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I've received a Possession Claim and a hearing date. My landlord served a Section 8 notice on me using grounds 8, 10 and 11. At the time he served the notice I was more than 8 weeks in arrears. However as of this week I am not in any arrears at all and completely up to date with my rent. The court hearing is in about 8 weeks. I've just gone through the paperwork from the court and in the landlord's claim he is saying that he has served me the S.8 notice (which indeed he has) but he is also claiming that a Section 21 notice has expired and that he wants Possession on the basis that I've "ignored" an expired Section 21 notice. I have lived in the property for 6 years. 3 years on AST tenancies that were renewed each year and the past 3 years on a periodic tenancy. I have not received any Section 21 notice. Can a landlord actually bring single proceedings on the grounds of both Section 21 AND Section 8? I thought they would need to make two separate court applications. I also thought they would actually need to serve a Section 21 if they are going to rely on that.
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A family member has kindly offered to lend me the money to clear the arrears in full. So as of two days ago I have no rent arrears whatsoever. I will obviously continue paying my monthly rent as usual. On the hearing date I will therefore be completely up to date with the rent. How does that affect my case?
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Hi Mariner, if the judges usually stay most Possession Orders for 14 days then what makes you say "I would expect Judge to grant a min 28 days even if he issues a repo order"?
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Thanks for your reply Ray. I have hired a solicitor but as I stated above I am not sure he is taking the right approach. I will definitely go to the hearing. The solicitor claims to have experience of the local court where the hearing is being held and he is adamant that the judges tend to take the tenant's side in many cases and are very reluctant to give outright possession on discretionary grounds. You are right, the LL could issue a Section 21 notice if he really wants me out. He hasn't issued one as of yet even though I'm only in a periodic tenancy.
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Just reading through your response again. Tiny bit confused here as there will be no mandatory ground at court hearing as my arrears will be down to 6 weeks. I've also been led to believe that since grounds 10 and 11 are discretionary grounds the Judge is not particularly likely to make a Possession Order on those grounds alone, and is more likely to make a suspended possession order if anything? Have I been misled on this as well??
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Lea, thank you for your reply. My reason for posting here despite having a solicitor acting for me is that I did not 100% "buy" my solicitor's claim that the hearing will definitely be adjourned. I have spoken to him about my concerns and he has actually ASSURED me that I have nothing to worry about. Clearly if a Possession Order were to be granted at the hearing date I would only have about 2 weeks to move out and find a new place to live. I expressed this concern to my solicitor and mentioned to him that I should begin looking for a new home. He assured me that the judge only has on average 5 minutes to deal with each Possession Hearing and that where there are complications like a disrepair counterclaim the judge will pretty much automatically adjourn the hearing. To add a little more background, my landlord already knows about all the disrepair and has been warned that if he doesn't sort out the repairs we will claim against him, so this isn't something that's just going to be popping up out of nowhere at the hearing. Landlord has been ignoring all requests to make good on repairs for about 2 and a half years now. The hearing is 8 weeks from now.
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I posted in a separate thread about the eviction proceedings I am facing. I have hired a solicitor to help me defend the Possession Claim and try to keep my home. I am 12 weeks in arrears but am paying the arrears down and will be at about 6 weeks arrears by the court hearing date. When my solicitor went through all the paperwork between me and the landlord the solicitor noticed that I'd written to the landlord repeatedly asking them to fix various things in my home that are severely damaged. Including severe water damage and leaks. My solicitor immediately swooped on this and had advised me to bring a counterclaim for disrepair against the landlord. The solicitor claims that this counterclaim for disrepair will mean that the judge at the hearing won't make a ruling about the Possession Claim on the initial hearing date but will instead adjourn proceedings while the disrepair claim is looked into. My solicitor seems extremely confident of this. Is it true? I've never heard of it before. I do have a hefty paper trail of my unmet requests to have all the serious damage in my home fixed and I also have photographic evidence of the damage.
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I've been renting my home for 6 years. Over the past months I've accrued rent arrears for the first time ever due to serious illness. The arrears are at 12 weeks. The landlord has served a Section 8 notice giving the grounds of 2 months or more arrears. I've now received a Possession Order claim form from the court giving me a hearing date. On the same date of the hearing I've got an appointment with a Consultant at the hospital which i had to wait 7 months on the waiting list to get. If I go to the hearing I will have to miss my hospital appointment and wait another 7 months or so to get a new appointment. By the hearing date I will have reduced my arrears to below 2 months but I still think it is important that I attend the hearing in person to try to defend myself. My question is can I apply to the court, sending my appointment letter from the hospital as proof, and ask them to consider adjourning the hearing date to an alternate date?
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