Esther Marshall
Legal
Court to halt bailiff evictions
Landlords are already facing extensive delays when it comes to evicting residential tenants. The courts have an extensive back log, so possession claims are taking much longer than normal to be processed and if a hearing is needed, the waiting times for hearings are long.
Central London County Court, which is based at the Royal Courts of Justice, has recently announced that it has suspended all County Court Bailiff appointments for the foreseeable future. Therefore if your possession claim falls within the jurisdiction of this court, at the moment you cannot get a county court bailiff to carry out your eviction. An official spokesperson for the HMCTS advised ‘The safety of all bailiffs is of paramount importance. We are sourcing bespoke Personal Protective Equipment to ensure that all evictions can go ahead safely and securely’
Possession proceedings have to be issued in the court local to the property, so Landlords do not have the options of issuing those proceedings elsewhere.
It would appear at the moment, that the only option to Landlords, will be to seek permission to transfer up the proceedings to the High Court, to allow them to instruct the High Court Bailiff to carry out the eviction, this will be an additional expense for Landlords.
We would advise Landlords, to attempt to seek permission for the transfer up when they seek their possession order, if the permission is not obtained at this stage an application will need to be made to the court.
Holly Minney, Head of Dispute Resolution, said:
“This is another hurdle for landlords to have to jump over, the current waiting time for an eviction to take place is already lengthy and this will just add to that back log.”