I went to the court today, still wondering if the solicitor would be there (no contact since December 24th) but I couldn’t bring myself to be the one who emailed since he has to be professional enough to do that if necessary. We had our prior arrangements and unless I hear otherwise I always stick to those.
Met the Salvation Army person outside the court at 2:45pm who’d arranged to come on her day off for moral support (and out of interest). Went inside and through the security check and the security guard confiscated my pen knife from my key ring. I’d gone with minimal possessions but my mind no longer distinguishes the pen knife from the key ring, and it’s an incredibly useful place to keep the pen knife (Swiss Army knife).
My advice is that they don’t take too kindly at a court when you turn up with a knife π and it created an additional hassle whereby they had to inform me of a procedure I need to follow to get it back. Wow what a great start, turning up to a court hearing to defend my case and taking a knife π¬. I continue to cycle through all possible life experiences. You don’t want to see what stuff I’ve tried to board planes with, haha.
We were directed to the third floor and upon arriving there my solicitor appeared!!! By this time it was already 3:15pm with the hearing at 3:30pm (having lost the extra time in security) but thankfully the solicitor chose to do our case second (they double-book) and we ended up with plenty of time to have a meeting before the hearing.
It turned out my solicitor had tried to email me last Friday but received a bounce-back email on Saturday, then tried again on Sunday and he received the second bounce-back during our meeting there π. It turned out my domain expired last Wednesday (I thought I’d set it to autorenew) π€¦ββοΈ. Always complicationsβ¦another mystery solved, but luckily no harm done as I’d brought everything I needed with me.
Now after three months of Forensic Files, sitting through the Derek Chauvin trial last year and recent Djokovic boring civil hearing saga, I’ve lately learned an awful lot in outline about how these legal things work, so walking into a mini-court room in my brand new shirt and trousers was sheer justice/legal porn. Like one of those nerds who finally has the chance to live their dream and demonstrate their armchair expertise. The court room had a good amount of shiny wood panelling which is what you expect.
The landlord and his representative took the two right-hand chairs in a line of four and the solicitor motioned for me to sit in the second-from-left. Considering how I’ve had to construct a literal fort to evade the landlord this past year it was quite uneasy to contemplate sitting within two chairs of him.
We did introductions and it turned out that the landlord’s legal representative was his wife who did all the paperwork π (my solicitor told me afterwards that he’d had exactly the same mental reaction).
Our 15 minute hearing turned into 45 minutes. Our position was that the eviction claim was defective since the landlord hadn’t served the correct version of an important legal information booklet (How To Rent). My solicitor did great.
The landlord’s position came down to the fact that the council had assured the landlord that the council would serve me these documentsβ since it was the council’s Rent Guarantee Scheme which initially housed me here. The initial paperwork was collected by me at the council’s office at the start of the tenancy. On multiple occasions during the hearing the landlord and his wife took a while to understand certain questions and lines of reasoning, and faffed around a bit. They didn’t really get that they couldn’t just phone up the council during the hearing or bring in new evidence out of nowhere.
In the end the judge had to request for the landlord to get a witness statement from the council to the effect that the required up-to-date documents were served to me by the date of the initial eviction notice, and will adjourn another hearing at the earliest date after February 14th π―. It will be interesting to see what comes of that, and what the legal implications are if the council messed up in this situation.
This is already a victory for me since I am just buying time for Launchpad to house me and I’ve probably bought another 6 weeks today, in addition to all of the time since October 4th (initial eviction deadline). The solicitor thinks I am still in a good position. My decision to fill out that defence form at the end of September is still being vindicated :).
My review rating for Civil Hearing: 3/5.

πͺ
Glad it went as well as it could do my friend – despite the knife drama π Hope you can get a bit of stress free (at least with this issue) time now ππ€
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Thanks Charmer π yes indeed. This case seems like it will come entirely down to what the council respond with. May God help me!
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Will keep everything crossed for you π€π€
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And the cat’s paws πΉπ
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Definitely! ππ€
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πΈ
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So it sounds like you had a good day in court. Hopefully things continue to work out in your favor. I’m not sure if I got this right but I think you mentioned you don’t want to continue staying in your current house and you plan on moving soon as they find and approve you for another home? Did I get that right?
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Thank you :).
Exactly that, yes. At the same time though, the Launchpad charity who is trying to house me can only help you if you are actually about to become homeless. So without the eviction they wouldn’t’ve have helped me anyway. But they promise a cleaner environment than what the council would give me.
The council would also only rehouse me if I was actually about to become homeless. But the difference is that Launchpad has much less availability so I need to buy more time for a place with them to become available, especially as they had a fire in a block of flats in November which took out 6 of their flats π€¦ββοΈ. Otherwise they might have housed me already.
At the same time, by August I would be eligible for my own place, whereas both of those current options will be in shared places again so they won’t make a huge difference to things. I am just trying to avoid my living situation becoming worse until August.
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Ohhh ok I think I finally understand. I was confused because I have never heard of Launchpad or council so thank you for explaining it to me. Sorry if I seem nosey lol it just helps me to know what I’m reading ππ. Anyway I sure hope it continues to go in your favor. π
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No not at all! I appreciate you wanting to understand :). Yeah Launchpad is a housing charity and the ‘council’ is the local authority for this area.
Thank you! We’ll find out in next chapter :D.
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What an ongoing drama! You have a way of narrating these events so smoothly. Oh what bad luck with knife thing. The problem is that you make these tragic things sound funny. You’re fighting a good fight, a role model for us all.
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Haha! Well I’m glad I manage it :D. It was genuinely an interesting experience though, and there’s usually some dark humour to be found in most situations :). I think it is my way of increasing the therapeutic effect in writing about experiences by accentuating the absurdities through contrast with comedy.
Thank you.
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Yes I am a huge believer in adding humor even to the worst things.
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You definitely manage it in your blog!
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Thanks π
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