I currently have a court possession claim in progress to evict my tenant. The tenant has legal aid solicitor represenating them and has put in some defence and counterclaim (most are lies which i have evidence for anyways). I have a court hearing soon.
The tenant and I have tried to come to an agreement and they have advised me that they want they want to be evicted via section 21 route (better for them to be reshoused by council). They have spoken to their legal rep who have advised them that I need to close my original claim down.
However i am worried now that if i do do this, will their legal aid rep send me a bill for the services provided to date for the tenant? If this is the case then i’m thinking i may as well fight it in court as i am confident i have a good chance of winning with all the evidence i can provide.
At the moment i don’t have legal representation myself but looking to get this soon if i continue to fight this.
They are not on your side so I suggest you ignore their advice. Get you own legal advice if you’re not sure, or join the NRLA and call their helpline.
If your possession claim is already in progress then I suggest you let that run as you’ve already paid for it anyway and you might win. I assume that this was with section 8? If so, which grounds? Are you claiming under ground 8? If so, I assume that one of their counterclaims is for disrepair. You need to take evidence with you that this is false, such as reports from inspections, emails and texts from the tenant where they don’t mention any disrepair or they say everything is fine, recent photos of the inside of the property if you have any etc. If there are substantial arrears, (many months), then even a disrepair claim by the tenant isn’t going to reduce the amount owed to less than 2 months, so you would stand a good chance.
I am registered with NRLA but unfortunately they don’t really offer advice on this sort of thing (called them and asked).
Yes section 8 for rent arrears but also added other grounds (consistently late payments).
Also yes their defence is “unlawful rent increase” due to not using S13 although i have proof it was mutally agreed and tenant started paying new amount and of course the same old disrepair claim to which i also have proof of tenant not allowing us to carry out repairs to the property.
I did also serve s21 at same time as S8 as backup. The only thing about S21 is i no longer have tenancy agreement (lost it during my house renovations) but have all other documents (EPC, Gas etc etc) so either way it’s going to end up in court.
However i do think you are right, i need to just see this through. Thank you for the advice.
Rent increases can be agreed informally perfectly legally. I do it all the time. I think that there is case law that one payment is enough to make it binding.