Following on from this thread we've started a Fast-Track case against the tenants and I need to provide a list of documents for the court (standard disclosure).

To recap: Tenant taking on through letting agent in 2008, after two years sacked the agent (2010) and let direct to the tenant using a contract sourced from riky.co.uk which was signed by me but not by the tenant.
Tenant moved out in Oct 11, left unclean houes, damage and rubbish and unpaid rent. Tenenat left the property part way through the moving out inspection as soon as we said we weren't going to be returning the deposit so we couldn't finalsie it with them in attendance.
DPS wouldn't entertain us retaining the deposit as we couldn't provide the original schedule nor a signed contract. Total claim is in excess of £6k with court costs.

We now have a copy of the original letting agents signed contract, together with a copy of the original moving in schedule.

So my list of docs will be:

original signed contract
original schedule
revised contrat - not sure if this should be included?
transcript of text from tenant advising of leaving date
transcript of text from me advising acceptance
email from me stating reasons for retaining the deposit
copy of final inspection report, including supporting photos
emails from the tenants saying we should give them the deposit back
DPS claim form and supporting documents
DPS final decision
Copy of Letter Before Action to the tenant
Statement of claim for the Small Claims court
Tenants defence statement

Standard disclosure statement

Two questions:
1/ Have I missed anything?
2/ What are the odds of getting a result?

Cheers

The court decided to put it through on Fast-track, next level up from small claims.

I'm out £450 in court costs already, with another £650 to find by September, then its just waiting for the final hearing in November (scheduled for 3 hours). Good money after bad? Maybe, but with the contract(s) and schedules and supporting photos I feel I've got a strong case. My concern is whether or not there is a legal contract, given that we binned the letting agent and the tenant didn't sign the new contract.

Does the old contract then follow on?

Not sure, but after the first fixed term it just becomes a rolling contract with 1 month notice required from tenant side and 2 months notice from landlord side to terminate, I think.

Yeah, thats normal. The original contract deposit was returned when the agents were binned, and I set up the new deposit with the DPS but iirc a contract needs an offer, an acceptance and a consideration: we offered a new contract and by paying the rent for a further 2 years, did they then accept the new contract?

Do you have any communications from them accepting the contract (ie. text message from them with "yep, looks ok" on it or anything like that)?

What does your legal advice say?

Nothing at all, except that they paid the rent into my account for two years

Legal advice? Whats that?? Thats what PH is for, shirly?

If the old contract ended some time in 2010 and they moved out, owing rent, in October 2011, I can't see that they were paying you for 2 years under the new contract.

Just spoke to my friendly solicitor, she says that the legal arguement is that the original tenancy didn't end until Oct 2011, even though the letting agents were taken out of the game, and as the tenants didn't sign the new contract, then the old one applies.

How would the old one apply? It's between the tenant and the letting agency. Not the tenant and the OP.

Thats what the original contract implies: the agreement is between the landlord and tenant, the agent is merely the agent for the landlord, not a substantive party to the contract.