UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi
I was issued section 21 and it all went through court, judge awarded possession the landlord but no costs as I went with a defence.
Now landlord is trying to claim back those costs through my deposit scheme.
My question is will she win this and the deposit scheme award her all my deposit against a court order?

Did the judge award costs to you, or no costs?

The general rule is the loser pays, you will have been made aware of this, if they were represented they you will be liable for their legal costs and the Court Fee.  Typically you are looking at under £2k for a simple case.

If you have a legitimate defence that the Judge did not agree with then you can ask for permission to appeal at the end of the proceeding, otherwise you have to file the form and pay the fee for it to go to circuit appeal.

I should warn you that such appeals can cost £8k on top of whatever was paid before.

If you are a vulnerable Tenant and were told by the Council to defend the claim then go see them and tell them you are holding them liable.  Usually they tell vulnerable people not to defend the claim in which case it is usually just the Court Fee of £355

If you believe the costs are massively excessive you can ask for a costs assessment, this can cost you an extra £550 odd but I warn you it is a rigged system.  It is always better to challenge costs in Court, you should have been given a statement of costs to date just before going to Court.

One final bit of payback may be available if the Landlord failed to protect your deposit and serve you a legally compliant Prescribed Information relating to said deposit.  Basically both of these needed to be done within 30 days of the money being taken.  The deposit should not have been more than 5 weeks rent or else the S21 would be deemed void.  if you agree to ADR with the deposit protection firm then it may be binding, if you have a valid claim it is sometimes better to decline the ADR and ask the County Court to deal with it.

Other things that void an S21 are shown on the notes for the Form 6a (Section 21 notice) available at

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65045a2b6771b9000dfdab61/Notes_to_form_6A.pdf

Remember you are limited to 28 days to appeal, it is possible you can ask anyway citing all kinds of lame excuses but do not appeal if you do not have SOLID grounds.

Quote from: Disgruntledtenant24 on January 08, 2025, 05:44:05 PMHi
I was issued section 21 and it all went through court, judge awarded possession the landlord but no costs as I went with a defence.
Now landlord is trying to claim back those costs through my deposit scheme.
My question is will she win this and the deposit scheme award her all my deposit against a court order?