Judgement in our favour cannot get any sense from the court!

[cdsd]

Hi,

 

In October of last year we moved out of our rental property and found that our deposit was not protected. We tried reasoning with the real estate agent but could not get anything out of them. Finally in despair we went to the County Court in January 09 (we did not do small claims due to the amount being over £5000).

 

The long and short of it is that basically the court sat on the case for over 3 months and after having phone calls and sending numerous emails and not getting a response we went down to the court! Anyway things got a move on and the landlord requested to add the estate agent as a second defendant (which we argued against but the court added the estate agent as a second defendant - the estate agent filed no defense and neither did the landlord - they admitted it was not protected).

 

The court has ruled in our favour but we cannot get any sense out of the court. The latest is the court sent us a judgement against the secondary defendant (in our view the estate agent - but on the paper they have listed the solicitors of the landlord - who is listed on other documentation as the first defendant). We have also been sent an allocation questionaire - which we rang the court about and after three mixed messages could only tell that we did not need to fill out.

 

From the landlord's solicitors we got an allocation questionnaire filled out on our behalf????? Having spoken to the landord solicitors they believe we need to fill this out but the court said they made a mistake and therefore we do not need to fill it out.

 

Basically we have no idea what the court has sent the estate agent as when we rang them they said they had no record of them on the case file even though we have documentation stamped by the court saying the estate agent is the second defendant.

 

Any suggestions on how to get some sense from the court and how we ensure we get the money from the estate agent? Also is there anyone we can make a complaint to about the court as their processes leave a lot to be desired and we cannot get any sense from them (emails they don't reply to and phone they give differing answers).

 

Thanks

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

There are some legal bods who give advice on the forum, if you have no replies in the next day or two you could snt a PM to some of them.

To do the above you will need to supply them with a link to your thread, if nothing else my reply will bump your thread.

 

Andy

[JonCris]

If you have a Judgment in your favour enforce it & if not apply to the court for it as surely the landlord & estate agents time is up to lodge a defence

 

Any more problems with this court request an appointment with the Circuit Judge responsible for this court

[raydetinu]

Speak to the court office they can give some good advice.

[JonCris]

Speak to the court office they can give some good advice.

 

Haven't they done that already without success

[cdsd]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

We have received another order from the court today, saying that we have 7 days in which to fill out an allocation questionnaire (this one is a small claims track as opposed to the other one which is not) otherwise our claim will be struck out. It says someone called the "proper officer" has ordered this. Is there anyway of speaking to this proper officer? And on the earlier communication from the court that had the first allocation questionnaire it says that a defence has been filed which has been attached (all we have received that was attached to this is the order from the court saying the second defendant has to pay and the allocation questionnaire, there is no defence!).

We are going to complain to the court through their process (god hope it is better than their actual sending of documentation).

We are also thinking to go and see someone at the Royal Courts of Justice which we did before we started this and see if they can explain to us what we need to do.

We sent an email to the court yesterday but as normal have not received any response. Our concern is the deadline will pass for the allocation questionnaire and apparently we must fill this out but have no idea what we are actually filling this out for!

Edited October 21, 2009 by cdsd

[cdsd]

We finally got some sense out of the court today. The default judgement was against the estate agent, but as they are the second defendant the case against the first defendent (landlord) is still outstanding.

The LL's solicitors have pushed to have their defence recognised. We never received their defence but now the court is sending it to us. Yeah!!! We have to fill out the allocation questionnaire and the LL's solicitors have offerred us an amount (not much) to settle with them. We are filling out the allocation questionnaire so that we will have time in which to discuss settlement with them. We are applying on Monday to have the judgement enforced against the estate agent. Our concern is the estate agent is very very dodgy and it seems that even with a judgement against them there is no guarantee that we will get paid. If the estate agent does not pay do we still have recourse against the LL? With a settlement offer is the first offer the best or the lowest? Any suggestions are appreciated.