Hi Guys, really need some advice and would absolutely love to hear from anyone who has been in this position.
In a nutshell, our property was made uninhabitable through no fault of our own, our nightmare of a landlord refused to put us in temporary accommodation while extensive construction went on (we had a 5 month old at the time) and he basically offered no help or rent refund etc. We were forced to move out in to safe accommodation, a proper legal handover with LL was carried out, LL signed off on everything and promised out deposit back within 2 weeks as per the TA...of course this didn't happen.
After an UNBELIEVABLY stressful couple of months, and $6000 down in moving costs/new deposit etc etc, we've taken the LL to small claims court. After hearing the crazy ranting of our LL (who tried to counter sue for $20,000 even after being told several times, SCT only hears up to $10,000) the judge ruled in our favour and ordered the LL to give us our security deposit back, plus 19 days rent since we'd paid for a full month previous to the incident. All of his 'claims' against us were heard and dismissed as irrelevant.
LL immediately replied that he wouldnt pay and was going to appeal in the high court, judge looked bored and urged him to 'think seriously about seeking proper legal advice' before doing that.
Outside the court room, waiting for our ruling to be printed, LL said to us that he was not going to pay no matter what. And, despite clearly having the money and owning 2 properties, I believe he would do ANYTHING to not pay as he's SO stubborn.
He has 2 weeks, until 30th Oct, to pay up. After which time I thought the court would follow up, but Ive just learned that they dont...apparently if we don't enforce the court order, its basically forgotten about.
It wasnt explained to us very well, but from what we've gathered, we have 3 options and honestly, none of them are super appealing so this is where I'd love some advice/first hand knowledge.
We can 'hire' bailiffs of the court with a 'writ of seizure and sale' to go to LL's place and take his stuff up to the value of judges order, plus their own fee. (I would def love more info on this while process if anyone knows it or has personal experience with this!) My understanding is that the risk of doing this is that he may 'hide' anything of value, or we might not get the right address for him, and then end up even more out of pocket having to pay the bailiffs fees ourselves. Or his stuff just might not reach that much in Auction...(for the record, he's an older single guy.)
Second option we were told about is to hire a lawyer, who can file on our behalf to 'garnish wages', basically see what he has in his bank account and just take the amount IF its in there. (again, comes with risks, and either way we're out of pocket with lawyers fees, PLUS we only have his bank details that we paid rent into...if he's moved his money out of there, nothing comes of it.) Finally, private debt collector. (who take around 15% plus a $450 admin fee) Im not sure how they go about getting the money back, it is hassling him/ damaging his credit rating etc?!
Is there anything we can do?? It's such an anti climax to have had so much stress the last couple of months, win the case and then be told its on us to make sure its enforced.
The amount owed to us is $4042...we are a one income family with a new baby (having paid for the birth ourselves due to rubbish insurance) and not on a typical expat package, so hoping not to hear that we should let it go, or its not that much in the grand scheme of things, as it really is to us! Thanks for any advice!
Whatever makes him feel better...!
so when I have more time, I'll make a post in here with all the options we were given.