Here is a question to the blog clinic from Teresa who is a landlord:
Tenants deposit was not put into a deposit scheme.
Tenant refuses to leave house and has not payed rent for over 14 months. we have had previous court sessions ( tenant must have wrote the book on how not to get evicted, he used every excuse going, benefits not sorted,post never receives it, lost papers etc) and judge always accepted his lies bearing in mind there has been a different judge time and case adjured again.
Ran out of money to continue court action. He does not accept registered mail and refuses to answer door.
How do I evict him? Tenancy ended Nov 2010
The FIRST thing you need to do is to protect the deposit. If you do not it will put you in the wrong and your tenant will be able to wrong foot you in any claim for possession. Do it today. As the fixed term has ended you will need to use the DPS as I don’t think the other organisations will accept it.
Then you will need to either proceed with your current claim for possession or end that and start a new one (although you need to be careful about ending litigation as it may authomatically make you liable for your opponents costs).
The ONLY way you can legally evict a tenant who will not move out voluntarily is via a court order for possession.
Most solicitors will be reluctant to take on a case which has already started, and if they do the costs will generally be high. However you may be able to get some guidance on eviction proceedings from my do it yourself kits, which you can read about here.
By the way, it was only the fixed term which ended in Nov 2010. The tenancy will have continued as a periodic tenancy.
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Was this person not using Ground 8 then? I thought under North British -v- Matthews the “it’s all the fault of Housing Benefit stuffing up” line wasn’t considered good enough to justify adjourning out a Ground 8 claim?
If he doesn’t accept registered post or answer the door, slide the notice etc. under the door or put it through the letterbox yourself.