Small Claims Court - Ex-tennants want rent back

J

juliemarsh

Guest
Help!!!!

I was wondering whether you could give me some advice on the following.

I have been issued with Court Proceedings (Small Claims Court) from some ex tenants.

I have attached the correspondence from the court and advise of what to put from the lettings agents who are managing the flat but in short-:

I am living in Australia at the moment and have let out my flat (through letting agents)
The ex tenants gave notice but failed to return the keys and had some things left in the flat for a further three weeks (a bed, a couple of lamps, cleaning equipment, some pasta, pasta sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper and a cleaning list half ticked)
They are claiming that I had vacant possession of the flat during those three weeks (even though they still had the keys and still had things left there)
The management agent took rent from their deposit for the three weeks as well as charging them for cleaning and removal of furniture (things left)
They have now gone to the small claims court to try and get me to pay them back the rent charged for that period.


What I would like to know is-:

*Can they take me to court/serve me when I do not live in the UK? The court letter says I have to supply an address. What happens if I don't?
*I do not have a UK address to be served at as the court are requesting? *What should I do? My parents do live in the UK but are not happy having it served at their address and I don't blame them!
*Do they have a case?
*What should I be showing in my defence?

They originally tried to claim against the letting agents but were told by the court they would have to take action against me.

I would appreciate any help and advice that you could give me on this matter.

Check out documents with names omitted by logging into [email protected] -Password -Unamused

If you want to e-mail me directly - [email protected]
 
juliemarsh said:
...Can they take me to court/serve me when I do not live in the UK? ....*I do not have a UK address to be served at as the court are requesting? *....My parents do live in the UK but are not happy having it served at their address and I don't blame them!
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Is this a UK issue? This is an Irish site. It is unlikely that our readers will know much about UK law etc.
 
bacchus said:
Free to setup hotmail account and clever way to share a document...
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Have often used Campus.ie filestorage with generic names/passwords for the same. People do get confused when you explain it to them though.
 
ubiquitous said:
Hope nobody uses this address to distribute nefarious and/or illegal material...
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Works fine if it's a one off transfer to an individual (not a public forum) where the password can be changed imediatly after and the other person is a trusted contact.
 
Whether it's UK or IR, if the letting agency can prove that they didn't hand back keys and that their stuff was still in the apartment, I imagine you'll be ok. If the UK is like Ireland then going to small claims court is inexpensive so they're probably chancing their arm. Why can't your address be care of the letting agent?
 
As I thought the SCC in Ireland does not deal with this type of dispute.

from oasis.

Claims can no longer be made in the Small Claims Court for the non-return of rent deposits - this is now handled by the . Claims cannot be made in the Small Claims Court for debts, personal injuries or breach of leasing agreements. The procedure is designed to deal with consumer claims up to 2,000 euro.
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