Overseas Landlord

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi all!

WendyN,I would just like to say:

Well done!You will win in the end.

If you need any more help,please feel free to ask.

Keep us posted.

All the best!

[WendyN]

Dear all,

just a very quick question, just for my peace of mind really.
As we paid our court costs back in June 2006, can we claim our 8% interest on these as well, or just on the sum we are fighting for? Logic says yes, as we have still spent that money, but the law isn't always logical, is it?!
Can't sem to find it on the HM Courts Service website.

Thanks as ever for your help and advice!

WendyN

[WendyN]

Hi guys,

just a very quick email to update you on progress!

19th November: initial hearing to decide whether we have to take the landlord to court, or the landlord c/o his UK estate agents, as he lives overseas. Judge decides that it's landlord c/o estate agents. Estate agents fail to turn up...

28th February: final hearing, to decide whether we are entitled to the compensation that the landlord promised us in writing in April 2005. Estate agents again fail to turn up, but do send a missive to the judge, explaining that they do not know where the landlord is, as he is in Thailand and they don't have a forwarding address; also they no longer have a contract with him, so this issue is nothing to do with them. Judge is considerably less than impressed. However...

We win! Judge awards us compensation, plus interest, plus court costs, plus sundry costs including car parking costs and loss of earnings for that day, as we both took the day off work. He says that he would recommend that we get compensation anyway, given the problems that we have had. However, as we also have a written undertaking from the landlord, this should definitely be honoured.

So landlord now has a county court judgement against him, and owes us £730 pounds. Now we just have to get it...!

We will be waiting for the written judgment from the court, and then approaching the landlord via the estate agents for the money... probably head office, local office, legal office, and anyone we can think of :o) If we don't have any luck there, we will try the landlord's mum, who lives in the UK.

I will keep you posted on progress, but just know that it takes a while... but is SO worth it.

WendyN

[Joa]

Wendy, thanks very much for an update. It's great when people come back to tell us what was the outcome of the case.
The interesting lesson from this is that the judge agreed for the landlord can be sued via his previous estate agents. We are all often here telling posters that only landlord can be taken to court and only if they have UK address. Now we may want to be a little bit more cautious with that.
Great news for you. Now- how do you plan to enforce the judgment?

[WendyN]

Well, we are having huge problems enforcing the judgement to be honest. The court letter was sent to the landlord c/o the estate agents, and we have sent lots of letters to them too, to no avail.

They say that they don't know where the landlord is; they have not had any business dealings with him for years; and that it's nothing to do with them. According to them he has moved, and they are unable to contact him even if they wanted to.

So we are chasing a ghost, and we have a judgement which they are simply ignoring as they say it refers to him and not them. We believe that this is academic, as they are arguing this NOW, and didn't do so in court in front of a judge.

We are in the process of finding a reasonably priced solicitor to double check a few things, but basically:

a) we want to know whether the judgement made last October which decided that we could sue the landlord c/o the estate agents (which the estate agents didn't even turn up to) is legally enforceable on the estate agents, given that they were his agents when we had our contract, and

b) how we actually get any money out of them if so.

We still haven't given up, but are temporarily bogged down in legalese...!!
Any help / advice gratefully accepted...

WendyN