Small Claims House Move Drama

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Hello all,

When we moved house, our seller left behind a lot of belongings/rubbish in our house, so we've advised the seller through our conveyancing solictor that we are taking him to small claims for the cost of removing the items (we need to do this to recover the costs). There are also a few other small bits we are claiming for that add up, but I will not list them all - please don't advise we take the loss as we cannot afford to and also don't want to!

Our issue now is that we don't have his new address and obviously can't get that through the conveyancing solictor due to GDPR.

The small claims form asks for his last known address, which is now our legal address. I believe he is having his post forwarded to his new address.

What is the best way to go about this?

Thank you

Our issue now is that we don't have his new address and obviously can't get that through the conveyancing solicitor due to GDPR.

Give the solicitors address as "c/o". They will be required to forward correspondence arising from the move to their client.

@ProfessorSlocombe

Our issue now is that we don't have his new address and obviously can't get that through the conveyancing solicitor due to GDPR.

Give the solicitors address as "c/o". They will be required to forward correspondence arising from the move to their client.

Thank you :)

You can't use a c/o address on a claim form because any subsequent judgment wouldnt be valid. You can hire someone to trace them to a new address. Can't your conveyancer advise because surely this will happen occasionally? Really there should be a letter before action sent giving them an opportunity to settle out of court before you go down that route.

You can't use a c/o address on a claim form because any subsequent judgment wouldnt be valid.

This. Have you had legal advice?

You can use their last address even though it is yours. See CPR 6.

I'd get a trace. That way if you get judgment you know where they are to enforce. A judgment on a last known address is fairly useless.

@sittingonacornflake

I'd get a trace. That way if you get judgment you know where they are to enforce. A judgment on a last known address is fairly useless.

The form just asks for the last known address, which is my address :(

@Lineofconcepcion

You can use their last address even though it is yours. See CPR 6.

What is CPR 6, sorry?

@EggscellentEggplant

You can't use a c/o address on a claim form because any subsequent judgment wouldnt be valid. You can hire someone to trace them to a new address. Can't your conveyancer advise because surely this will happen occasionally? Really there should be a letter before action sent giving them an opportunity to settle out of court before you go down that route.

The seller has had a letter before action sent via the conveyancing solictor, which we wrote ourselves, which he received and he still believes he shouldn't pay :(

before taking any court action you need to assess whether the costs of the court action while outweigh what you might get back.You won.t be able to enforce the judgement without his address,which will mean a trace, fees for serving etc.He knows about it he has refused to pay.If someone digs there heels in it takes a lot of time and money to get aywhere with court action

I feel for you, its really tough. CPR is civil procedure rules, you can look them up online. Basically even if you use a c/o address or an old address if you get a judgment you aren't going to get anything out of it unless you have the correct address. I'd say try to find out how much a trace will cost, the court issue fee and potentially hearing fee, you may even have to end up paying enforcement fees if they don't pay after judgment (i.e a court bailiff is £110) and make a decision from there.