I have no idea what is going on here, but the accelerated possession proceedings claim form – form N5B – has vanished from the gov.uk website and has been missing since at least 17 August  2020 – at least for England, the one for Wales is still there.
You can see for yourself. The link on this page for accelerated possession proceedings says:
Download and fill in:
-
- the form for properties in England (available in English and Welsh)
But the link results in this:
I can’t find any other page with the English N5B on the gov.uk site, and it has vanished from google results.
Given that the form N5B on the gov.uk site is taken as the current and definitive version, this is just a little bit of an issue.
I’m wavering between various theories of cock up – it was accidentally deleted and no-one noticed, or there is a new N5B imminent and the old one was deleted too early before the replacement could go live – but this is Not Helpful. Not only do we have the wholly erroneous N11B defence form problem, but now a vanished N5B claim form. As the stay on possession claims ends this coming Sunday, 23 August, this is particularly ridiculous.
Please get this sorted out, powers that be (as I know that at least some powers that be read the blog).
I reported this to MHCLG last Friday, so still no action.
Hi Davis, good to see you Friday! Could you advise me whether I should use an N5 or an N5B as I’m trying to evict a nasty tenant on GRound 14 using a section 8 form, 24 hours notice. They definitely won’t leave so I’m prepping for going to the courts now. Cheers Nick R.
If you think you can use an N5B for a section 8 ground 14 claim, you need proper advice. We don’t/can’t give individual advice via this site.
Well that’s one way of stopping those pesky landlords persecuting their tenants.
There is a new form N5B(E) on laserforms and it’s quite different to the previous incarnation. I’ve only skimmed over it, but there are additional details required to show AST Regs compliance (eg, CP12s to be attached) and to check there is no breach of the Tenant Fees Act.
That would explain things, though not why it is still missing from Gov.uk.
Agreed. That would appear to be, as you say, a cock up
These were already in the latest (April 2020) version of the notice on HMCTS. This is the version that has disappeared. I am suspicious they may change it as a way of delaying possession claims, after all Housing Minister said he was talking to the Master of the Rolls about further changes to protect tenants.
The word is that both N5B and N11B are being amended to remove errors and incorporate the Tenant Fees Act. But the N11B is still up, so something has gone wrong.
Possession proceedings will be delayed enough anyway. (And as of Thursday 20/8, hefty rumours of a further stay).
Just spoken with a client who could not find N5B online so went to the court and asked for the forms and was given N5 and N119. Could they be about to suspend APP as another measure? Could just be an error but the missing N5B and this action together might make sense. If they have made that decision, why not tell people! N5B already had Tenant Fees Act questions in it (albeit badly, so an improvement would be welcome!)
Rumour is of a further stay on possession. No idea how long for or in what form, but I can assure you that this forms snafu has nothing to do with it. Both the N5B and N11B had errors.
Wouldnt they need to amend to take into account the Trecarrol appeal?
I don’t think so.
Maybe they are replacing the word “Accelerated” with “Not So Accelerated” !!
For what it is worth the Form N119 (standard form Particulars of Claim for rented residential premises) that is available on the government website does not yet come equipped with the up-to-date Statement of Truth – likewise for the N5 claim form itself.
True, I’d noticed that.
If you really need the form the official archive of Gov website is still available at link on my name, it was archived on May 11th 2020
Validity of the form naturally at user’s risk at the moment.