How to progress with court hearing?

Landlord Discussion Legal
1

Hi, can anyone advised me what process I should use please.

I used PCOL route to evict tenants due to rent arrears (S8). Tenant made it clear they wanted letter for council to house them so this was the best route or so i thought as usually council only help tenants once evicted via a posessions order.
Court hearing was set. Tenant turned up with legal rep and threw some defences so now judge has booked another hearing once defence/counterclaims all issues etc.

Now its clear after discussions with tenant that they misunderstood and thought we were trying to “get them in trouble with the court” so jumped the gun and got legal aid to defend which now clearly has prolonged this whole process. (i don’t even want to go there, waste of my time and money now, i just want them out).

So any ideas how we proceed now. Does the tenant simply cancel their defence on the PCOL site and the judge then just looks at the mandatory ground or do we still need to go to the next hearing and say we’ve resolved between ourselves and no defence so just need posessions order etc etc. I’m confused! please help.
I honestly don’t want to spend money on legal rep considering this was just blown out of proportion over a stupid misunderstanding on tenant part.
Or do i cancel the whole claim at my end and re-do it again?

2

What was the tenants defence? If its disrepair then you need to fix it or have evidence that its false.

5

Hi @David122 amongst some other things it is disrepair. However even before the court proceedings took place even the eviction notice, the tenant has refused acces to the property and i have emails to back this up. However we have come to an agreement but just don’t know how to move forward now.
I will call the court tomorrow to see if they can advise but any ideas if it’s as simple as they cancel their defense online and it proceeds on mandatory ground or do we need to cancel altogether and start again?