To be shocked at landlord’s allegations about me

Crack on then OP.

Why shouldn’t I be angry? I teach my children it’s a healthy emotion if you deal with it in the right way.

For me it wouldn't be about landlord V tenant. Or someone 'getting away with it' ...

I'd rather spend my time on things I enjoy - rather than focusing on 'wanting a legal judgement against her'.

@2ndbestslayer she has nothing in writing from you to say or for her to believe you would do that . Her only reason is to try make you look bad instead of herself. I think she sounds crazy and I’d think any judge would tell her she can’t dream and it be real or use it for a defence in court .

I think you need to stick to the facts and keep emotions out of it.

Ha ha ha yep those’d the bit that drew my eye

What did you expect. Course she's going to defend the action.

All sounds a bit silly really. All the money it's going to cost you. Youdbe better using it as a deposit on a house then you won't have to put up with crap landlords again

It sounds like you'll be fine.

The court will likely think "is it proportional to get stressed because your former tenant has your address, which they are legally entitled to?" and "is it not rather convenient that having got sued she's counter-claiming the same thing?" and "on what basis did she fear arson, or does it sound like she is not being honest, in which case what else is she lying about in her defence?"

Keep to facts. If course she will give her feelings on this. Don't take it personally. Get a solicitor to represent you but you are unlikely get anything for stress. There always two sides to a story and it's the judge who will.listen to both and not get emotionally involved.

I strongly suggest to you that you strenuously avoid giving the judge the impression that you are on a personal crusade to hold landlords to account. You have hinted at the crusading aspect of your suit here and explicitly stated it earlier in the thread.

Bear in mind the possibility that your judge or adjudicator could very well be a landlord him or herself.

You need to let the stress / nightmare stuff wash over you and stick firmly to the landlord's failure to uphold her end of the contract and the concrete and material consequences to you of that.

List the failures. Provide concrete evidence.
List the consequences and provide concrete evidence - endangering health or recovery, preventing you from WFH, causing your children distress (include the autism diagnosis and any evidence that disruption had a major effect on them - a statement that they had nightmares isn't evidence). Include documentation on how you WFH and also supervise children who are not in school, or have it ready if questioned.

I can understand why you are upset, but everything that she is saying is totally irrelevant and won’t even be taken into account in a court of law. Just ignore it.

OP ignore the posters on here giving you shit. You moved into a house that needed extensive repairs without being told, and were forced to live on a building site for 6 months. Then evicted when you complained. I’d love to see some of these posters putting up with that. But they expect you to, don’t they!

This is exactly why the law is changing and reading some of the responses to you on here confirms why it’s necessary. You are not a “nightmare tenant”, your landlady is a bell end and I hope you win.

Renting is the pitts but don't waste time if it will be pointless, even so called water tight cases spring a leak a lot of the time

I'd be happy with that response, OP. It paints the Landlord in a very bad light (making over-the-top, "colourful" claims of the stress she's experiencing because she was asked to comply with the Tenancy Act and give her address...).

It reflects very poorly on her.

Quite. You both sound a bit silly. A defence is there to put across their point of view. You can hardly be upset someone has said they’re stressed when you’re saying the same thing!!

YABU for not giving the reasons you’re suing her in your OP. She sounds unhinged though. What a ridiculous thing to say. She’s been an appalling landlord and you are attempting to hold her to account. Implying you’ve made threats against her when you haven’t is a nasty tactic and a judge really should see through it. Good luck with your lawsuit, I sincerely hope you win.

It conveys she's having nightmares.

OP sorry you went through that experience, whether or not your landlord broke the law it sounds awful. Try to ignore those who are trying to pick holes, as pp have said they are probably landlords themselves getting triggered by reference to a renter daring to try and enforce their rights. You have had some free legal advice so presumably a trained professional considered you had at least an arguable claim and it’s your right to pursue that claim in the courts even if you ultimately lose (not suggesting you will but the point is, you have a right to your day in court as it were). That is what the court system is there for.

To answer your actual questions, you’re not unreasonable to be shocked as many people would feel upset at the suggestion someone was having nightmares about them as described.

Please don’t worry about it as part of her defence though. She is not even accusing you of causing stress by your behaviour, she is saying the stress is caused by you having her address i.e. there is no allegation being made against you (unless she has framed it as a counterclaim but for what? She can’t sue you for suing her). The court will decide the case based on the evidence of what happened at the time. The impact on her of the litigation is completely irrelevant.

The best thing you can do is to not rise to it and just come across as extremely calm and level headed in all your correspondence with the court and with her. Good luck.

I’m glad I’m not a tenant 🙄

God, there are clearly a lot of crappy landlords on here leaping to the defence of someone who rented out a substandard property!

OP, putting that in the defence is ridiculous and will be seen as such by the court. She’s clearly implying that there is a threat of violence towards her to get sympathy for her defence - the court will have seen it all before, so don’t give it any thought.

In my younger days I lived in some appallingly maintained rental properties because the landlords were too tight to deal with things until they became emergencies. I really hope you win your case 🍀

I am glad I am not a landlord!

Also your GP and any services you might use

As an extra support for your court case, I would try and get a charity that supports children with autism and mental health issues to write a supporting letter stating the adverse effects all this constant building work and unfamiliar workmen in the house, over a long period has had on them. It clearly sounds like she tellingly let the property out when it wasn’t in a rentable condition.
The courts will only be interested in facts, not someone having nightmares. Best of luck, sounds horrendous

She's allowed to defend herself against your allegations, do you expect her to roll over and accept what you say?

That isn't OP's question. She wants to know how the landlord's words will make her, OP, look in court. Will they believe that she made such a threat? I'm not sure anyone in a position of judgement would take someone's dreams into account but if the landlord ramps it up to saying that OP actually used those words, that's a whole different thing. OP knows it's a lie but others don't.