Today, Philip Nam represented a Landlord in St Helens in a Section 8 possession case. The case was dismissed.
This time the Landlord had solicitors (my only involvement was for the hearing and not the court papers).
The lessons from today:
– If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
The Landlord’s solicitors had used the standard court form (Particulars of Claim) which has a tick box for claiming costs. These forms are available in WORD so can be edited (PDFs can be edited too btw). The AST had a contractual clause which said that if the tenant breached the tenancy or not paid rent and proceedings were issued, the tenant is liable to pay the costs.
The general rule (of Court proceedings) is that the loser does not recover costs. This can be overridden by a contractual clause in the AST. The Judge accepted that however, the POCs did not ask for contractual costs and made no mention of the clause. Therefore, the Judge declined to award the costs because they were not asked for in the POC. As such, the Landlord missed out on recovering his court fee and his solicitors costs when they could have done so.
The lesson for landlords is to ensure your solicitors are asking for everything available in the court papers.
– If you are the Claimant, you have to prove the case.
The Ground 8 (Mandatory) claim failed. The discretionary grounds (10 and 11) were still available.
However the Landlord had failed to provide any evidence as to why it was reasonable for the Court to grant possession. They did point out that there had been persistent delays in paying the rent but Judges need more than that.
As such, the Judge did not hesitate and found it was not reasonable for the tenants to give up possession.
Paragraph 8 of the Particulars of Claim is the part of the form which enables the Landlord to tell the Court information which may help decide on whether it is reasonable to grant possession.
Any questions or support with the above please email us at: philip@whitecollarlegalandadmin.com or phone 0151 230 8931.