Ex landlord taking me to court for lost remote control - claiming £8k so far! Any advice? Anyone know about small claims court?

[toddlermom]

Hi all,

I'm super stressed and love if anyone has any advice at all. We moved house 3 years ago and the ex landlord thinks we lost/took/mislaid a remote control during the move. I honestly have no idea what happened to it. Have never seen it since we moved out.

Then they fraudulently kept £4K of our deposit and refused to give it back. My mistake as I didn't get the paperwork into TDS on time. So nothing I can do there.

Then they wanted me to pay £200 for this remote control. Which looking back of course I should have done. But there was no mention of it being lost or missing in the inventory. So I told them to get lost.

Now she has lodged a county small claims court thing and is claiming £8k in legal costs, having to buy a new TV (!) and interest etc

Does anyone know anything about small claims court? What do I do? I don't really want to go as I've got full time job, kids, still breastfeeding baby and I just I haven't got time or energy. Can I just say I don't want to go?

It's really stressing me out though! I'm super law abiding and don't even have parking or speeding fines. It's just really scaring me and her lawyers are super mean and imposing. She's really rich and really entitled retired nasty old woman so she's got time and energy to put into this and I just don't!

Thanks for any advice!

He also says most of the posts above are talking nonsense. He says you need to talk to a solicitor. He says if you had a serious health condition, would you see a doctor or listen to advice on mumsnet?

I should really make him set us his own account to post this sort of thing...

Wow, I hope this lady gets her just deserts and you get some of your money back.

She sounds like the sort that gives landlords a bad name.

I think not going to small claims court is probably the worst thing you can do.

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

You can get the court to order them to pay if they:

do not respond to your claim
admit they owe you but do not pay

If the remote wasn’t mentioned in the inventory as missing then they have no proof it wasn’t there when you left. Just tell them it was there when you checked out. What happened to it after you left isn’t your responsibility.

And definitely look into pursuing the landlord for the deposit. It’s the landlord’s responsibility to return the deposit to you and she has failed to do so.

Respond to the court at the present time with at minimum your intention of responding. In that response you should be able to counter-claim against the landlord. I'm not clear on what you're suggesting by the TDS saying that their decision was final. What exactly did she keep your money for? It is very, very unusual for the schemes to side with the landlord especially to the tune of £4,000 or more.

In any event even if the remote is sat in your hand right now as you read this, she can only claim for a replacement. Even then I'd argue that it is betterment to have new for old. She certainly can't demand a new television set.

If you have legal insurance use it. If not please look at consulting a solicitor to respond on your behalf. Move the case to a court of your convenience (which is your right) and don't not turn up. If you ignore it, then they'll just end up with a default judgement which you don't want.

I really hope you do as @Wincher says and get your money back! We had a landlord try to take our deposit once to the tune of 3k for something as equally ridiculous. Watching her be told she was a complete knob and should be in fact paying us money was very satisfying.

What I meant you may not have to physically travel into court - I took someone once to small
claims court and none of us actually had to go anywhere.

it sounds liike you have put in your written defence document. rather than just acknowledged service. If that is correct you could put in an amended efence and counterclaim and try claiming the deposit back - attach photocopies of every relevant document to that - inventory, print outs of emails etc and keep copies of exactlyw hat you send. Send it to the court and the landlord.

Then she might pull her claim. I doubt her claim is for over £10k excluding legal fees as it is for a TV and remote only and she had a duty to reduce or mitigate her loss eg try to replace the remote second hand rather than buy a whole new TV,.

Sometimes people do not attend the small claims hearing but that often means they lose. I do not recommend not turning up.

if you do not put in an amended defence and counterclaim for the deposit then that will be a separate thing you can deal with later and this case will just be about the missing remote control.

I suspect we do not have the full story here.

I got a solicitor thank you! Feel much better! Thank you for all advice.

And @xenia thank you yes I probably will do a separate claim on her for the kept deposit as soon as I have time. I just am so bad at paperwork and receipts and filling in forms I have left it so long. But now that she is doing this it is inspiring me to do claim against her too.

For the record whoever was asking above, TDS sided with the landlord because I didn't get my paperwork in on time and because some of the paperwork I did sent the attachments were too small so they couldn't read them and they sided with landlord for that reason.

But I will claim back ASAP! I feel more ready for it now after all the advice above. Thank you all

If the tenancy deposit scheme found against you that would probably be used by the landlord in a later case by you for the deposit.

On this current case deadlines and paper work often decide these things so do check carefully dates for various things to be done eg if you do not put in a defence within the time limit you will lose the case. Send everything special delivery to court and the other person and keep copies and do it a few days in advance of every time limit given post delays and in case of last minute problems.