Buying a house (and renting)

twitter.com/Ifti217/status/1336049519860051970

Ecno wrote:
These banana splits are only trying to frighten people with these sorts of letters.

Lagamorph wrote:As far as I'm aware they can't claim legal costs in small claims court unless they can prove that you have behaved unreasonably.

https://www.hughes-paddison.co.uk/site/ ... of%20money.

https://www.compactlaw.co.uk/free-legal ... costs.html

Moggy wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:As far as I'm aware they can't claim legal costs in small claims court unless they can prove that you have behaved unreasonably.

https://www.hughes-paddison.co.uk/site/ ... of%20money.

https://www.compactlaw.co.uk/free-legal ... costs.html

It's not the small claims court. The First Tier Tribunal is set up to deal with leasehold issues.

On the form I completed, I had to tick a box to say that the landlord would be responsible for any legal costs they incur. This is them saying they will fight that and try and charge me for any costs. I have no idea if they would win that.

You usually have to pay your own expenses and legal costs if you’re involved in a residential property case before the Tribunal.

Costs can be awarded by the Tribunal when:

there is a written contract (usually a lease) allowing a party (usually a landlord) to claim costs from the other party or parties (usually a tenant)
an Act of Parliament says so
a party’s representative has unreasonably increased costs incurred by another party (sometimes called a ‘wasted costs’ order)
a party has unreasonably, brought, defended or conducted a case before the tribunal

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... amber-t547

To pay the landlord on demand within 28 days all reasonable and proper costs, charges, expenses (including legal costs and surveyors fees and other professional fees and any commission payable to a bailiff where appropriate), losses and liabilities which may be reasonably and properly incurred by the landlord

Kezzer wrote:Go to the papers, being forced to pay £6000 before Christmas etc... etc...

That's not a growth wrote:Stay the course, this is their only play - to scare you into giving up. strawberry float them up, you've got this.

sawyerpip wrote:Assuming you haven't missed some huge details in this thread then I can't see that there's any chance a tribunal would award costs because of unreasonableness. Haven't you received legal advice yourself which suggested you go down this route? I think it would be absolutely clear that you haven't applied to the tribunal in bad faith or without a reasonable expectation that you have a case to claim back the £6,000.

I'm no expert so it probably doesn't help to set your mind at ease, but as you've said it seems clear to me they are trying to scare you. They sound like complete banana splits to be honest.

Moggy wrote:

That's not a growth wrote:Stay the course, this is their only play - to scare you into giving up. strawberry float them up, you've got this.

I think I'll stay the course but they have really scared me now. strawberry floaters.

sawyerpip wrote:Assuming you haven't missed some huge details in this thread then I can't see that there's any chance a tribunal would award costs because of unreasonableness. Haven't you received legal advice yourself which suggested you go down this route? I think it would be absolutely clear that you haven't applied to the tribunal in bad faith or without a reasonable expectation that you have a case to claim back the £6,000.

I'm no expert so it probably doesn't help to set your mind at ease, but as you've said it seems clear to me they are trying to scare you. They sound like complete banana splits to be honest.

It seems impossible that a tribunal could look at the 6 years of paperwork plus the settlement agreement (which I paid and they then went back on!) and rule that I was being unreasonable or malicious. This latest letter is just to scare me I'm sure.

It's worked though, I'm really rattled by this.

It's telling in their letter that they ignore the broken settlement agreement though, they focus only on the Section 20, which isn't really the current complaint. If I was reading all this paperwork for somebody else, I'd be saying what TNAG said. It's scarier when it's personal though!

I emailed my MP, dunno if I'll get anything useful from her, but she's the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing so maybe she'll be able to help somehow!

Moggy wrote:Twats have emailed me a letter.

Thank you for your email dated 22nd November 2020 together with the attached application to the First Tier Tribunal (FTT).

In the first instance please be advised that Money Claims can only be determined by the County Courts whilst the FTT can only determine issues relating to Leasehold disputes i.e. rent, service charge, management issues, breach of lease covenants and any other ‘relevant’ matters affecting the lease provisions. As you can see the scope of the FTT is very restricted and your application will be specifically limited by their remit.

In your submission it appears the document is requesting the return of £6k or an award of that sum based on the fact you believe the correct protocols were not followed in relation to the Section 20 (S20) process.

We will naturally defend your allegations by presenting and illustrating to the FTT that all leaseholders received all the documentation associated with the S20 process. We will also submit supporting emails received from you and your fellow leaseholders all illustrating that comments and questions contained in those emails could only have come about if the S20 process had been fully complied with.

In order to cement our evidence with the FTT panel they will be presented with Royal Mail certificates of posting for each of the letters sent to leaseholders at every stage of the process which have been independently verified.

It has also come to our attention that you indicated we should not be able to claim costs; under normal circumstances this would be complied with. However, having presented our evidence there will be no doubt left in the minds of the FTT panel that your claim was brought about through a malicious application in which you have attempted to circumvent payment of invoices relating to the S20 works which have been issued in full compliance of your lease.

To make it clear we refute any notion of not having complied with the S20 process together with the methodology, timetabling and submission of documents at the appropriate time to all leaseholders.

We as representatives of the Landlord, are going to defend their position through both the FTT and County Court; to that end a Barrister has been instructed and we are currently in the process of preparing our defense. Of course, all costs associated with this matter will be sought at each stage of the proceedings for which you will be personally liable.

They are being disingenuous there, the FTT application is more about them not honouring the settlement agreement we made. And it doesn't matter if they can prove they sent documents, the lease says it has to be hand delivered or recorded delivery.

Still I am now absolutely shitting myself that they are getting a top barrister who will find loopholes to win and then I'll be strawberry floated with a bill for tens of thousands of pounds.

I strawberry floating hate these utter banana splits.

Lex-Man wrote:Hopefully they'll review the case and back down before the tribunal goes ahead. Surely they won't want to spend a bunch of money needlessly on a case they're just going to lose.

andretmzt wrote:That sounds strawberry floating awful, sorry man.

I think they deliberately write these in a way to sound threatening and matter of fact. You know the facts and they are full of gooseberry fool.

Grumpy David wrote:Moggy did you ever post about this issue on the brilliant subreddit legal advice UK? They have actual lawyers and moderate the comments (perhaps too much towards all work and no play) so you should get seriously helpful replies.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/.compact

Also you should set up a CrowdJustice campaign, I'd happily chip in a bit to help fight these bastards in court..

There's also government consultations on leasehold reform which will still be years away from coming into effect but often they are "open" so you can email in suggestions, queries, examples of how the current system has worked etc to help form policy / changes. It'll be too late for you to benefit from it but the stronger the reforms the better for leaseholders and the worse it would be for your freeholder.