Had my small claims case.

First of all, this scumbag solicitor refused to tell me who his witness is going to be. He's obligated to do that but didn't.

In any event, I knew that he had to bring one of the directors of thc company. So I told him months ago that I don't care which one he brings. He brought the one that he didn't bring last time. It's no problem for me, though. That's actually the one I wanted in the first place.

So anyway, there's a bunch of cases, as usual at that court. A few of them wanted a delay for whatever reasons and those were granted but there were still about three cases left. One of them had interpreters and shit and was already discharged twice for lack of court time so I assumed that they would get priority but I still have a good feeling that my case would go ahead because it's short and I knew the judge.

I'm told to come back in an hour.

I guess he dealt with another case in that hour and then I was told that my case was next. Great.

This scumbag solicitor hands up an amendment to the charges. He wants to reduce the amount sued (finally acknowledging that they received the deposit from the deposit protection sceme) and wants to add a £150 cleaning fee.

So when I'm asked to comment, I object to the cleaning fee because I had no notice. Even before I could get into the argument, the judge says that he's not allowing it because it's late. He does amend the charge to the reduced amount, though.

Then there's the issue of me not being given two months' notice to vacate. So I explain that I gave a certain date to vacate, which was two months' notice, and in response, the letting agent sent me a notice to vacate of only six weeks.

The judge was surprised by this. "Are you saying you gave a date and they then gave you an earlier date?" I say, "yes" and take him to the document which confirms all of this.

So the judge turns to the scumbag solicitor and asks how it's possible that they could be owed rent past this date that the lettings agent gave. I believe that the solicitor was saying that the notice was invalid so couldn't be upheld. Then the judge said to him, "Are you familiar with the concept of (some legal term that I suspect means 'forcing somebody to vacate a property early')". He says that he is familiar with the term. So the judge asks what law he can possibly be relying on to be paid past the date that they gave to vacate. He just said he'd explore it further.

So we calculate how much is owed when you subtract the deposit and the pro-rated rent from the two months of rent. It comes out to £90, which is what I figured previously. So the judge says to the scumbag solicitor, "That's a remarkably low amount to be pursuing." There's also a couple of other solicitors in the room waiting for their case and I see them laughing.

So this scumbag solicitor says, "We asked for the case to be discharged" which doesn't explain anything. This was a scam that they were running. They were trying to extort money that they knew they weren't owed. Long after they physically received this deposit money from the adjudication, I was getting settlement offers of £800 and the like when they knew that they were only owed, even on their submissions, no more than £325. And the court found, as I did, that they were only owed £90.

So then it's my counterclaim. The judge agreed that these admin fees have been abolished but said that he couldn't do anything about it because this lettings company used a third party which acted as a loophole.

Then he just goes through the rest of my claims and says they aren't valid claims and I agree with it.

So the judge advises me to take the settlement offer where they agree to drop the case. This scumbag solicitor says that he needs to speak with his client about this. He leaves and the judge is asking me if I'm keeping busy and what brought me to the UK and he's talking about the job and so on.

Then this scumbag solicitor comes in and says that it's agreeable and they'll drop the case. No expenses were awarded.

So a bit disappointing but those lettings agents lost a fortune by instructing a solicitor and coming to court and paying court fees and so on. And they did it because they're also complete scumbags. It didn't cost me shit but they lost thousands, surely, on this complete nonsense. And for what? These people are morons.

Still, good thing I went through with it and made them come to court. If you want to play stupid games with the court system, I'm happy to play along.