PITA tenant: Rental Arrears: Anyone experience of using a County Court Judgement?

[MrPickles73]

Hopefully nearly at the end of the saga..

Tenant has been in my property for 2.5 years (in Wales). Has been a nightmare from the start and broken various parts of the contract. Nightmare at paying rent.. lots of long emails from him re her personal situation (she was on her own - no children under 18 etc).

Working full-time. For various reasons (to be nice to her and COVID etc) I didn't visit the property for 2 years.. so when a workman went in Q1 this year it wasn't a pretty sight.. she took badly to this and got very weird about how unpleasant this guy was etc. I did my best to mitigate this.. anyhow. She said she would move out hurrah!! I gladly accepted.. To be sure this happened I served 2 months notice.. time went by, she did not pay her rent and did not move out. I got increasingly stressed.. She tells one lie after another..

Anyhow after 6 months she has finally gone. Happy days. However the house is a mess and she owes 4 months rent...

Has anyone else had success at using a county court judgement to get rent arrears back? She works full-time. Is it worth the hassle?

Did you give back the deposit?

I would say yes it is definitely worth the hassle. I had a tenant do 10 grand worth of damage to my property and tragically the Elderly parents with a guarantors. I got back every penny.
If they are working full time, or even I’m benefits, you can garnish their wages and I would do it just to make a fucking point.

@DrySherry they only just moved out and have trashed the carpets, some of the doors and the cooker.. the council paid the deposit for them. The deposit would cover about 25% of the carpets and nothing else..

@3BSHKATS can I ask how long it took? Did she pay out of her wages or did the parents pay it off in a lump sum? This joker has no guarantor but earns about £30k and really rates themself. Snazzy car and told the neighbour they were a company director.. neighbour was shocked to hear they owe me > £2k. Good to hear you got your £10k back. It's heartbreaking and such a time sink. Did you have a new address for them? I would need to get her traced as step 1..

So it took about six months from start to finish. You have to have to see CJ first. And then I literally just engage the local deck collection firm who did everything for me for an additional thousand pounds which gets added onto the bill . However, you potentially have an added complication if they’re company director you’ve got no chance of recovery, they will just literally wind the company up and start a new one. It’s why the child-support people never go after the self-employed. It’s just a ridiculous process.

@3BSHKATS no but they are not a company director ;-) its just what they tell people. They are an employee (think middle managementy type).

So all the costs get added to their bill :-). Did they pay the money in one or monthly? I'm just wondering if you get paid monthly how teeny the amount is.

Its cost me money them being in their - I've had to pay for an extra gas safety check which cost nearly £200 so can I add that?

No, you can’t claim the gas safety certificate because that would’ve needed to have been done legally whilst they were there. You couldn’t of collected rent on the property Had you not have that gas safety certificate.

however, the costs of recovering the debt do get added to the debt.

so when are case obviously the parents had the money and of course the CCJ does not get satisfied until it’s paid in full. So it’s in her interests if she wants to rent another house, buy another house, buy another car, apply for any kind of credit to get that CCJ paid. Because basically until it’s satisfied, the clock doesn’t star on the six years of repairing her credit. And believe me, I didn’t even have a CCJ. I had one default and it caused absolute financial mayhem in my life.

@3BSHKATS re the gas safety certificate the thing is I gave her notice to move out by the 10th May (2 months from 10th March) and she did not so I had to pay for another gas safety certificate because she was still in but should have left. I plan to sell the house so I only needed the certificate for her.
Does that make sense?
So can I not charge her for the certificate? Or no because otherwise I couldn't charge her rent? (which she hasn't paid)

Even if you get nothing back pursue it if nothing else it will get a ccj and fuck thee credit rating

Absolutely pursue her with a CCJ. She needs to learn a hard lesson.

A friend is in exactly the same position with her ex tenant but has no contact address for him so is unsure how to proceed. She used an agency and references were taken but he changed jobs so she’s not even sure of employer. Any ideas what she can do? The agency has emailed him and he’s ignored emails. Owes three months rent and trashed the house.

She needs to put down the last known address, i.e. hers, and get the CCJ they will come back and they will pay it in the six years if it’s causing them problems. These days there’s absolutely no way can’t cause them problems. They can’t get a rental without it. They can’t get a mortgage without it. Some people can’t even get a job without it.

That is the jest. Basically your gas safety certificate is you being legally compliant it doesn’t matter whether she was paying the rent or not. And given that you are going to pursue her for the rent. The last thing you want is her turning around and saying can you produce that certificate then and not being able to.

How can you serve a county court claim to an address the tenant has moved out from? That obviously is clear evidence they didn't receive it? Genuine question, as I wondered what you do when you don't have a forwarding address. I've googled whether an email address that you can prove they usually reply to is good enough.

Do you have a forwarding address,OP?

This seems to be the country we live in these days. No consequences for awful and lawbreaking behaviour. When our very government are corrupt lawbreakers it's not surprising the populace don't give a fuck either. FFS.

PerfectYear321 so I don't have a home address but I have work address so assume tracing them will not be so hard. My impression is they will not have moved far.

HaveYouHeardOfARoadAtlas for about £50 you can engage a tracking company who will search for them for 12 months or so. I don't know how they do it but I guess they put feelers out with the utility companies etc. I will be doing the same after a couple of months. You've got to wait for them to move and then set up new council tax, utilities etc. I figure its worth it for £50?

Thats the process, at some point they will contact the court when the CCJ pops up on their credit file and say i know nothing about this. The court will say no problem give us your new address and we will go from there. Problem solved.

Ah!

Do you know how it appears on their credit file when all you really have is a name?

Thanks, I’ll tel my friend what to do.

I think your first step is to itemise what you are claiming for, eg replacement oven, carpets etc. As other posters said, don’t include the gas safety certificate, it’s a business expense not something you should add to the claim. Ensure you have time stamped photos on the damage. Did you do a check in with photos when the tenancy commenced?

Then you can write to her itemising the charges, via email if you don’t have a new address, and request payment within 14 days for the damages. Keep a copy of this email and any replies (maybe you can ask for a read receipt). Include your bank account number and sort code on the letter.

If you don’t receive a satisfactory response then you can issue a letter before action, notifying that you will issue a County Court Claim form within 7 days if payment is not received.

Then if no joy you can go down the CCCF route, I think you can do this via MoneyClaimOnline up to £10k, it could be more. I always thought you would need an up to date address to issue a claim form. But your tracer company should be able to find this. It’s fairly straightforward, I have issued a few claim forms through work although for businesses. Then you can request judgment if she doesn’t pay.

It’s important to keep a good paper trail showing what you’re claiming for, and your attempts to contact her prior to court action to satisfy the court in case she defends/counterclaims/applies to set judgment aside etc.

How old were the carpets. I think the ARLA formula is that carpets last for 8 years. So if they were 3 years old you would put the original cost with the invoice/receipt then deduct 5/8ths of the original cost. Same with the cooker. Unless the carpets and cooker were brand new you can't claim for new replacements or that would be betterment.

Thats the process, at some point they will contact the court when the CCJ pops up on their credit file and say i know nothing about this. The court will say no problem give us your new address and we will go from there. Problem solved.

That's not correct.

Issuance of CCJ paperwork to an incorrect address is the main reason CCJs are set aside...one of the veey few reasons for which they can be.

It’s absolutely fine if the judgement is set-aside, that’s not the end goal. The end goal is getting them to liaise with you.

Ok so the good news is the locks have now been changed so house is secure.
Surprisingly post has not been automatically forwarded (tenant knew where they were going about 5 weeks in advance) so I would have thought this would be a no brainer for them. But perhaps this is why they only returned one of two front door keys..

Anyhow it's apparent the ex tenant owes circa £8k mostly to mobile phone companies and also already has a ccj against them..

So I guess three things from this

1. I'm glad I got them out when I did - things were not destined to get better..
2. They are not afraid of debt / ccjs
3. There are a number of organisations who would be interested to know their new address.

I am going to work on sorting out the house for a while and then come back to the ex-tenant..