Attachment of Earnings, Is it worth it ?

JandyA

Hey Everyone...

To cut a long story short, I won my case against my ex landlord last year as he spent my deposit and didn't place it into a DPS scheme, then refused to give me it back when I moved out...

Anyway, I was awarded the full amount of £1675 (£1575 is the deposit, £100 costs), this was awarded to me in August 2016..... from here, I instructed a High Court Enforcement company to get the debt back as the landlord was not backing down. It was a mistake to use the enforcement agents as my landlord lives in the middle of central London and has no car so it was futile and he just ignored them. I suppose I just wanted a quick fix and had watched too much 'Can't Pay , We'll take it away'....

After the above failure, the enforcement company gave me advice and told me that an AOE (Attachment of Earnings) would be useless as the debtor could offer to pay back a minimal amount each month and just fabricate his earnings and costs...

So I decided to give up on the idea and put it down to experience (bitter pill to swallow!)

So...I'm just over a year down the line, and of course the amount is still outstanding. I'm rethinking things now and considering pursuing the AOE order?

The debtor is a producer for a television company and I assume earns a decent amount (due to the lifestyle he leads)

The only issue is , I don't have his contact number anymore and I know he has moved to a new address...which he hasn't updated the court with.

I know where he works though....

Basically I am asking finally, if i should try this route or just give up and put it down to a dreadful experience ?

Thanks

pimento

I'd want to ruin his credit even if it ended up costing me more but I can be a bit like that.

JandyA

I feel the same !

It will cost me £100 for the AOE order and I'm working out wether its worth the spend !

Comms69

What about a charge on the property itself?

JandyA

Sadly its a little bit more murky than that...

He was supposedly the owner of the property when I moved in... turns out he had just been letting it himself .... again my mistake for not being overly cautious (my excuse was that he was a friend!)

I have got his employment details etc , but wondered if anyone had any success with obtaining any payback from one of these?

Pixie5740

Why did you only sue him for the return of the deposit and not the penalty (1-3 times the value of the deposit) as well? You probably still have time.

JandyA

Oh I didn't realise this was an option ?! !

Hoogle

Go back to the Courts inform them that he has not paid 1 year later and that you would now like to triple the claim for damages and his attitude to the debt, issue a ccj which he will have 4 weeks to pay or it is on his credit file for 6 years.

G_M

you have 7 years to claim the penalty for non-protection.

Read:

* Deposits: payment, protection and return

Does he own a property anywhere? Can you find out?

Prsonaly I'd go for attatchment of earnings and/or a Charge.

losgiganteskid

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Why did you only sue him for the return of the deposit and not the penalty (1-3 times the value of the deposit) as well? You probably still have time.

If the OP is having great difficulty trying to recover the amount of £1675 what hope has she of trying to recover 3x that amount ?

Furthermore by definition a "landlord" is the owner of a property or land which is rented. Clearly the "landlord" was not a landlord in this case as he didn't own the property but merely sub letting it so I guess the x3 deposit reclaim together with the failure to protect the deposit did not apply in this scenario

Pixie5740

losgiganteskid wrote: »

If the OP is having great difficulty trying to recover the amount of £1675 what hope has she of trying to recover 3x that amount ?

I was enquiring as to why the OP had not chosen this route. In any case the tenant can't lose when suing the landlord for non-protection so where's the harm in the OP trying. If the OP does go for an attachment of earnings (s)he may as well go for the maximum possible.

losgiganteskid wrote: »

Furthermore by definition a "landlord" is the owner of a property or land which is rented. Clearly the "landlord" was not a landlord in this case as he didn't own the property but merely sub letting it so I guess the x3 deposit reclaim together with the failure to protect the deposit did not apply in this scenario

Don't know where you got your definition from but it's wrong.