We moved in to a property in July/August, I won't bother going through the full details but it has been a pretty painfull experience so far.

It therefore came as little surprise to get a letter yesterday that the property is to be repossessed. The envelope was from the court services and via the envelope window I could see the words "defendant" alongside the name and address of the landlord and also with a bit of messing around I could then see the words "order for repossession".

I initially didn't open the letter but after some deliberation I decided that given the terrible track record of the Landlord I figured that opening it was the only way I would know anything about the situation before the baliffs arrived to kick us out.

I should say up front that we have paid the rent on time and in full on every occassion so in theory he has had the money to pay the mortgage. Reading the documents it was clear this was not a BTL mortgage arrangement and was interest only which was covered in full by the rent we paid (more on that in the main forum later).

The court date is December 5th so there is less than a month to get things sorted, I think it's pretty obvious he is not going to come up with the arrears and the property will be repossessed. Just as a side note he was in arrears back in March so long before we turned up.

I have no illusions that we have lost our deposit and the chance of getting any financial compensation is non-existent however I do need a little bit of advice.

1. How can I find out if the property is to be repossessed without opening the letter? *

I have been to the www.possessioncliam.gov.uk website searched for the court and found the hearing date, however it only lists the claimant and the defendant not the property in question. What I obviously want is for evidence the property is subject to repossession that doesn't rely on me having opened the letter, I don't have any problem with opening the letter but I don't want to give the landlord any ammunition.

2. In a similar vain I need to find out who the mortgage is with, I of course know full well who it is and have the account number, but again I need a way of finding out who it is with or more specifically proving it.

3. If they are successfull in repossesing the property how quickly will they take possession?

The course of action I will take will be to see a solicitor and get out ASAP I just want to try and get some facts.

surely it was opened in error and that said, as it is in regard to you being made homeless, no wonder you read it. Look the landlord has taken your rent and your deposit when he knew he was liable to go bankrupt. If you suspect he has fraudulently arranged a residential mortgage on a BTL property, it is he who is in the shit. So stop sweating about opening the mail. What is he going to do? Take you to court? I think not, what magistrate would find in his favour? The T@wt

Hi,

I don't know how legal this is, but as you have a month until the court date and probably some time afterwards before you move out, I would suggest not paying any more rent.

I'd like to know what others think as well though.

I'm not worried about opening the letter at all, as you say as far as I can see he has commited fraud both with the original mortgage application and then allowing me to sign a document which (I need to check) says that part of his responsibility is to pay the mortgage.

As I understand it there is no legal issue with opening a letter sent to my address. Messing with the mail while it is in the postal system is what is covered not once it has been delivered.

My plan of action is to get legal advice and look to move out as soon as possible as I'm pretty sure he has breeched the contract we signed by not paying the mortgage. With regards to the non-payment of rent, it is an option, I think under advise from a legal professional I may stop the rent and use the deposit as payment for the half a month I will get to move out.

People usually seem to recommend Shelter's helpline in this situation, not sure how easy it is to get through to them.
I don't know what a lawyer would say but think I'd withold the last month's rent unless your deposit is in a tenancy deposit scheme (which of course it should be if you only moved in recently but unless you have the number from the landlord, I guess it is not) - if the landlord is in financial mess, he's hardly likely to have ringfenced your deposit and although you would have a right to take him to court, if he has no money then it's not much good winning. I'd have thought (but not a lawyer), if you say that your Landlord could not provide you with the number of your deposit scheme, you'd have a good basis for witholding rent.

Dont pay anymore rent at least that way you can recouperate your deposit. Go along to citizens advice. Is there a lettings agent involved if so they will still be wanting their commission. The most the LA's can do is serve two months notice and talk about legal proceedings. Change the locks, so LL and LA can't come snooping around when rent isn't paid. Keep in touch.

Agreed!
I believe you can only be removed by court order and it takes 6 months AFTER the process begins - and that may not be for a further few months.
Find a solicitor who will give you a fixed fee interview:
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandus...dasolicitor.law

isn't it different though if a property has been illegally rented out on a residential mortgage? Doesn't the lender have more rights to possess faster? There's loads of threads about this on the money saving expert property forum if you can face trawling through that. I think I read somewhere about someone campaigning to MPs to protect tenants who find themselves in this situation - worth contacting your MP too I'm sure - this is a situation we're bound to see more and more of..

Thanks for the replies so far, keep them coming.

We decided to call the mortgage companies legal representatives, they were pretty helpful but only really said that there would be notice of when an eviction (if there were one) would take place.

The thing to remember at this stage is the Landlord is not currently aware of the situation so we will see what happens when he opens the letter tomorrow (send special delivery). I'm not holding out much hope but he may surprise us, but it doesn't look good given he has paid only £800 since March.



That is indeed the situation as I understand it. We are going to get as much of our stuff out as practically possible and see where we are next week. We will be getting legal advice of course and see where that takes us, at the end of the day we will be happy to get out of the place to be honest.

I would recommend contacting shelter in any case.

You can fill in your question on their online site - and they will get back to you - normally within 48 hours (<24 hours in my case).

Also, apart from sending an e-mail with advice from a solicitor working for them - they will also take up your case. And, if necessary after initial advice will give you a number to call them on to speak to them directly.

Plus, if you'd rather talk direct - there is a telephone number - but I've found that often to be busy - and since e-mail is so fast and detailed - plus in writing - it's a good option.

Plus when you mention to parties that Shelter is involved - they tend to sit up and listen.

I was in a similar situation to yours a few years back - and spent money on consulting solicitors - although the property may be sold - you still have tenant rights as per your tenancy agreement - but I was advised that I would need to pay the mortgage company direct rather than the landlord - you needed to strike that deal with them but you can't just be moved out.

Do contact Shelter - they are really hot on this stuff - and know the ins and outs.

In my case - although I'd got things sorted out to stay - I decided not to - bcause I was fed-up with Baliffs turning up at 6:30am!!! because the person had defaulted on credit cards and run up other debts.

Good luck.

Update on the situation...

We finally managed to get hold of the landlord, he said not to worry as it had now been sorted

He says that he has a few BTL properties and there has been some problems with collecting rent on the other properties, personally it sounds like b*llshit to me but the wife who spoke to him seems to think he was genuine about it all. We of course shall see what happens and we shall be proactive in talking to the mortgage companies solicitors to make sure it is indeed all sorted.

While I'm sure that it is possible he is having trouble collecting rent on other properties I fail to see that that should have any effect on him paying the mortgage on the property we rent, what we pay covers the mortgage easily.

Personally I do want to believe him, I really cannot be bothered with moving at the moment as it is far too much hassle.

Another update....

Got another letter from the solicitor, it was a window envelope and genuinely the addresse was not visible, I knew full well who it was for as it had the solicitors logo on the outside and some of the text at the top of the letter was visible, but as I couldn't see for sure who it was addressed to I was more than entitled to open it.

Needless to say it seems the landlords assurances that "everything was sorted out" seem to be a little bit misplaced. He had told us he had just paid a lump sum to the mortgage company and another was due just before christmas. Now call me picky but I don't think £400 would be classed as a lump sum, when it doesn't even cover half the mortgage for that month and is not even close to 10% of what he owes in arrears.

All this was dated and sent after we had spoken to the Landlord, so I'd be surprised if anything has been sorted.

We will of course be contacting the mortgage company solicitors again today to get their view on the situation but the court date is next Wednesday so the Landlord is running out of time to sort things out.

*** Update on the Update
The solicitors are now not communicating with us, I was surprsised they were so helpful the first time we called to be honest.

Yet another update, got a letter from the mortgage companies solicitor on Friday clearly saying that the landlord does not have a BTL mortgage and he has not got permission form the mortgage company to let the property, therefore they say that we have no claim whatsoever against them but will have against the landlord.

Court hearing is Wednesday, just hoping it is repossessed so we can get on with it and get out.

After this is all over, I hope you slap him with an invoice for moving expenses, with the promise of a trip to the Small Claims Court if he doesn't cough up.

I'll see how I feel afterwards, just want it over and done with to be honest. If nothing else we shall be looking for the standard 3 x deposit value compensation as I have no doubt that he has not put the deposit in a deposit protection scheme as he is legally required to do.

This issue is covered by ground 2 of the 1988 housing act shedules 1 & 2 as follows

SCHEDULE 2 Grounds for possession of dwelling-houses let on assured tenancies

Part I Grounds On Which Court Must Order Possession

Ground 1

Not later than the beginning of the tenancy the landlord gave notice in writing to the tenant that possession might be recovered on this ground or the court is of the opinion that it is just and equitable to dispense with the requirement of notice and (in either case) -

(a) at some time before the beginning of the tenancy, the landlord who is seeking possession or, in the case of joint landlords seeking possession, at least one of them occupied the dwelling-house as his only or principal home; or

( the landlord who is seeking possession or, in the case of joint landlords seeking possession, at least one of them requires the dwelling-house as his or his spouse's only or principal home and neither the landlord (or, in the case of joint landlords, any one of them) nor any other person who, as landlord, derived title under the landlord who gave the notice mentioned above acquired the reversion on the tenancy for money or money's worth.

Ground 2

The dwelling-house is subject to a mortgage granted before the beginning of the tenancy and -

(a) the mortgagee is entitled to exercise a power of sale conferred on him by the mortgage or by section 101 of the Law of Property Act 1925; and

( the mortgagee requires possession of the dwelling-house for the purpose of disposing of it with vacant possession in exercise of that power; and

© either notice was given as mentioned in Ground 1 above or the court is satisfied that it is just and equitable to dispense with the requirement of notice;

and for the purposes of this ground "mortgage" includes a charge and "mortgagee" shall be construed accordingly.

In other word they will need to get a court to throw you out which will take several months and should allow you to argue breech of contract if you have a fixed term tenancy, i.e. the tenancy for for a fixed period of time.

I hope that helps

I wouldn't trust having several months to get out. From what I have heard of similar situations, if the mortgage is not a buy to let type, then as far as the mortgage company/courts are concerned, you have no right to be there and will be thrown out with a couple of days notice.

Thanks for the info. We have now had legal advice which is generally that they can't just pitch up and turf us out without notice.

Not exactly sure as yet what happened at court, however we did "find out" some information which is basically that the Landlord has agreed to pay the arrears in installments. The mortgage company were still going to seek a repossesion order but not serve it unless he didn't keep up payments then it would be served and they would take possession.

As I said we now have some legal representation, we will see how things develop.

Gilf, you are protected by your tenancy agreement even if it is poorly worded as long as you are paying rent and you receive a receipt (a direct debit or Standing order is considered "receipted". Tenancy law is implied which means what ever the contract or word of mouth agreement is you are automatically covered by the applicable housing acts 1972, 1985, 1988 and 2001 to name as few

Mortgage companys issue buy to let mortgage at a slighly higher rate (well they used before it became "fashionable") to mitigate against the legal costs and time of going through the due process of evicting tenants. They can not evict anybody on any of the formal "tenant behaving themselves" grounds until the you have been in the property six months and need a court order theer after.

They are also likely to want to avoid publicity, they will just charge yoru landlord more money....!
I would give notice then withhold rent to the value of the deposit, be sure to tell teh agent exactly what and why you are doing it though. Set off is allowed but only if you follow the right process. Also make it clear that you fully agree to make good any proven damages.

Has anyone gone to a court hearing when this happens? As I've written previously on this board my landlord hasn't been paying the mortgage and the mortgage company are going to court next week to repossess the property. I've been trying to look for somewhere else but the lettings market is gearing down for Christmas now, so realistically I'm not going to find anywhere before the repossession hearing. All the letting agencies I've spoken to tell me I've got perhaps another month after the hearing before I'm turfed out - is this right?

I've tried hiring a solicitor but they want upwards of £150 an hour (I'm unlikely to qualify for legal aid), and I'm not sure they would help that much anyway.

I think my best approach is to write a good letter to the judge explaining that:

1. I can't walk out of the property because if the landlord comes to the court with a wheelbarrow full of money he'd sue my ass off. The lender's solicitor won't tell me how bad the arrears are, so I don't know how likely that this is.
2. If I stay put I need 1-2 months to find somewhere else to rent.
3. I'd offer to sign a new tenancy with the lender while they sell the property or something, but the lender's solicitor doesn't want to tell me anything.
4. I've not heard anything from the landlord.

Anyone else got any thoughts? Cheers!

Update on the situation....

We had a letter from the landlord before christmas which said that he was very sorry for the trouble but it had all been sorted out. Needless to say that the letters from the mortgage company didn't stop coming and we knew one way or other the place would be repossesed at some point. We also knew that he had arranged to pay the arrears in installmants with the mortgage and that after 6 months, as long as he had kept up the payments, he would be allowed to roll any remaining arrears on to the mortgage.

All we hoped for was that he could last out until June when we would be moving along anyway.

Of course that hasn't happened and we got a letter from the mortgage company's solicitor on Saturday informing us that they were going to take possesion. There were two letters one addressed to him personally and also one to us, which is good as apart from the initial court papers we haven't opened anything addressed to him. They haven't given us a date as yet but we are of course now getting out as fast as we can.

Please sign my petition on the subject:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/tenantevictions/

Update on mine as well: I got notified about the reposession hearing in mid-November. The bailiffs finally came mid-March.

So don't panic!

Done.




We are not worried. Luckily the letter came on Saturday, 2 days before the rent goes out of our account so we were able to stop it. If anything we are glad as we have wanted to move since the whole thing started last October. We do have egal reperesentation so we are not worried about it, we are planning to move ASAP so with a bit of luck we will be out in a few weeks and able to leave the whole thing behind us.