Stitched up by ex tenant. Legal question.

[Chris_H]

I had to evict my previous tenant because she was terrible at paying the rent and was forever behind. When she left she owed me £1200. I wrote to her at her new address and told her I'd give her three months to pay me. If after three months she'd made no effort then I'd take her to court.
I never received a penny so I filed a HMCS money claim online claim. This morning it's all been returned by the court because when the ex tenant received it, she obviously twigged what it was and has sent it back with 'not known at this address' on the envelope.
Now I know she lives there but am not sure what more I can do. I've since heard that she owes money left right and centre so I may well be wasting my time.
Is there anything (legal) I can do that would allow me to proceed with this?

Chris

[Cara Van Man]

Find the biggest pair of hob nailed boots you can, put them on, then kick her in the for half an hour.

It wont get you your money, but you'll feel better.

Incidentally, wearing hob nailed boots makes it legal.

[E36GUY]

Take the document. Go to her house with a witness and deliver it to her by hand.

[GreenDog]

Confront her face to face - not as easy to ignore than a letter in the post

[lunarscope]

Is that "Contempt of Court" ?

[MitchT]

Surely you just contact the court and inform them that she is living there, contrary to what she has written on the envelope. I can't imagine that the court will take too kindly to being given the run-around by her.

[OctaneBooster]

Having been in exactly the same position myself, £1700!, my advice is spend not one penny more of your money nor one minute more of your time on this. Forget it. Just be thankful you got your property back and (hopefully!) can let it again. If your new tenant defaults in any way on their lease agreement, begin legal action IMMEDIATELY. You can always stop the action if they put things right, but if they don't you want them out ASAP as arrears of rent are often impossible to collect.

[Lurking Lawyer]

GreenDog said:

Confront her face to face - not as easy to ignore than a letter in the post

Then file a Certificate of Service with the court (it's a pre-printed form - get it here: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/HMCSCourtFinder... ) confirming that you personally served the Defendant, stating the time and date.

The rules entitle you to serve at the last known residence, even if she has in fact moved on. So, it would in theory suffice to just post them through the door. However, to guard against any suggestion that she didn't get the papers, you may feel it's worth the extra time/effort to hand them to her personally.

If she tries to refuse service, you can then just stick them through the door - that will still count as good service.

[Parrot of Doom]

And film it on your phone, with the day's paper in hand

[Miss Pitstop]

I use these guys for work related payment problems. It has worked when people claim not to live at their address, although you do pay a % fee to them if (and only if) they get your money back.

Might be worth a try.

http://www.pjcds.co.uk/

[tobeee]

I think there's a PHer who's company specializes in debt collection, though can't recall the name. Might find something by searching on "debt" or "repayment".

[Chris_H]

Many thanks for your suggestions.

As she lives in a flat which I expect has a spy hole in the door, it's no use me turning up as she'll just not open the door. I may well recruit a couple of volunteers who are unknown to her to go round and hand her the papers.
I will then file a Certificate of Service as suggested by Lurking Lawyer. I've never heard of that so a useful tip!!

I see what you're saying OctaneBooster about not wasting my time and money, but this woman has severely pi55ed me off over a variety of things related to her tenancy and I'm determined to cause her as much legal hassle as I can.

Thanks for the link Miss Pitstopp; I'll certainly use them if all else fails.

Chris

[audidoody]

The thing is that CCJ's s are hardly ever worth the paper they are printed on ... Judgment on its own isn;t enough .. you have to issue an Execution of Judgment claim ... then the Defendant can make a derisory offer which the Court nearly always accepts. The problem is with a CCJ is that the people who let it go that far don't usually give a flying flick they have one on their record.