UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello

Looking for advice. My tenant's have received an accelerated possession order to leave my property by 30 December, however it also gives a hearing date of 30 December where the hearing may be extended. They rang the court and the court advised that the 30 December is the date for them to peacefully leave. They have told me they will go to the hearing and will go from there. How likely is it that they will be given an extended date? They were meant to leave early August.

Also, the tenant has said I will have to get bailiffs to get him out. Is this something I do through the government website using the warrant for possession of land form? And how can I claim the cost for bailiffs back from him? I know the original possession order form was ticked to say he had to pay the cost of the accelerated possession order claim, but nothing has been said re bailiffs.

The shortest amount of time the tenant can be given to leave is 14 days, and the longest is 42. The most that any hearing can do is to extend whatever the original time period was to the maximum 42 days. So it will run out in January even if they're successful.

The basis of any extension is that the shorter period would cause "exceptional hardship" which a longer period would ameliorate in some way. It's meant to be a high threshold - the tenants losing their home, so it would have to be a lot more than the obvious consequences of that. But courts seem pretty relaxed about allowing it (and in many cases, like this one, the court time scales are so long that some delay is inevitable.

Once the court mandated date has passed, you can apply for county court bailiffs. The alternative is to pay extra and apply to use High Court Enforcement which is likely to have a shorter lead time, particularly in big cities.

You can claim the bailiff costs back from the tenant (usually through Money Claim Online) along with the other fees that they owe you.

Thank you. The hearing has been & gone, and as you quite rightly said, they have been given a new possession date of 24 January. The Tenant has said all along that they will be waiting for Bailiffs (advised by the council). The judge suggested that "after/on" the 24 January I could request bailiffs. Would you suggest I do it now (due to wait times), or will it be disregarded if the date hasn't happened yet? I just want to get ahead of the wait time, as I have a buyer for my property. Thank you

You have to wait until after 24th January. You can investigate escalating the claim to High Court Enforcement.