Small Claims Tenancy Deposit
Submitted by Livermoon on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 02:18
Hello, I've just been through the small claims procedure trying to get my tenant deposit back from 2006. The judge found in my favour after the landlady failed to appear at court awarding me the £450 deposit plus expenses. A month has passed by and I have still not received the money. Looking on the courts website, it appears my options are:
warrant
bankruptcy
freeze account
Warrant is a non starter as it says minimum of £5000, bankruptcy is expensive and freezing account can not be done if it is a joint account (which I think it is). My landlady now lives in the Isle of Man.
I would just like to ask if there are any options still open to me to get my money back.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I think you have
I think you have misunderstood the warrant. If it is OVER 5k, then it is more complicated as you have to use the High Court Enforcement Officers. Below 5k and the county court bailiffs can enforce the warrant - and will seize goods to the value of the claim.
Your other options are an attachment to earnings order (if the person is employed); a charging order (if they own property); third party debt order (but not if someone else has an entitlement to the money).
The biggest question you will have to ask yourself is whether paying more fees to collect the money is worth your while.
RE: I think you have
BlueView, many thanks for your advice. I think a warrant might be the best option then. This will cost a further £100 which I presume is added to the debters bill. The only thing worrying me is the fact the debter now lives in the Isle of Man. Can a County Court Warrant be executed in the Isle of Man? If not, the £100 will go down the drain.
Thanks again BlueView
Was the defendant living in
Was the defendant living in the IOM when you issued proceedings, or did she move there following you obtaining judgment? If the former, then even if you were to enforce the warrant (see next para), she would probably request the judgment be set aside on the basis that she wasn't in the jurisdiction at the time of judgment (and she'd succeed).
As far as I am aware, a validly obtained CCJ can be enforced in the Isle of Man under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Arrangements) Act 1933,but needs to be transferred to the High Court in England first (something to do with'superior courts' issues in IOM and other such places).
RE: Was the defendant living
The landlady was living in the IOM when the proceedings were issued unfortunately. She did and still does own several properties in England and runs a website from the IOM putting customers in touch with a Property Manager in the UK.
Glad that CCJ's can be enforced in the IOM, however transferring to the High Court sounds expensive. I now know why she didn't bother sending a defence to the court or indeed turning up, she new that this wasn't going to go anywhere.
Lessons learnt.
You can issue proceedings in
You can issue proceedings in IOM and gain a judgment there instead.
It all depends on whether you want to spend more time, effort and money on this.
Mind you, you could try a charging order on one of her UK properties - it might force her to request that the judgment be set aside, which might bring her back into the jurisdiction. But it is probably easier to issue proceedings in IOM and produce the CCJ from England as evidence. Manx law is different to English law, so you'd quite possibly need to instruct a solicitor there to make a claim.
RE: You can issue proceedings in
The charging order sounds like the best bet to me. I don't fancy going through the rigmarole of the small claims in the IOM only to be disappointed and out of pocket again. I'll look into it tomorrow.