Small claims court

Other

Now we have the house back, and recovered some rent arrears from one tenant, we have decided to take the other ex tenants to small claims to recover (or at least try) the rest of the arrears.

We have already had meetings with the ex-tenants, and one has fully paid up their arrears, leaving the other two owing £1170 and £872 respectively. One has since sent us a cheque which bounced; we have heard nothing from the third tenant other than a letter that states she was bullied by the other housemates and forced to leave before the end of the AST.

They have both been written to, a few weeks ago, but we have heard nothing. We would like to now send them a 'pre action' letter before putting a claim into court. Are there any samples of pre-action letters anywhere on the RLA Website? Should the letter be sent a certain time before action i.e. 7-10 or 14 days? Should we mention costs in the letter or just the amount we will be claiming?

Any help would be very much appreciated as we have never had to do this before.