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Alice has received an accelerated section 21 claim from the court on form N5B, which legally is invalid. There exists a long and quite involved form intended for use in answering N5B accelerated claims, namely form N11B.

Alice instead submits her defence to the claim on a simple handwritten and signed letter indicating her case number, and stating the reason why the claim is properly invalid and her desire to plead this in a hearing.

What happens with this letter when it is received by the court, as it is not on the intended form, and what happens with the case more generally? Does it get listed for a hearing? Do the contents of her letter reach or get considered by the judge?

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Is a response to a N5B section 21 accelerated claim required to be given on the dedicated form N11B?

YES. Assuming this refers to an accelerated possession claim on property let on an assured shorthold tenancy in England then Rule 55.14 Civil Procedure Rules applies:

  1. A defendant who wishes to –

  • (a) oppose the claim; or

  • (b) seek a postponement of possession in accordance with rule 55.18,

must file his defence within 14 days after service of the claim form.

(2) The defence should be in the form set out in Practice Direction 55A.

Practice Direction 55A, at Rule 1.5, states:

[...)

The defence must be in form N11, N11B, N11M or N11R, as appropriate.

The use of must is well established in British law as meaning a non-optional obligation (unlike should). It is not, as far as I can see, defined by statute so the courts' convention is to use the normal meaning of the word by reference to the Oxford English Dictionary. The recently revised free online version has limited availability but the previous version merged with Dictionary.com which offers these examples:

1 to be obliged or bound to by an imperative requirement

2 to be under the necessity to; need to

The use of must in Rule 1.5, by my reading, trumps the use of should in Rule 55.14 but Alice might be able to argue this apparent contradictory terminology as to why her case for her defence is submitted by letter rather than the prescribed form.

What happens with this letter when it is received by the court...what happens with the case more generally? Does it get listed for a hearing? Do the contents of her letter reach or get considered by the judge?

All that would be a matter for the court to decide and could go either way: a judge has the inherent power to deal with matters in his own court as he sees fit (within the limits of the law etc).

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