Hi

Wondered if anyone out there can help regarding advice for taking an evil, (I think), landlord through a small claims court, really unclear of what to do but would appreciate any experiences people have with the small claims system.

Here is the story so far, if interested in the details,

Nearly one year back my girlfriend was leaving her 'luxury' flat she then shared with her now Ex-partner. As she and her Ex where splitting up at this point, allthough both still paying the rent, only she lived there. As such the rent was too much for one person, she decided to give notice ASAP.

In November 2004 she telephoned her landlord to give notice. The (unamed for legal reasons) Landlord, said via telephone that he understood and was fine about the leaving date, (this leaving date was in fact the natural period of notice for the tenancy anyway and not anything less).

Also as nothing was in writing under my advice my girlfriend also left a letter for the landlord confirming these dates in writing.

Due to personal reasons, eventually in March 2005, it became more prudent to try to recover her bond. Before this point it had been asked for on many occasions via telephone, but to no avail, typically, my girlfriend whose first language is not english, was told she wasn't understood and he simply hung up. I must point out he had no problems when she was still paying him money. When attempting to ring on her behalf he simply says I cannot talk and hangs up.

We decided to try and contact my girlfriends employers the University who are able to pursue these matters on the behalf of students and staff. After two months they wrote to us saying no letters had been returned but as she isn't a student they are not willing to undertake legal proceedings.

We are about to do this ourselves but wondered what experiences anyone has of small claims courts and what can happen, what we have to do etc etc??

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

Contact a Citizen's Advice Bureau, STAT!!!!!

They can give you the information you need, *FOR FREE* and where you can go to take this further, if that is necessary.

Some C-A-B's even have a specialist housing advisor, (I know that Sharrow CAB,on London Road, at Heeley bottom has a specialist team, because they helped me with rent problems with my landlord)

Hope this helps

*EDIT* the nearest CAB's to you would be Firth park perhaps or Pitsmoor, at Spital Hill

PT

Before you go any further try one of the following:
Housing Aid - (0114) 273 5450 - lines open 1pm to 4pm
Sheffield Law Centre - (0114) 273 1888
Shelter Advice Line - 0808 800 4444 - lines 8am to midnight
I've spoken to people at Shelter before and they are really excellent - try them first.

I see your post was put up a little while ago but was interested to see how you got on.

I hope you've pursued this.

I ended up taking a greedy, money grabbing landlord to court. It was a difficult and long drawn out process but it was worth it when we went to court and we won. Courts generally favour on the side of the tenant, so go for it.

We'd had constant problems with a blocked drain in our rented flat almost from the day we moved in.. When we moved out he kept £500 out of our bond to pay for unblocking the drains on two occasions;once the first time - and even tried to charge for unblocking them after we moved out even though the sink was working fine when we left - and he witnessed this.

There was no way it was our liability, no way it would ever cost that much and no way I was going to give in!

I couldn't recommend or praise the Citizen's Advice Burea highly enough - or Housing Aid.

There is a specific process to follow. I still have all my paperwork so if you need any help, please feel free to PM me.

I feel very strongly about Landlords doing things like this - we actually ended up buying our own place after our experience as it was so upsetting.

Good luck.

H x