N208 submitted; General Form Of Judgment/Order received

[smaziam]

Hi All

I submitted my claim (N208 form) against my ex Landlord for not compliance with TDS and unreturned £600 from £1300 original deposit 2 weeks ago. I’ve just received the General Form of Judgment or Order saying:

Before District Judge (court name and address)….etc
Upon reading the claim form dated 02 October 2009 and without a hearing
IT IS ORDERED THAT
Claim shell be treated as issued under Part 7

I just wonder what “without hearing” means and why it’ll be treated under Part 7 if the procedure for not complying with TDS is dealt under Part8.

Thank you all very much for your help and advice. Without this forum I wouldn’t have had any encourage going to the Court at all.
Regards
Monika

[westminster]

I submitted my claim (N208 form) against my ex Landlord for not compliance with TDS and unreturned £600 from £1300 original deposit 2 weeks ago. I’ve just received the General Form of Judgment or Order saying:

Before District Judge (court name and address)….etc
Upon reading the claim form dated 02 October 2009 and without a hearing
IT IS ORDERED THAT
Claim shell be treated as issued under Part 7

I just wonder what “without hearing” means and why it’ll be treated under Part 7 if the procedure for not complying with TDS is dealt under Part8.


"Without a hearing" means that the judge made the decision not in the context of a formal hearing.

The guidelines stating that s.214 claims should be issued under part 8 are fairly recent. It's possible the judge isn't aware of them (esp. if you did not mention the practice direction in your particulars of claim) OR he is aware of them but has decided that it would be more appropriate to proceed under part 7, perhaps because there is a substantial dispute of fact (one of the criteria for using part 8 is that the claimant "seeks the court's decision on a question which is unlikely to involve a substantial dispute of fact"), or because of the size of claim.

It's good news for you as it means the claim is likely to be allocated to the small claims track, where your exposure to the defendant's costs is significantly limited compared to the multi track.

[smaziam]

Thanks very much,