Possession Proceedings or Request For Judgement

By Cara Wiltshire, Legal Assistant at Woodstock Legal Services

When landlords are facing arrears they will often contact Woodstock Legal Services to initiate possession proceedings to evict the tenants. However, where the tenant has already vacated and returned the keys, eviction is no longer applicable. In this case the correct legal route to pursue would be a request a money judgement against the tenant.

This can also be used to recover costs for damage to the landlord’s property, which requires a full checkout inventory and invoices for any repairs carried out assist considerably, as the court would want to see these documents before making a judgement.

The Request For Judgement Process

Requesting judgement is something very commonly used in the debt recovery process. This is where the person trying to recover the debt can ask the courts for a judgement on a claim for a specified amount of money. The most common cases Woodstock Legal Services see that require requesting judgement is when tenants owe their landlord rent arrears or costs for damage to the property.

The request will be processed through the courts, who will decide whether or not to grant the judgement. Woodstock will only initiate a request for judgement as a last resort if there has been no response to a money claim or if the claimant disagrees with the amount the defendant has proposed to pay. If the defendant does not reply to the claim, the landlord can ask the court to enter judgement ‘by default’ (that is, make an order that the defendant pay the full amount that has been claimed because no reply has been received).

When requesting judgement, a form known as an N225 is required which includes all the relevant details necessary to make the claim. This will include information such as:

• the name of the claimant(s)
• the name of the defendant(s)
• whether or not the defendant admits that all the money within the claim is owed
• whether a defense against the claim has been filed.

Claimants can also use the form to tell the court whether they accept any proposals for payment the defendant has made and how they would like payment to be made (immediately, in instalments, or at a future date). Most importantly, the details of the debt have to be accurately included. The amount of claim as admitted, any interest costs, court fees and legal costs must be stated in this section.

Once the request has been submitted and the court has received it, they will generate a judgement for the claimant order, which gives the defendant all the details of the monies they owe. Both parties will receive a copy of this judgement.

This now means the debtor will have a County Court Judgement entered against them, ordering them to pay the outstanding debt. If a debtor ignores the judgement, this does not mean it will disappear. The CCJ will now be recorded on the debtor’s credit file for 6 years from the date that it was issued. Further action can also be taken as a result.

Once a judgement from the courts has been made, Woodstock then discuss with the claimant what enforcement options are available to use against the defendant in order to get them to pay the debt. Woodstock’s most common form of enforcement is using High Court enforcement officers who will attend the debtors property in order to collect the money owed or seize goods to sell at auction. This option has the highest success rate for their clients.