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Need to take next steps towards evasive landlord


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So here is the story so far. I moved out of a rented property in Aug 2013, the landlord refused to give back the deposit. I have taken this to the county court and they have recently sent a CCJ to the landlord for nearly £12,000.

 

The landlord has so far ignored all communications from myself and the court, and also didn't attend the court date. Hence I was given the judgement by default.

 

I now want to taken the next steps to enforce the judgement and recover the money.

 

I know what my options are, I just don't know which was will be most effective in my situation.

 

I also know that this is the third CCJ this landlord has received. I know she has the money in assets as the house we were renting from her is worth almost £1m. But I don't know how much money she has in the bank.

 

So my main question is, should I go to High Court or go down the bankruptcy route. Or would another method be better? Or should I take out an 'Order to obtain information' to see how much money she has in the bank, and her non-compliance of this could mean prison for contempt of court. But then I don't know what I can do after that to recover the money.

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Did you serve it on your LL personally or his company? If in person, and he has the assets, you can either use the services of a HCEO, or start bankruptcy proceedings against him.

Any advice i give is my own and is based solely on personal experience. If in any doubt about a situation , please contact a certified legal representative or debt counsellor..

 

 

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Sorry, when you say serve it personally. Which document are you referring to? I haven't taken things further since the LL didn't respond to the CCJ. Also the LL is an individual and not tied to any company.

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The CCJ. Did you get it on the Landlord as a person, or on his company.

 

 

Edit: so your CCJ was on him as a person. Time to use a HCEO or start bankruptcy proceedings. Especially if he has a lot of assets. The other CCJ's, chances are the claimant didnt know how to enforce the CCJ, so they just wrote it off.

Any advice i give is my own and is based solely on personal experience. If in any doubt about a situation , please contact a certified legal representative or debt counsellor..

 

 

If my advice helps you, click the star icon at the bottom of my post and feel free to say thanks

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The CCJ. Did you get it on the Landlord as a person, or on his company.

 

 

Edit: so your CCJ was on him as a person. Time to use a HCEO or start bankruptcy proceedings. Especially if he has a lot of assets. The other CCJ's, chances are the claimant didnt know how to enforce the CCJ, so they just wrote it off.

 

Or the LL has the assets held e.g. on trust. Have you done a Land Registry search on the property to see who holds the legal title? and if there are any charges in it?

 

1st step (I'd suggest) is an order for an oral examination - to determine the assets you could go for , or if bankruptcy proceedings would be worthwhile.

 

You mentioned "The landlord has so far ignored all communications from myself and the court, and also didn't attend the court date. Hence I was given the judgement by default. " : if the LL ignored an order to attend for questioning, a bench warrant for their arrest could be issued.

 

However, I raise the concern that if the LL has never responded to any communication that they will plead ignorance of the proceedings, and go for a set-aside. ; "I honestly never knew anything about it!" :(

 

Do you think they are "hiding their head in the sand", or might they be aware of the process and aiming to "string it out"?

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Do you think they are "hiding their head in the sand", or might they be aware of the process and aiming to "string it out"?

 

This has actually been my main worry. I don't know what the law is when it comes to this. The house that she actually owns is the one that we were renting (which is now rented by someone else). And she was living at her parent house during that time. This is the only other address that I have of hers, which is where all correspondence has been going. My worry now is that she may not be living with her parents any more and may be at another address which I do not know about. I know she has been getting the letters, but she if she has another property she can plead ignorance. I don't know how to find out which address she is actually living at or which other properties she owns.

 

If I order an Oral Examination, I will need to know at which address to find her. And if she doesn't turn up and subsequently gets arrested. What happens then? And can she lie in the Oral Examination?

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This has actually been my main worry. I don't know what the law is when it comes to this. The house that she actually owns is the one that we were renting (which is now rented by someone else). And she was living at her parent house during that time. This is the only other address that I have of hers, which is where all correspondence has been going. My worry now is that she may not be living with her parents any more and may be at another address which I do not know about. I know she has been getting the letters, but she if she has another property she can plead ignorance. I don't know how to find out which address she is actually living at or which other properties she owns.

 

If I order an Oral Examination, I will need to know at which address to find her. And if she doesn't turn up and subsequently gets arrested. What happens then? And can she lie in the Oral Examination?

 

The court has allowed service to the last known address.

A warrant for arrest would enable the police to go to her last known address : even if her parents said "not living here" :

a) the police could ask for details of her new address

b) her parents would likely let her know she can't ignore this, or she'll be having to live in fear of being arrested.

 

It would be unwise to lie in court. If found in a provable lie it would be perjury. Failure to answer could be contempt of court.

 

All this is by the way if she has no assets : you can't get blood from a stone - have you checked that she holds the legal title to the property, and that it isn't held on trust nor mortgaged?. You might want to do whatever checks you can to ensure there is something to enforce against at the end of the process.

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Thanks. I will do some research on whether she property is mortgaged. I am quite sure she is the legal title holder and she isn't married. But better safe than sorry.

 

I'm just trying to play this scenario out in my head. So I ask for Oral Examination and she doesn't turn up, then a warrant of arrest is issued. Can I still go to HCEO at that point?

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Electoral register maybe? If you have full name and rough location

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The SabreSheep, All information is offered on good faith and based on mine and others experiences. I am not a qualified legal professional and you should always seek legal advice if you are unsure of your position.

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Is there a way that I can know her address for sure? The land registry will only be able to tell me who live at a particular address right? Can I do a search on a persons name to find out where they are currently living?

 

The land registry won't tell you who is living there.

It will tell you who holds the legal title to the property, and if there are any charges held over it (assuming it is 'registered land', not all property is yet registered, despite the concept coming into effect in 1925)

 

Sources of electoral roll info (such as 192.com, although I'm not making any recommendation) are better for determining who lives at a property, or the address for someone, and they rely on a number of sources.

One is the electoral roll, but it should be the edited version, so an individual may have chosen to not have their details released within the 'edited' version.

 

If she is being careful to ensure her address is hidden, it may be hard for you to trace her. There are specialist "tracing agents" : however, if a court issued a warrant for her arrest for non-compliance with an order to attend for examination : let the police sort it?.

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The land registry has a facility to search for what properties are owned by a particular person but it isn't available to members of the public (I believe due to data protection issues). You can only search by property address to find out who owns a particular property.

 

If you can't get in touch with her and cannot locate another address, then ultimately I guess your only option would be to secure a charging order and ultimately order for sale over the property (assuming she is the registered owner). This is not ideal but does ultimately get you there (unless the property is in negative equity in which case everything would go to the banks).

 

Another thought ... was your deposit not paid into some sort of scheme to protect it?

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A private investigator will probably find her. For a fee. Bearing in mind judgement is for £12,000 it may be worth it.

 

I would certainly go HCEO. You said there were more CCJs against her. If you go bankruptcy you will get a proportional share of what is realised from her assets. Especially if she has a mortgage, that may not be 100% of what she owes. You would therefore risk not getting all of your money if you go for bankruptcy.

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Another thought ... was your deposit not paid into some sort of scheme to protect it?

 

No,she didn't protect it, which is why I got into this situation and went to the courts to try and get my money back.

 

A private investigator will probably find her. For a fee. Bearing in mind judgement is for £12,000 it may be worth it.

 

I would certainly go HCEO. You said there were more CCJs against her. If you go bankruptcy you will get a proportional share of what is realised from her assets.

 

The more I think about it, the more HCEO makes more sense.

 

But this is the dilemma:

 

- I know she has a house. The one I was renting, which is now being rented out by someone else.

- As far as I know she is now living at her parents house (but I could be wrong)

- I don't know how much money she has in the bank. Or the value of her assets (apart from her house which is worth a lot)

- I know she works part-time and has an income, as well as the income from her rented property

- She is only at the electoral role at her rented property, which is not where she lives.

 

If I go to HCEO, and they are unable to trace her, or she gives them the run around. Do I then have other options? Or is that pretty much a dead end after that?

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Do you have a bank account number that you paid rent into ?

Do you have a mobile phone number for her ?

 

When you had maintenance issues at the address. ....

Who did you phone ?

"Her" or a contractor ? ..... Do you have the contractors "Card" or contact details. He's got to send the invoice somewhere.

Did you rent "Privately" or through an "Agent" ? ... If an "agent" they have her details.

 

More then one way to "Skin a cat"

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If I go to HCEO, and they are unable to trace her, or she gives them the run around. Do I then have other options? Or is that pretty much a dead end after that?
Other options include attachment of earnings order requiring her employer to pay per wages to you until the debt is discharged, third party debt order requiring the current tenants to pay rent to you until the debt is discharged, or a charging order and ultimately order for sale over the property.

 

The HCEO route is easiest and cheapest.

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Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I think HCEO is the best option. I will try and transfer the CCJ to them. I think MCOL is ok to use for this? I've looked at the form and there are a few boxes I am not sure about. I haven't used MCOL before.

 

@f16

I have her telephone number and bank account details. And the house was rented privately. When we initially rented the property from her, she actually gave us the wrong postcode for her house. She is very sneaky. She used to use a handyman for the maintenance of the house. But he is a very close family friend of hers and I don't know if he will give me the information I need very easily. But this is a good idea and worth exploring.

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You're stuck between a rock and a hard place really.

 

It's extremely unlikely that the LL has over £12k of assets especially if she is living with her parents so HCEO might be a waste of time.

 

Bankruptcy will cost you nearly a grand upfront and as has been mentioned you'll only end up with a percentage of what is owed to you.

 

Tough call to make.

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No, you don't use MCOL for this. You will need to arrange for the existing CCJ to be transferred up to the High Court. If you approach HCEOs they should be able to handle it for you.

 

 

I don't think her parent's address will help a HCEO because presumably everything at that address is owned by the lady's parents. Perhaps the HCEO will be able to make enquiries to try and find a more recent address but you will have to pay for their services whether successful or not.

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If you use a good HCE company they will be able to take all the steps open to you ie, trace, search etc

 

Please be very careful when making your choice, the enforcement industry is no different to any other......... there are some 'cowboy' outfits posing as HCEO's, don't be fooled by glossy websites. If you make the right choice from kick off they should be able to guide you through every option.

 

WD

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Thanks everyone for your replies. I have decided to go with The Sheriffs Office as the HCEO, hopefully they are good. And I also used a tracing company to find out where she lives. It was a bit expensive, but hopefully will be worth it in the end.

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Thanks everyone for your replies. I have decided to go with The Sheriffs Office as the HCEO, hopefully they are good. And I also used a tracing company to find out where she lives. It was a bit expensive, but hopefully will be worth it in the end.

 

I used the same Hceo's personally a couple of years ago and must say they were very professional so good choice...good luck.

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Re: the Sherrifs Office

 

I used the same Hceo's personally a couple of years ago and must say they were very professional so good choice...good luck.

 

Phew! I wasn't sure if your previous comment about "cowboys" was a veiled reference to avoid that firm : clearly not!

 

If you use a good HCE company they will be able to take all the steps open to you ie, trace, search etc

 

Please be very careful when making your choice, the enforcement industry is no different to any other......... there are some 'cowboy' outfits posing as HCEO's, don't be fooled by glossy websites. If you make the right choice from kick off they should be able to guide you through every option.

 

WD

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