Possession Claim On Line (PCOL)- help re procedure

[U187146]

PCOL - which court ?

Just completing PCOL and a quick question. Is it the local court to where I live, or the one local to the property on which I am seeking possession ?

Thanks.

[davidjohnbutton]

The one local to the property which you are repossessing.

Make sure you have the right court - phone them and check if need be because court boundaries are not always defined the way you would logically think they are.

For Example, Thurnscoe is in Rotherham Postal Area and Rotherham STD code, administered by Barnsley MBC and the court is Doncaster County Court. You would logically think the CC would be Barnsley!

[U187146]

I've just completed my PCOL entry online and paid the £100. When can i expect to get a court hearing date ? It wasn't instantaneous, so it seems like there is some manual intervention at the other end.

Also under the defendant details, there is a "Date of Service" which states "Not Set". I entered a date for when the Section 8 was served so I'm not sure this is referring to.

Thanks.

[SALL]

It will take a few days for the court staff to set a hearing date for your case. The date would be anywhere between 4 to 8 weeks, depending on how busy your local court is.

The "Date of Service" they are referring to is most likely the date the court papers are sent to defendant, this date will be updated as and when court staff process your case.

[Poppy35]

Possession Claim On Line (PCOL)- help re procedure

sorry have a mind blank at work today

S21 served and expired on tenant end of May, L now want tenants out, they are still over 2 mths in arrears.

Is it better to go down the PCOL route or apply to the court for a possession order - which in your experiences is the quickest route?

sorry for asking, even though I have 15 yrs experience never had to go further than S21 for evicting someone - just been lucky i guess!

thanks guys

[Paul Gibbs]

pcol and court claim are the same thing. pcol is simply an online process that has a lower court fee of £100 rather than £150.

Court claim needs to be issued in T's local court, whereas pcol will be issued in Northampton bulk centre and then is likely to be transferred to T's local court.

[Ericthelobster]

PCOL or conventional court for S8 repo?

Having served Section 8 on my tenant today for rent arrears, I was wondering what the pros and cons were of using PCOL (which I've never used) versus submitting my papers to my local court (as I've done previously).

As far as I can tell from reading up and searching the archives of this forum, both routes end up in front of a judge in the courtroom anyway, though the PCOL fee is less. What else? Are the timelines any faster for PCOL?

[norroy]

I used the PCOL method in May, and was given a court date for six weeks later.

I am not sure if it is quicker, but it is easier and cheaper. As always you just need to keep on top of it all the way through.

[havensRus]

I always submit online via PCOL. It is £50 cheaper, and faster and environmentally friendly as no paper is generated. You will also get a date immediately, which I like, unless the court is too busy, which sometimes happens.
The quickest date I've had was 4 weeks from date of submission.
With paper, you have the postage time, and time it takes the court office to process it... which could be 1week to N-weeks!!
Once submitted, you can track it online. The court will continue to send you paperwork anyway...

[Ericthelobster]

Thanks for the replies; this concurs with what I've come up with from browsing around, that whatever else, it's not going to be any slower going via PCOL. Will give it a whirl and see (still have over a week to go yet anyway).

(Have to say the environmentally friendly aspect did not play a part in my decision!!)

[Paul Gibbs]

Basically the online system makes it easier and cheaper for the courts to process the claims, so to encourage its use they charge less.

[Ericthelobster]

Basically the online system makes it easier and cheaper for the courts to process the claims, so to encourage its use they charge less.

That's good; but not really an issue for me as the saving represents about 3 day's rent; so the court timescales are far more relevant.... anyway, the tenant is going to end up paying the fee - TRUST ME!

[Ericthelobster]

Can anyone advise on the following queries when completing the PCOL "Payment history" online?

1. If there are other payments due under the tenancy (ie admin fees for reminder letters in my case) do you simply add these under 'payment history' as you would do a rent payment? Just that there's no way of annotating what such payments are for.

2. During the payment history, at a couple of places my tenant actually went into "negative" arrears by paying his rent a couple of days early. You have to record a running total of the arrears, but if you enter a 'minus' the system won't accept it. Is it OK just to say the arrears are "0" on these occasions? Don't want to get my application bounced due to procedural errors...

[havensRus]

Can anyone advise on the following queries when completing the PCOL "Payment history" online?

1. If there are other payments due under the tenancy (ie admin fees for reminder letters in my case) do you simply add these under 'payment history' as you would do a rent payment? Just that there's no way of annotating what such payments are for.

Yes. Date due would be the day you charged the account with the other payment, the amount and add it to running total of accrued arrears.

2. During the payment history, at a couple of places my tenant actually went into "negative" arrears by paying his rent a couple of days early. You have to record a running total of the arrears, but if you enter a 'minus' the system won't accept it. Is it OK just to say the arrears are "0" on these occasions? Don't want to get my application bounced due to procedural errors...

No need to enter a minus. Accrued arrears in that case is 0. I've had a case where tenant paid 6 months in advance, so the accrued arrears column was zero until she used up the advanced payment.

HTH

[Ericthelobster]

Thanks for the feedback

To be 100% sure, I would call the PCOL Customer Help Desk

Well, seemed a Good Plan and I've done just that... the advisor really didn't give the impression of knowing anything about it, but after consulting with her line manager, told me no, I'd have to submit a separate MCOL for anything other than rent arrears. When we got on to the second query about what to do about 'negative' arrears she (and the manager) didn't have a clue and advised me to consult my local court as it seemed like mine wasn't a straighforward reposession case (which of course it is).

So, zero confidence that I've been given the correct answers.

Yes. Date due would be the day you charged the account with the other payment, the amount and add it to running total of accrued arrears.

Can you confirm that you've done this successfully with PCOL? We're only talking 30 quids-worth of fees, so I don't want to risk predjucing the entire claim by including them. Or realistically is the worst that can happen just having the fees struck out?

No need to enter a minus. Accrued arrears in that case is 0.

Sounds reasonable enough - again though, is this what you've done in practice?