Are court call centres fuelling possession delays?

Eviction specialist Landlord Action has claimed that courts call centres run by inexperienced temporary staff are slowing down possession claims.

A year ago Landlord Action employed a full-time member of staff solely to follow up claims made to the courts. The firm wanted to ensure it continued providing clients with an efficient service, despite the challenges. 

However, with further court closures, it now transpires that some county courts are operating call centres, where temporary staff, with little or no experience, have been appointed to process claims and correspondence. 

In a recent routine phone call to follow up a case, an operator informed Julie Herbert, head of legal at Landlord Action, that there were just six people in one call centre dealing with calls and paperwork relating to 55 different courts. 

“It is evident that those at the call centre are not qualified to be able to differentiate between correspondence that can sit on a file, and correspondence that needs the urgent attention of a judge in order for a case to progress. We have had numerous incidents where court staff appear to be opening post, filing it and doing little about it, adding to the problem even further,” said Herbert.

Landlord Action has expressed concern that more planned court closures and the introduction of the recent Deregulation Act will see a surge in more defended, contentious cases clogging up the system and resulting in even longer delays. 

“When correspondence is received by the court, it needs to be looked at by someone who is capable of deciding whether the item of correspondence requires any action,” said Herbert, “If they are going to close courts, they need to transfer some of those qualified members of staff to these call centres. Alternatively, train up more qualified staff so that they have a legal understanding of each item of correspondence which the court receives.  It can then be processed saving numerous calls from practitioners chasing them up.”

According to Herbert, a high volume of tenants’ applications have no merit. However, some applications are being processed by office staff, where hearings are being set down weeks after a possession order has been granted, causing further losses to landlords and putting a strain on court resources. 

“If judges actually got to see these applications in the first instance, decisions could be made on most without the need for a hearing,” she said.

We're excited to announce that we're working on building a shiny new website for readers of Landlord Today! As part of this process, commenting on articles will be temporarily disabled. We look forward to sharing our new and improved Landlord Today website with you shortly!