Letters before action no court process

[Pastellion]

Ex landlord has now sent 2 seperate letters before action using panel solicitors from a legal insurance policy (DAS)
on both occasions he has failed to take us to court as threatened.
This is due to the fact he does not want us to receive deposit back.
We have stated we intend to counter claim for harrassment, threatened illegal eviction, breach of all paperwork, not giving prescribed information, data breaches and non payment of works carried out.
Are continued letters before action without court order a continuing of harrassment?
Can we do a cease and desist letter now?
All off his claims are false and we had to get TRO involved during the tenancy.

[ash72]

Has your tenancy ended, and have you left the property? If so was the deposit protected in any of the 3 schemes? If so you can raise a claim to get your money back, if not then you need to take the LL to court for the money owed, and any other issues you want to bring to the courts attention.

[Pastellion]

Yes 10 months ago we left after serving notice. As the LL had put the address to give notice as the tenancy address the letter we sent returned to us at the address as he had no mail redirection set up.
The LL had put the deposit in a scheme but did not give us the prescribed information. When we tried to claim it back they refused to use their resolution service. We agreed a small amount back of £75 as our notice ran out ( in that we overstayed 6 days until our new house was ready)
The scheme is now saying that as LL is stating he will take us to court they cannot release it. This has now happened twice.
we suffered extreme harrassment from this LL was so bad the police got involved, so can letters before action with no court action show continued harrassment?
To give an example of vextatious claims, LL claimed we broke lawnmower. ( we had our own and never used it) his lawnmower us now on ebay as fully working always reliable etc. Due to him selling up and moving abroad.
Would it be worth our while taking him to court now? We just want our deposit back and draw a line under this ongoing saga.
How many years can he claim unfounded court action. We have a wealth of information that proves no gas cert, elect cert, EPC, right to rent , retaliatory eviction, police reports, data breaches, harrassment?
Do we claim all together through courts or seperate for deposit?

[theartfullodger]

Follow the excellent advice from Shelter here...
https://england.shelter.org.uk/housi...r_deposit_back

[jpkeates]

If the landlord is still in the UK, you can sue them for the rest of the deposit using MCOL.
If they're no longer in the UK, you're pretty much stuffed.

While you sound like you have a number of things that would be satisfactory to make a claim for, if you did stay beyond the end of your notice, it's possible that the landlord has a significant counter claim possible.

I would simply respond to the letters before action saying that the solicitors are being used as part of a campaign of harassment, that the claims have no foundation and you await the landlord's proposed legal action, which you propose to defend robustly.

[Pastellion]

The LL is leaving very soon. The house went up for sale as soon as we vacated. We only stayed 4 days over notice period as our completion on house purchase iveran 4 days.
i know he is leaving very soon as his house sale fell through 3 times (karma) and he now is selling everything in the house on ebay even the carpets.
If he leaves the country can we not use his panel solicitor letters as she still calling him her client?
This LL would have no significant claim against us as he broke every landlord law there is, including illegal eviction.

[Pastellion]

I checked with partnee it was 4 days we overstayed our notice period not six.

[jpkeates]

I checked with partner it was 4 days we overstayed our notice period not six.

There's not really an "only" when a tenant overstays their notice.

If you hold over on a tenancy, there are two options.
You illegally occupied the landlord's property and they can claim compensation in the form of mesne profit, which is set by statute at a rate double the daily rent per day.
Which is a good outcome for a tenant.

The landlord can also commence legal action to remove you, for which you would also be responsible for compensating the landlord.

You start a new tenancy. Which is much less of a good outcome for a tenant.
That can be a real mess.

[Pastellion]

To clarify above we gave the landlord from the deposit the amount of rent for the four days which he happily accepted.
prior to our leaving he tried to illegally evict us by giving an email notice ( not the correct form used, also due to the then current covid restriction it should have been four months notice. He gave a month)
Also it could not have been a section 8 as there were no rent arrears, nor a section 21 as he had failed to give us a gas cert ( this was given after a gas inspection 11 months afterwards after complaining to the council)
They also did not give right to rent, EPC, electric cert and no prescribed information.
We were told by TRO to stay in the property until he took us to court. But to be fair to this LL and as he was severely harrassing us we left as soon as we could.
If, I had been stubborn I could have dragged it out through the courts or demanded cash incentive to leave, but I busted a gut using all of my energy time and money to leave asap.
Finally, the only address for LL was the one on the tenancy agreement as he had no permanent address. Hence when we gave notice, by letter as on tenancy agreement, there was no mail redirection so the notice letter landed back to our address. Therefore he would gave been unaware of our going four days late.
it was due to our meter readings the day we left that proved this. We could have lied, but we are not dishonest people.
The LL was a true amateur in every sense of the word, he even claimed we had left stuff there ( no option to collect if we even had (tort acts,) then tried to clsim for a skip when it is clear his 25 year worth of stuff he needs to jettison before moving abroad was the true purpose of a skip.

[Pastellion]

Also by the time we left the years tenancy was up and a month into a rolling tenancy.

[jpkeates]

The LL was a true amateur in every sense of the word, he even claimed we had left stuff there ( no option to collect if we even had (tort acts,)

I have no doubt the landlord was a bit of a nightmare.

Realistically, if he's leaving the country, there's not a lot he can do legally (with any chance of success), but the same is true for you.

A simple Money Claim for the deposit might get you a successful outcome in court - possibly by default, which you could use to get the money back from protecting scheme.

[Pastellion]

To further clarify there was no inventory at the start, so we were very particular in making several videos and photographs to prove we had returned keys and show its immaculate state.
This was further demonstrated as the pictures on rightmove which went up 2 weeks after us leaving were virtually identical to the photos we took as we left. But he still claimed we had trashed the place.

[Pastellion]

Thank you jpkeates I think a default would probably be best option now.
His panel solicitor ( who I sent all the pre court protocol evidence to in abundance, including police ref no. Proof of harrassment etc, has clearly told him to back off after we said we would counter claim and defend.
I think he is hoping to wait until he is abroad so we dont claim at all and the deposit is held indefinitely in cyber hold.
I have to keep having my mail redirected in the event he uses last know address. I can not give my new address as he has a criminal record for violence, so this is causing us a great deal of distress.
surely its ilegal to keep threatening fraudulent legal action and not acting on it?

[jpkeates]

I think he is hoping to wait until he is abroad so we dont claim at all and the deposit is held indefinitely in cyber hold.

He's going to use the same stuff to file as a counter claim / defence - so I'd wait to claim until he's not in the UK and unlikely to be able to attend a hearing.

surely its ilegal to keep threatening fraudulent legal action and not acting on it?

It's called barratry, and, while it's not legal in some places in the world, it was made legal (or stopped being an offence) in 1967.

If I was cynical I'd suggest that it suits the rich and powerful to have access to a weapon that most people can't afford.

It can become harassment, but that's a horror to try and prosecute/enforce.

[Pastellion]

Having done a bit of research the case Iqbal v Mason does show harrassment in 2 instances as a breach.
That along with all the previous recording of harrassment and retaliatory eviction will be easier to prove?
Clearly the trouble with the cheap legal cover panel solicitors is that they never check their clients claims, or indeed do a quick cross reference/ check data base that this has not already been pursued by a different insurance policy.
The irony being that LL failed all basic LL checks and pre requisites including inventory and tenant checks on us, but took out an expensive LL insurance policy £400, which I was named on the boiler cover aspect for due to his luving abroad.
I know he has form for fraud ( investigated for claiming severe disability while living and working abroad/ high mobility jobs)
Before we left property we called insurance company and told them there is a high probability LL woukd try to claim for everything he could, so we would take photographs etc.
When we told them he was fraudulent, they did not with hold any of his spurious claims and in any case he was in breach of the policy as he had not got gas certificate etc.
He then clearly took out a different Policy with legal cover and is trying it on again. Do these insurance companies not check?