MCOL when defendant changed address

anigys

Hello,
I had a disagreement regarding the return of my lodgement (not tenancy, so it wasn't protected) deposit from the landlord and I started a money claims online case for the return of the deposit.

However, despite the LL living in the same house as me for the whole year I was there, when I told him that I'm going to send him to court, he told me that he doesn't live at his current address and that he moves abroad (outside of EU) soon. He refused to give me his temporary address (the one that he'll use until he would leave UK), but gave me his future, abroad address instead and asked the documents to be send there.

As the rules for serving documents outside of juridiction seem really complicated, and I would need to pay an extra L100 fee, and he told me he is in the UK, so in practice I doubted I could use his future address, as CPR states that one can serve documents out of jurisdiction only when the party is, well, outside of jurisdiction, I decided to start the small claims using his previous address, claiming it's his usual place of residence.

After I did that, I realized that the service date would be already after he has left, so I also sent him a copy of the claim form and the response pack to his email, which would be served before he has left (the email has 2 day to serve while MCOL 5). He he was foolish enough to answer the email stating that he's not going to respond to it, as the address is not correct.

Now, the deadline for replying to the claim passed and I'd like to ask for the default judgement. However, when I do it on the MCOL page, I need to confirm that I believe that the address MCOL has is his correct address, which I can't truthfully do. I tried contacting MCOL (and some legal advisors as well), but they weren't helpful -- they told me to confirm that the previous address is correct.

As I understand, I can write an application to the court to allow for the email service post-factum, but I'm afraid that the court will think that it wasn't necessary (especially that the claim form and further documents will be send to his email anyway) and won't allow to add the cost of the application to the proceedings' costs.

Also, it won't solve the problem that I'll still not be able to receive the judgment in the case without confirming his address, but at least then I can claim that he didn't provide me a new address according to CPR6.23.

1. Was I actually in the right in the first place and was I allowed to issue the claim on his previous address, or should I use his 'outside of jurisdiction address', even though he was in the UK?
2. What would you do in my place?

Thank you for any help! Sorry if this is not a correct subforum.

steampowered

Refer to https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part06#6.9, paragraph 6.9.

An individual should be served at their usual or last known residence.

Are you saying that you believed the individual to be living at the address when you issued the claim, even though they might have moved later? If so I'd think that is perfectly good service.

Also, as you have brought the claim to the LL's attention he/she can't claim that he/she didn't know about the case, so it would be difficult for the LL to get the CCJ set aside later if he/she chooses not to respond.

Going down the application route has a cost to it - the cost of making a general application is £255.

Personally I would just proceed to get the default CCJ. If the LL wants to contest the default CCJ - let the LL explain to the court why the LL didn't respond and let the LL pay the £255 application fee.

Enforcing a CCJ overseas is of course another matter unless the LL has assets in the UK which you can enforce against.