Preparing for Court

[Ollie]

I'm taking a couple to court that live in one of my rooms, they have not paid rent since febuary and thus are around 12 weeks in arrears. The court date was booked a month ago and the hearing is on the 11th June. I'm told that any evidence I want to give to the court has to be given 2 weeks before the court hearing.

I'm taking them to court to get a court order and get the property back off them. The reason why they are evicted is because of their behaivour and many months in arrears!

I want to check that I have everything right in my 'case' agaisnt them! So here goes:

- A covering letter explaining why I'm evicting them and how we got to this stage.
- a copy of orginal contract & inventory etc
- A copy of the section 8 form given to them & whitness statement of confirmation of delivery
- A copy of the submitted form (to get the court book)
- A printed copy of their deposit skeme protected
- Copies of my bank statements showing where they have paid and where they have not paid (dated back untill febuary)
- I have three whitness statements from other tenants in the shared house recalling incidents of actually how bad they are!


Anything else I need ? or is there bits on here that i dont need? Thanks!

[davidjohnbutton]

Regardless of how bad you or anyone else thinks the tenants are - evidence of this is completely immaterial to the S8 case if you are doing it only on grounds 8/10/11. If you can prove two months or 8 weeks unpaid rent at the court hearing date and your S8 notice has been served correctly, you will get a mandatory possession order on that basis alone.

The rest of your stuff is ok, but take along with you a summary showing how the current unpaid rent figure is arrived at in the format

Date Rent due Rent paid Arrears

1/4/10 £500.00 £100.00 £400.00

1/5/10 £500.00 £50.00 £850.00

and so on with the last caculation taking the unpaid figure up to the date of the hearing as this is what the judge will enter judgment for.

[Ollie]

Hi,

I put on it Grounds: 8, 10, 11 & 14
I served the s8 notice on the same day as i applied for the court (as i used g14). I have a whitness statment proving it was deliverd.

[davidjohnbutton]

I do wish that people when posting queries state the whole facts, not just parts of them!!!!!

Your second post has completely negated my response now you have told us that you also cited ground 14 in which case your witness statements are relevant and normally you would need those witnesses in court on the day to give their evidence in person and possibly be cross-examined.

However, if you think the ground 8 will succeed, then you may not need them to attend!. However, beware of scurrilous and likely untrue last minute defences being raised!

[WarwickGrad]

s8 error

lets assume the s8 that was served had a small error on it

and the tenant didnt turn up at the hearing

would i still get my mandatory possession?

[Snorkerz]

lets assume the s8 that was served had a small error on it

and the tenant didnt turn up at the hearing

would i still get my mandatory possession?

What was the error?

[WarwickGrad]

for section 4: give full explanation of why each ground is being relied on:
section 8: rent is payable and atleast 12 weeks rent is in unpaid
section 10: . . . . .
section 11: . . . . .

1. should this have been 8 weeks rent unpaid? altho 12 weeks was outstanding at the time, should i have mentioned 8 weeks instead, as this is the min requirement

2. instead of grounds 8, 10 and 11, i called them section 8, 10 and 11

are these errors big enough for the judge to throw it out?

[jeffrey]

Was the s.8 Notice itself correct in each of these aspects?

[WarwickGrad]

yes all correct

[Disillusioned]

Hi,

As far a s i understand if there is an error on the eviction paperwork, as it's statutory the whole eviciton process starts from scratch again.this is based on Scots Law however, maybe slightly different in England.

Angela

[Disillusioned]

Hi,

One question to ask. How do you petition the court in england to get the order for eviction? Ie the s.21 and s.8 have already been delivered to the tenant, then what?

Thanks,

Angela

[Paul Gibbs]

lets assume the s8 that was served had a small error on it

and the tenant didnt turn up at the hearing

would i still get my mandatory possession?

I suspect that the court would still grant a possession order.

The courts will allow slight errors on the forms (although this will depend on the judge) as long as the error is not fatal.

If the judge raises this then I would tell the judge that you may have wrongly stated ground 8 as being 12 weeks instead of 8, however, the tenant was still at least 8 weeks in arrears at the time.

Further the error is not one that confuses the tenant, or could enable him to mis-interpret the notice. A reasonable recipient would have understood the notice.

T is entitled to take legal advice on the notice - he has chosen not to attend, and therefore a possession order should be granted

[Paul Gibbs]

Hi,

One question to ask. How do you petition the court in england to get the order for eviction? Ie the s.21 and s.8 have already been delivered to the tenant, then what?

Thanks,

Angela

As long as the time limit within the section 8 or section 21 notice has expired you can then apply to court.

If you are relying on the section 21 notice then you use form N5B; if you are relying on the section 8 notice then its form N119 and N5.

Ensure the notice is valid before the paperwork is sent to the court.