I don't know if anyone is interested?? lol Took form into Court and the very next day we recieved an order stating EX LL had to serve true Copies of the Papers by 4pm on the ordered date.. ON the ordered date we received a letter from EX LL telling us they had no idea which Papers we wanted.This was in response to a request sent nearly a month previous!! We called the Court and told them we had not been sent the Papers as had been ordered and the person told us the case should be adjourned.. I asked that it could still go ahead. She said we could still attend but the Judge had to be made aware that we did not have the requested Papers as ordered. On the order it actually says the Judge is keen for this case to be heard. Is that a standard comment? Case is in a Matter of days now.I predict the EX LL will not show..He will wait till the 14 day deadline given by the Court and will appeal whatever decision was made. This is our experience and LL has proven us right every time. If there is a way of delaying LL will do it. In case you were wondering.Solicitor adviced us to push for case to go ahead as LL own evidence contradicts itself Basically the view is the Ex LL has proven our case with his own evidence. Thankyou CF

as far as I could see your ex ll has not at any time stated she has now placed it in a scheme.. also from my own experience the ADR will not get involved if the case IS part of a court action.. There is nothing that suggest they wouldnt get involved if you had threatened it.. In fact in my case I had threatened action through the Courts but the ADR still took the case on with both Mine and my Ex LL agreement. We pulled out in the final stages as EX LL had submitted a load of tosh..Our case is Friday You Ex LL is worried..that is obvious..

Im going through the courts process right now and to be honest the first things that I thought was.. Why did you wait 6 Months? and also surely it is standard to check on any agreement that all points have been adhered too in the time frame stated? I am certain these are 2 questions that would be asked in Court CF

Thankyou for your reply.. We have approached our house insurance to put a claim in for Legal help...This was on the advice of our old solicitor who is the solictor employed by our insurance.... He said to ask for claim form and include evrything to and from the court on this claim form.We have no letters yet..Just the form from the insurers and the N244.He is not sure if they can act. He wants time to look over the files. We have copied the files ready to send off. Do I have to ask for 14 days?? Can I leave that up to the court for how long they allow?? We have not heard anything from EX LL and do not expect too. So no agreement has been made via the court. Thankyou for your help CF

Thats fantastic news!! well done you!!.. Can I please ask whether you payed for the Solicitor to act for you or whether they just gave general advice?? Congrats again. x

With wording for N244... Case is due to be heard in just over 2 weeks. In the LL counterclaim and defense they state that we willfully caused the damage to the property over the 3 years we were there.. There are lies upon lies..The whole statement etc contradicts itself..Ie things have been accused then denied by LL then evidence submitted by LL which shows the accused things.. To cut a long story short...The copies of papers which LL sent us were not signed..Court told us to request another set which is signed..This hasnt happened.We knew LL would ignore this request. I called our old Solicitor who dealt with the out of court agreement and he feels that because of all the allegations contained within LL evidence and a clear breach of the out of court agreement we entered into and clear proof of lots of things..There may be skope for them to take over the case again. They told us to ask for an extension of the court date so that they may look over all of the court papers submitted and to also reopen the files so that we can disprove LL allegations. They said to state this and also to state that despite 2 request LL has not sent us true copies of papers..I have the form but please help with the wording. The form ask what orders are you asking the court to make and why?? Am I right in thinking Im asking for an extension?? How do I word the reasons?? It says what level of Judge does your hearing need? County Court?? Its also ask.. what information will you be relying on,in support of your applictaion?? How do I answer this?? Do I send a copy of the paperwork that has the allegations on?? Sorry if I come acrross as dim..I have a toddler fighting me for laptop and a Pregnant bump. Thankyou in advance.CF

I don't know if this would be any help to anyone... We moved into our old property June 05 and paid the Deposit then. I asked the DPS this question.... Dear XXXXX I can now confirm that the case is going to a Full hearing. Whilst going though evidence it was noted that the DPS requested a Signed copy Of the Tenancy agreement. The only copy we signed was the original agreement.The Tenancy agreement for June 2007 was only Signed by LL. LL had wrongly drawn up the Tenancy by not including a section for the Tenants to sign.Therefore some questions were raised over the authenticity/Legality of the Document. Please can you confirm whether the DPS accept Deposits where there is not a Valid Tenancy. Kind Regards XXXXXXX This was the response from a Manager at the DPS... Dear XXX, Thank you for your email. The DPS is a scheme administrator authorised to act under Part 6 of the Housing Act 2004. The legislation relates to all deposits taken in relation to Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements after 6th April 2007 and the scheme is primarily for those deposits. The DPS can, however, protect deposits taken under other types of tenancy at the choice of the parties to that tenancy. The responsibility for ensuring that the tenancy is signed and is fit for purpose is that of the parties to the agreement. The DPS do not require sight of the tenancy agreement before protecting the deposit and therefore would not exclude the protection of a deposit on the basis that the tenancy agreement was not signed. The intention of the parties must have been to protect that deposit with The DPS. The correspondence you will be referring to is a letter sent in relation to the deposit dispute? The Dispute Resolution team will always request a copy of the tenancy agreement for the purposes of the evidence -base adjudication service. This is in order to allow the adjudicator to base their decision upon the contract's terms. I hope this clarifies your question, but if you have any further queries please do let me know. Kind regards. Our LL had stated on the form that our Deposit was paid June 07.This is false. My post may be of no help but I thought i may be able to show the opion from Somebody who works at the DPS.. Many Thanks CF

Thankyou very much fo your reply Mr Shed. This is just what I thought.We are bringing the action purely for the outstanding amount.Although we can clearly prove our EX LL has infact breached the agreement (long story) ,We only ask for the outstanding amount. I have been browsing forums and have viewed a couple of post similer to our story and have seen the general opinion is that our LL abused the TDS scheme (to put it out of our reach and make it very difficult to obtain). The argument has been that he had opportunity to do this in the previous 3 months but waited untill our last apyment and the agreement was supposed to be finalised to put the Deposit in the Scheme. It was felt that the Judge would take a dim view of this and would award us the 3x amount to set an example to other LL. To be Honest,Iam not very knowlegable in this area.I just want our agreed amont. Many Thanks CF

I would be interested on how this ruling would effect my case. We entered an out of court agreement with Ex LL. The agreement was that we would not take LL to court for breach of tenancy,disrepair,Illegal eviction,failure to adhere to safety regs and it would also mean we would not take any action for LL non Compliance with the TDS regs. Basically we could not take action to claim anything. We received a Payment that was basically = to 1 months rent and the deposit on a new let,Plus our deposit back once the final inventory had been completed. This was the agreement.BUT on receipt of our last rental payment(this was a part payment due to the leaving date that had been negotiated) EX LL put the Money that was = to our deposit into a TDS scheme!! We have been trying for the last year to get it released. LL has used every trick in the book. We have now taken LL to Court to reclaim the money again and to confirm it was part of the agreement and therefore LL put it into scheme to complicate matters.We can prove we have upheld our agreement to the letter. The case is due to be heard by the end of the month.How do you all think the Law/Judge will view this?? Many Thanks CF

Hi..Do you have home contents insurance?? I was in the same situation as you..The Property was in a state of disrepair.. The council and Enviromental health were no help so basically we looked in our contents insurance to see if we had legal Cover We did and we consulted with them to help us reach an agreement with our Ex LL..Basically we would not take LL to court for disrepair of property..Breach of Tenancy (ie not repairing property) In return for an amount of money that basically equalled a deposit..a Months rent and the removal cost for a new Property.. I don't know if it is worth a go..I also contacted the hosuing and Childrens Minister and they wrote to the Council.. I hope some of this may be of a little help to you.. CF

Hi everyone.. Well the lovely guys at the Royal Mail redelivered for us and the Papers have been served...I have been lokking through our EX LL statement and something has jumped out at me..EX LL has written that we purposely damaged the property so that we could seek compensation and council housing!!!! I am so very angry..In the next sentance its states there was a discoloration of the ceiling when we moved into the property.During the 3 years we were at the Property it turned into a full on water leak with ceilings hanging down.we wrote..Telephoned...text...you name it to inform LL that the problem was getting worse. EX LL even confirms in the evidance that we had written in the summer of 2007 and they had visited the Property over the years..YES THEY DID but nothing was done.The lights blew cus of water leaking.EX LL claims we did not report this..yet states we wrote to them!!!!!!!!! In the end we called out EH who Hazard rated the Property. According to EX LL staements we apparently wouldnt let workmen carry out repairs..apparently we intimidated them!!! THEY ALL told us that they wanted to do the work but EX LL never contacted them again.. As far as Im concerned she has made a serious allegation.......again I note that crucial bits of evidance are left out..EX LL hasnt signed any declarations!!! Apaprently we are doing this all for the money..All we have asked is for the money that was part of the agreement to be released as was supposed to happen LAST YEAR!!!! WE HAVE NOT ASKED FOR COST OR ANYTHING JUST OUR MONEY BACK.. what do we do..Ignore this allegation or oh i don't know..We DID NOT CAUSE THE DAMAGE!! Thankyou CF

Thankyou Both for your replies.. We do have Proof that we sent them and have printed out the page from the track and trace which says they still havent been collected. We knew this would happen but will continue to Mediation as we have agreed to this but if the papers still have not been collected Im thinking of bringing up the fact that I was willing to have face to face mediation.(EX LL refused) We are due to have Telephone Mediation.Of course ,as I will be refering to parts in the Disclosure of list..EX LL is most likely to object to this as they will not have papers in front of them. Im hoping to state at this part that I have made a spare copy and if we had gone to face to face Mediation I would have gladly let EX LL have another copy...Or would this be seen as baiting EX LL?? Thankyou both, CF

Hi Everyone. Our Court papers had to be at the Court and served on our ex LL by the 30th Jan 09. We sent both at the same time by Special Delivery,which was guarenteed to deliver by 1pm,The court Papers were delivered. I am tracking Papers to ex LL and it says they tried to deliver and left a whilst you were out card. Where does this leave us? It is now 10 days later and it appears they have still not been collected. I am certain that ex LL would be aware they are the Court Papers. We are due to have Mediation in a few days.Will the fact LL has not collected the Package affect this? Should we now pull out of Mediation? Are we covered as having served the Papers?? any help would be appreciated. CF

Hi everyone.. I thought I would update..I have been able to take advice on a few areas and this is the response that I received.. I thought it may be helpful to post it here.I hope that is Ok? 1 Can a statement be used as evidence in Court if it has not been signed? “Under s.9 CJA the contents of a written statement will be admissible, without the witness attending court to give oral evidence, if the following conditions are satisfied: · the statement purports to be signed by the maker; · the statement contains a declaration by the maker that it is true to the best of his/her knowledge and belief and that it was made knowing that, if it were tendered in evidence, the maker would be liable to prosecution if s/he wilfully stated in it anything which he knew to be false or did not believe to be true (known as ‘perjury declaration’); · a copy of the statement is served on the other parties before the hearing where the statement is tendered in evidence; and · none of the other parties object to the statement being tendered in evidence.” So, the statement should be written and signed. A statement of truth verifying the witness statement must be signed by the witness (CPR Part 32). 2 Can a counterclaim be accepted if it is not signed? CPR Part 20 – No. It must contain a statement of truth which must be signed. 3 Solicitor signing Court documents A solicitor can sign a counterclaim and statement of truth as the statement of truth will say “the Defendant believes…” as opposed to “I believe…”. However, a solicitor cannot sign a witness statement on behalf of someone. The solicitor can do a witness statement if in support of an application within the proceedings and deals with the facts within the solicitor’s knowledge or information acquired by the solicitor from documents and information in his/her possession. 4 Allegations / Admissions Different rules will apply to further proceedings. Were the first set of proceedings actually heard by the Court or discussed. If so, then yes. If it is an appeal then you will need to rely on new evidence, but if unsigned then it will be inadmissible as there will be no statement of truth and no evidence that the statement was made by the landlady. It is better to do a notice to admit facts to try to clarify her likely response. We have delivered our papers to the Court and sent papers to LL via Special Delivery but it appears LL is refusing Delivery!!!!!! CF

Hi.. Just a quick update... well after 3 weeks the Mediator is still waiting for LL to get back to him with a time date when she has a free hour!!!! We will just add it to our evidance.. Have had several People go thro LL evidance.Including Legal Rep. On the Basis Of LL statement there is enough evidance for a further 6!!!!!!! court actions 3 of them Criminal!!!!!..It is clear that LL has lied. Its of the opinion that NO WAY would a Solicitor draw up a statement with as many contraditions and blatent breachs of the law and agreements. Our Papers are on the way to the Court as we speak. Sorry for quick reply.CF