Issuing a CCJ for unpaid rent.

paul123

Hi
My tenant is now over 2 months in arrears in rent for her short term assured tenancy. She is refusing to answer my calls. I have sent her a letter of claim stating that she has 30 days to respond. What is the procedure now if I want to issue a ccj ? Is there a sticky post somewhere ?
Thanks.

Mutton_Geoff

paul123 wrote: »

Hi
My tenant is now over 2 months in arrears in rent for her short term assured tenancy. She is refusing to answer my calls. I have sent her a letter of claim stating that she has 30 days to respond. What is the procedure now if I want to issue a ccj ? Is there a sticky post somewhere ?
Thanks.

You don’t issue a CCJ, a court does. And only after procedure. And you’re not able to issue proceedings until you follow procedure (see sticky posts at top of tgis forum).

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

eddddy

You can make a court claim against the tenant, and the court might make a ccj against the tenant.

But then what? How will you enforce that ccj and get your money?

For example, if the tenant isn't paying rent because they have no money, they'll still have no money after the ccj - so things won't have changed.

But if they have the money, and are refusing to pay for no good reason, the court route might persuade them to pay.

tom9980

paul123 wrote: »

Hi
My tenant is now over 2 months in arrears in rent for her short term assured tenancy. She is refusing to answer my calls. I have sent her a letter of claim stating that she has 30 days to respond. What is the procedure now if I want to issue a ccj ? Is there a sticky post somewhere ?
Thanks.

you should be evicting them section 8 ASAP and get them gone.

Cakeguts

If all landlords got a CCJ against non paying tenants it would help other landlord when the financial checks on tenants are made. So even if you don't get any money back it is still worth doing. You then hope that another landlord has done this so that you don't get a non paying tenant.

tacpot12

You are following an extremely unusual process in starting a claim for money and not looking to evict the tenant. What will you do in future; issue a court claim every two months to get your rent? Can they pay if the court passes judgement against them? You will get a CCJ, but no money.

What you need to do is issue a Section 8 notice seeking possession of the property and your rent. If you have followed all the rules, you may also want to issue a Section 21 notice (you will not get your rent via this process but will get possession). There are strict rules about how these notices can be serviced. You need professional legal advice urgently to issue the notices correctly, and to complete the court forms, and to avoid a fine of three times the deposit for not protecting the deposit in the correct way. If you have commercial legal cover as part of a Landlords Insurance Policy you should be able to get the legal advice via your insurance policy for just the cost of the excess.

Ask a local letting agent for a recommendation of a solicitor to use if you are not using a Letting Agent. If you are using a Letting Agent, the agent should know how to issue the S8 (and S21 correctly)

The Section 8 court forms can be completed online using the Possession Claims Online (PCOL) service if you are the only owner of the property. If you are a joint owner, you and the other owners will need to complete the paper forms (N5 and N119). Your solicitor will do this for you if pay them to do so. If you've never filled them in before, paying the solicitor to complete them will be the best option.

G_M

Either
* claim the rent via the courts (which you may or may not receive if/when you win the case), and then wait for the next lot of arrears to build up and start again
or
* evict the tenant via a S8 Notice followed by court, along with the claim for the arrears. Then find a better tenant.


Have you sent the tenant a full rent account?

martindow

tacpot12 wrote: »

You are following an extremely unusual process in starting a claim for money and not looking to evict the tenant. What will you do in future; issue a court claim every two months to get your rent? Can they pay if the court passes judgement against them? You will get a CCJ, but no money.

What you need to do is issue a Section 8 notice seeking possession of the property and your rent. If you have followed all the rules, you may also want to issue a Section 21 notice (you will not get your rent via this process but will get possession). There are strict rules about how these notices can be serviced. You need professional legal advice urgently to issue the notices correctly, and to complete the court forms, and to avoid a fine of three times the deposit for not protecting the deposit in the correct way. If you have commercial legal cover as part of a Landlords Insurance Policy you should be able to get the legal advice via your insurance policy for just the cost of the excess.

Ask a local letting agent for a recommendation of a solicitor to use if you are not using a Letting Agent. If you are using a Letting Agent, the agent should know how to issue the S8 (and S21 correctly)

The Section 8 court forms can be completed online using the Possession Claims Online (PCOL) service if you are the only owner of the property. If you are a joint owner, you and the other owners will need to complete the paper forms (N5 and N119). Your solicitor will do this for you if pay them to do so. If you've never filled them in before, paying the solicitor to complete them will be the best option.

It would be good to think that solicitors or agents would get this right, but there have been quite a few threads here where they have have not. Agents in particular who are not required to have any qualifications frequently seem to make errors.


I think a lot of people here prefer to DIY after making sure they have fully read up on the procedure and requirements. It is valuable to do this even if you get someone else to do the work so that you can have confidence in what they are doing.

NutWorld

paul123 wrote: »

Hi
My tenant is now over 2 months in arrears in rent for her short term assured tenancy. She is refusing to answer my calls. I have sent her a letter of claim stating that she has 30 days to respond. What is the procedure now if I want to issue a ccj ? Is there a sticky post somewhere ?
Thanks.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

But as others have indicated, you should be looking to evict as well, possibly first (so you will then know the total of what is owed, incuding possibly the cost of damage caused to the property, etc)

If you don't know what you are doing, and with all due respect it sounds like you don't hence your question here, I strongly advise you to seek independent legal advice. Get it wrong and you may suffer a whole load of grief.

NutWorld

martindow wrote: »

It would be good to think that solicitors ... would get this right, but there have been quite a few threads here where they have have not. ...

I know you originally included agents in your post, but as regards solicitors, I certainly hope there have not been many threads, at least genuine ones, where a solicitor has got it wrong

If they have, all solicitors must have a complaints procedure in place, and if that does not get the client satisfaction, then the matter can be escalated to the Legal Ombudsman.

Ultimately the solicitor could themselves be sued professional negligence (where a loss has resulted from that negligence), and there are even others willing to take on such cases on a Conditional Fee Agreement (often referred to as a no win, no fee basis). The solicitor would hold insurance against such claims, so settlement should not be an issue, if proven against them. The solicitor could also find themselves hauled up in front of their regulating authority, and may even be struck off in the most extreme cases.