mean when you say sheriff) can physically evict the tenant. The latter is quicker but more expensive so the landlord would have to decide whether it's worth paying the extra money for the HCEO compared with the loss of rent he/she is not currently receiving.

thesaint

If the landlord has a judgement for the debt, wouldn't that rule out getting possession via a Sec 8? He can't be owed the money twice.

G_M

The tenant was on AST which has expired.

Assuming this means the fixed term has expired and the AST is now periodic, serve an immediate S21 Notice (2 months) as a back-up just in case.

Dird

Guest101 wrote: »

I think the OP means escalating to the high court for enforcement.
Which is completely unnecessary in this case.

Why is it unnecessary? Pretty sure some did it on "Can't pay we'll take it away" reasoning that it was quicker than the alternative or left a mark against the person for future LLs to find...although more expensive

Guest101

Dird wrote: »

Why is it unnecessary? Pretty sure some did it on "Can't pay we'll take it away" reasoning that it was quicker than the alternative or left a mark against the person for future LLs to find...although more expensive

It might be quicker but it's more expensive and as it's just a room, rather than the whole property - do you really want to alienate the rest of the tenants?


There is no mark left against the tenant from the high court, there might be if they fail to pay the judgment for rent - but that's regardless if it's escalated or not.

jayship

Thank you to all those who have responded.

The property is in Nottingham. The landlord wants repossession asap rather than the outstanding rent which he is unlikely to get as the person is unemployed.

He issued a court judgement for the rent hoping that the tenant will move out rather than wait for court proceeding. This has not happened and probably tenant knows that he can continue to live rent free until the court grants possession. The AST has expired and the renewal would not have happened due to unpaid rent.

I understand that county court judgement is around £280. He has downloaded The Sheriffs Office form and they are asking for a payment of £60 only but he believes is quicker.

Dird

If I learned one thing from Robin Hood it's that you can't trust the Sheriff of Nottingham