Scared of being sued
Question
Help! My landlord's taking me to court and I don't know what to do. Last year I lived with three other students, we were on a joint tenancy but things got a bit complicated.
The others didn't pay their rent and although I paid all of mine, I ended up moving out before the end of the tenancy. I tried to contact the landlord at the time but he never got back to me about it.
Now, after all this time, he's using my university to get letters to me; letters saying he's going to take me to court. Can he do this? Is he able to take me to court without having my address? Can he get information about me without my permission? What's going to happen? I'm really worried about it all.
Answer
If you moved out before the end of the joint tenancy then you are still responsible for the rent until the tenancy is ended. Until the tenancy ends, you would all be equally responsible for the rent. Your landlord could ask you for your share and any rent the others owe.
Your landlord can take court action to claim this rent money from you and he can do so even if he doesn't have your current address. But he can only do this up to the time when you would have been able to end the tenancy.
He will only be able to get this money from you if it wasn't possible to re-let the property during the period you were supposed to live there. If he did let out the property, he can't charge you rent as well as the new tenants. The court would decide whether you should pay your landlord the money or not, and if the landlord doesn't try to let out the property in the meantime, the court is likely to reduce the amount of money you will have to pay.
If you had all agreed to pay a share of the rent to the landlord, say a quarter of the rent each, you may be able to argue that the other joint tenants owe you the money because you all entered into the contract with the landlord. If this is the case, you may be able to take the other joint tenants to court if the landlord is trying to claim all their rent from you as well. If the money you wanted to claim was less than £5,000, you could use the small claims court to recover the money.
We would recommend that you get further information and assistance with this from your local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). In addition, the Court Service also provides information about what to do if a claim is being made against you.
Updated: 07/09/2012
Question answered by Shelter
