Landlords who are taking their tenants to court either typically to serve a section 21 notice or section 8 notice for possession or over making a deduction from a tenancy deposit may be interested to know that they can actually charge for their legal input.
Rules contained within the Ministry of Justice website on court procedures indicate that it is possible for a landlord to charge for their legal input on a case even when they are not a trained solicitor.
The cost charged normally equates to two thirds the rate that a qualified solicitor would charge and there is no cap on the amount although the Judge has considerable discretion on the total charge.
For more details on this see the section 48.6 on litigation in person
It would be nice if that were true but I don't think that applies to most landlords unless their rental business is incorporated as a company. See paragraph 6 where it says:
ReplyDelete"(6) For the purposes of this rule, a litigant in person includes –
(a) a company or other corporation which is acting without a legal representative; and
(b) a barrister, solicitor, solicitor’s employee or other authorised litigator (as defined in the Courts and Legal Services Act 19906 who is acting for himself."
i.e. that doesn't seem to include a private individual acting for themselves, which most landlords are.
Hi Chris, thanks for the comment. The key part of paragraph is "a litigant in person includes-". This means that for a point of clarity the act specifically defines:
ReplyDelete(a) a company or other corporation which is acting without a legal representative; and
(b) a barrister, solicitor, solicitor’s employee or other authorised litigator (as defined in the Courts and Legal Services Act 19906 who is acting for himself.
as a litigant in person. It is assumed that an individual landlord will be automatically be included as such.