Please I am in desperate need of help. My AST is due to

Thank you.

There are really only two ways of dealing with this. You either pay them or if they do issue legal proceedings, you defend them.

You have a defence that the landlord has failed to mitigate his loss by firstly failing to allow you to find another tenant, secondly by him failing to try to get another tenant and thirdly, failing to do the checkout inventory.

The signature in all honesty is neither here and there except that it commits you on paper whereas the commitment arises in any event under the terms of the tenancy agreement.

The agent cannot instigate the legal proceedings on behalf of the landlord because they are not solicitors. If the threatening letters from the agent don’t get money out of you, then it will have to be the landlord that takes you to court although the agent can actually issue the proceedings in the landlord’s name, however this gets to court, the landlord is going to have to do attend court. If the landlord of the property is down as being the name of the agent, they can bring proceedings because they are then not acting on behalf of the landlord but on behalf of themselves. It would be unlikely for the landlord to be the agent (although the landlord can use the agents address) and if the proceedings end up in court with the agent representing the landlord, you can ask for the proceedings to be thrown out on the basis that the agent cannot act for the landlord as they are not solicitors. They would then have to reissue proceedings so all it will do is buy you time.

You do have a reasonable defence however that the landlord is failing to mitigate his loss for the reasons I mentioned earlier so it would be worthwhile writing to the agent in the same terms.

Can I clarify anything else for you?

They probably haven’t been looking very hard, even if they have been looking at all.

If you can find a tenant and then submit those details to them, and they turn the tenant down, that bodes well in your favour if they try to take you to court.

I don’t know if you have the landlord’s details, but don’t be intimidated into not contacting the landlord directly if you are able to.

I think that failing to mitigate his loss is your best bet here. They certainly haven’t done that if you handed notice in November and there have been no viewings until now.

I suggest that you ask them what attempts they have made to mitigate their loss and to get a new tenants. Leave it at that. You can’t do anything about proceedings until they are issued.

You can defend part of the claim on the basis that they have failed to mitigate their loss by trying to get a new tenant and whether that would succeed or not would really depend on what attempts they have made.

If it goes to court and you lose, and provided you pay any money you have been ordered to pay within the time period in the judgement, it’s not registered against you.

If they do take you to court, then it comes down to what the judge orders. There’s no way round that.

There are normally three timescales specified in the judgement order.

Forthwith: meaning immediately.

14 days

28 days.

If you pay the judgement within that period of time, then it’s not registered against you.

If you ask the time to pay, you may get an order to pay an amount of money every week or month depending on your financial circumstances but you would still get a judgement registered against you unless you paid the full amount even though the judgement did grant you time to pay.

Incidentally, depending on the court loading could be 6, 8, 10 or even 12 months before it gets to court. The last court case I took personally to court (someone owed me some money personally) was 10 months before we had a court hearing and of the landlords does issue proceedings when you are concerned your defence of him failing to mitigate his loss is not going to stand up, you could have paid it before it gets to court

It really comes down to whether you want to defend it all you want to come to an arrangement with the landlord now to pay, say, £100 per month. Even if he doesn’t agree, if you would rather pay it than risk court, just keep sending the money regardless of whether he agrees or not.

It may not necessarily go to court if you accept liability but you are only liable up until he gets a new tenant and you have a partial defence if he doesn’t attempt that.

If he does issue proceedings, it will depend on when he does that and whether he has a tenant at that stage as to what the substance of your defence would be.

I am happy to help you with that wording.

Just keep sending him the money regardless of whether he will budge or not and if he ends up in court, and he has a tenant, then his claim for rent is only up to that period at best.

He may have sent the letter but we don’t know whether he’s going to actually issue proceedings or not. Only time will tell.

I am glad to help. The only way that you can deal with this is to deal with his correspondence and any court papers as it arises.

Don’t ignore anything, including his letters.

Don’t forget to tell him that you have taken advice and you will defend any court proceedings on the basis that he was given notice in November, he has adequate time to look to get another tenant, he has failed to mitigate his loss and that is evidenced by the fact that viewings only took place now. He is not entitled to recover rent from now until June and you now require him to show what attempts have been made to find another tenant, between November and now.

At the moment, the best form of defence is to attack him.

Hello again.

That is a normal document and there is nothing onerous in it

I am glad to help. Kind regards.