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Question Title: Possession claim
| Question: 372 |
| We are making a possession claim through the local county court using the Accelerated Possession Procedure (APP). Recently, one county court judge has returned our claim form as invalid. He said that we must include the landlord's full address on the claim form, not a c/o address supplied by our firm as the landlord's managing agents. Previously, the court accepted our forms completed in this way. Are the court correct in rejecting our claim ?
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| Answer: |
| The court is technically correct in its assertion. The Civil Procedure Rules state in Rule 6.5(1) that - "Except as provided by Section III of this Part (service out of the jurisdiction) a document must be served within the jurisdiction. (2) A party must give an address for service within the jurisdiction. (3) Where a party - (a) does not give the business address of his solicitor as his address for service; and (b) resides or carries on business within the jurisdiction, he must give his residence or place of business as his address for service." As will be seen from the wording of the Rule, there are 3 options for the address for service: the personal address of the claimant; the business address of the claimant or the business address of the claimant's solicitor. Whilst there is a line of case law that establishes that agents are allowed to provide a 'c/o' address for the landlord when serving notices under the Housing Act 1988, we are aware of no similar rulings for completion of the landlord's address on the court possession forms. At best, we can only say that this is a grey area which, in your case, forces the landlord to reveal his own address if he resides within the geographic jurisdiction of this particular county court. The only other possibility would be to appeal the judge's decision and argue that the managing agent's address was also the business address of the landlord. Indeed the use of "c/o" is the only thing that would have brought the issue to the attention of the Court. It may be that other county court judges take a more pragmatic view of the purpose of the rules; hence the absence of a problem in the previous cases to which you refer.
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References:
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Pages:
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Hyperlinks:
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Letting Update Journal |
Jan 1999 page 20 |
letting-update-journal.html
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Letting Handbook |
Chapter 12 |
letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
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Letting Factsheet No 20 |
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factsheet-20
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For more information, discuss on the Forum
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