good morning adrian
i have a court hearing on wednesday 23 august 2017 for possession of my property by section 8 which i done online,
it says in your guidance notes that i should have sent all evidence to the court at lesast 7 days prior to the hearing which i have not done , should i do this ?
thanks very much
paul
Question
Applying to Court for Possession — Standard Procedure (England) | Landlord Wants Tenant to Leave (England) | Preventing Controlling and Recovering Rent Arrears (England)
court date for possession using section 8
Answer
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6 Comments
Yes, you should get all the documents stated in our guidance to the court in preparation for the hearing. There shouldn’t be any need to send these to the tenant because they will have already had them (they should have their copy of tenancy, notice etc.).
Hi, Apologies for seemingly contradict your input Adrian but I was in court yesterday for exactly the same thing using the PCOL system. I attempted to clarify with both the PCOL people and the local court, both were unaware of how I could provide such info – each stating it should be provided to the other. Having never gone through the process previously I took anything and everything I thought may be required including DPS info, Test certification, EPC etc etc. The information required by the Judge were, a copy of the tenancy agreement, a copy of the Section 8 notice including the computation of monies owed at time of service, proof of serving the notice comprising the form Adrian has on his website, proof of postage and pictures showing the notice, dated envelope etc being placed in the letterbox and finally an up to date computation of monies owing to date of court hearing. I was granted possession in 14 days which – from my chats with the Judge – seems to be the minimum time. The Judge was only concerned that the dates stated were in accordance with the law and the monies owing originally and most recently were in excess of 2 months. Although others in attendance had Solicitors with them or had Solicitors acting for them in their absence the process was very informal and was no where as onerous as I was expecting. Obviously this was my personal experience and other courts may not be as the one I attended in Merthyr Tydfil. One final thing to mention, I followed the guidelines provided by Adrian on the Guild website 100% and consider that, had I not done so I may have had a more difficult time. I hope your experience proves to be OK and that all turns out well. Regards. Don
Thanks very much for the answer don , got the documents in just on time and now hope all goes well Wednesday. Cheers
No problem Paul, just to clarify my scenario though, which appears to be slightly different to yours and which may be of use to others. In my case I took the associated documents with me and passed them over to the Judge, but from your statements, you have submitted them direct to the court already, prior to the date of the hearing. It maybe that both “options” are acceptable in the grand scale of things. Apologies Adrian but is there some way that this might be able to be confirmed or clarified?.
As a general rule, the court should always have all documents you intend to rely upon before the hearing. As should other parties (i.e. the tenant). In most cases the tenant will already have the documents you intend to rely upon (e.g. tenancy agreement, possession notice etc.) but if there is anything they may not have they should be sent it before the hearing along with the court. There should be no “ambushing” with documents at the hearing which the tenant may not have seen beforehand. That being said, tenants regularly “ambush” in this way but it doesn’t mean to say we should too!
Thanks Adrian, I was possibly fortunate that the tenant was a “no show”, had this not been the case I may have had problems. Rather strange that when I inquired about providing the information in advance of the hearing the PCOL and the local courts each suggested that it should be provided via the other body. If I need to go through the process again I will, without doubt, provide the info direct to the court prior to the hearing.