Had eviction letter - Please help!!

lindseydaniel · 30 October 2009 at 1:34PM

Hi,

I am renting privately at the moment.

Yesterday we received a letter addressed to the occupier of the house from a lawyers stating that an eviction date was to be set and that we needed to seek legal advice and find alternative accomodation.

I finally got hold of my landlord last night who said he had been in arrears with the mortgage but thought it had been sorted. He was going to get hold of the lawyers this morning and let me know what was going on. As of yet I have been unable to contact him.

To be honest I don't want to stay in the house with the thoughts that I may get a knock on the door from a bailliff or get evicted.

Can anyone tell me my rights. I would like to leave at the end of Nov but my tenancey agreement is till end of Feb next year. Also he has a deposit of £900 of mine. If he is broke how can I get that back??

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks

Daniel

BitterAndTwisted · 30 October 2009 at 2:00PM

Do you have a tenancy agreement in writing?

BASSETT · 30 October 2009 at 2:14PM

lindseydaniel wrote: »

Hi,

I finally got hold of my landlord last night who said he had been in arrears with the mortgage but thought it had been sorted. He was going to get hold of the lawyers this morning and let me know what was going on. As of yet I have been unable to contact him.

Sorry Daniel, he should know whether he is in arrears or not.
Not "thought" it had been sorted.
I`ve been through this with a prev ll so I sympathise.
Contact your local CAB or shelter, also are you in Scotland or England as your deposit should be protected if in England.
And obviously do NOT give him another penny in rent.

DVardysShadow · 30 October 2009 at 2:15PM

Your deposit should be in a Deposit Protection Scheme, and you should have been advised of this. In your position and given it does not look good for the Landlord, I would withhold rent equivalent to the deposit until he could show it was in a scheme. Others will disagree. You could of course go to court and get a judgement against him for 3 times your deposit, but I think it will be hard to get anything back at all. And as you are likely to be evicted shortly, you will need your deposit.

franklee · 30 October 2009 at 8:25PM

Hopefully some useful background:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=26203815#post26203815
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=23720853&postcount=12
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=23676205&postcount=37
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1377883&page=11

bumpoowee · 30 October 2009 at 8:45PM

Cancel your rent standing order, otherwise your LL will shaft you even further. I would also assume you are unlikely to see your deposit again, sounds like a cowboy so if he hasn't spent it already he probably will do very soon.

franklee · 30 October 2009 at 8:48PM

There are only three deposit schemes, I'd just ring each one till I found if the deposit was protected. Name and address should be enough to ask.

bristol_pilot · 30 October 2009 at 8:53PM

Stop paying rent and start looking for somewhere else to live.

lindseydaniel · 31 October 2009 at 5:05PM

Thanks for your repllies. I have looked and believe that the deposit maybe protected under a scheme.

I have since had contact with the landlord last night who has told me that things are sorted now and not to worry about it.

However about a month ago my wife opened a letter addressed to a person that we had received maybe 20-30 letters for since February (not in the name of our landlord). We had been putting them back in the postbox to the returned address but they still kept coming. The letter stated that this person (who was not my landlord) was in arrears on the mortgage.

I contacted the landlord who said the houses were actually in his brother in laws name. That same weekend he said he would speak to his "brother on law" and let me know the outcome. He never told me anything even tho I tried contacting him. And then next the letter arrived about eviction.

I just want out NOW. I dont want to pay rent at the end of this month then a week later get more letters and be homeless.

Can I leave before my tenancy agreement ends in February and get my deposit back?? I have asked the landlord and left a message for him to call me but he won't reply.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Daniel

franklee · 1 November 2009 at 1:09AM

lindseydaniel wrote: »

Can I leave before my tenancy agreement ends in February and get my deposit back?? I have asked the landlord and left a message for him to call me but he won't reply.

As your agreement is till end of Feb we cannot answer that question in detail for you here, I'd suggest you take your tenancy agreement and all the eviction letters etc. to an adviser and get a professional opinion. If you walk you might be OK if the repossession is staved off or you might not. It may even be too late to stave it off, we here just do not know what stage it is at. All we can do here is mention general issues like in that link I gave you earlier where ARLA write about the new regs but the walk away bit applies in any case:

"Tenants will receive up to seven weeks’ notice of an order being sought but that assumes that a repossession will be granted – and if it isn’t, and tenants walk away from the property, they will have walked away from a legally binding contract. It would be far more beneficial if the extended notice was granted after a repossession had been granted, which would allow tenants good time to find another property.’"

I gave links of where you can go for advice e.g. local council tenancy relation officer etc.

The other way is to contact the senders of the eviction letter and try to get confirmation of what is happening. It's you who had the letter to read yet aren't happy doing what it says so you need to get it nailed down. I would not believe your landlord, in fact he may not even be the landlord if his brother is! So stop messing about with the landlord and get in touch with the senders of the letter, or do what the letter says and, if you are worried, get some legal advice.

lindseydaniel · 1 November 2009 at 10:33AM

I have contacted the sender of the eviction letter and they will not speak to me. I am going to get some legal advice in the week. I am looking for alternative accomodation also but I am stuck until I can get my deposit back.

I was just looking on here to see if someone had a similar experience regarding leaving early and deposits in the threat of eviction.

Thanks

Had eviction letter - Please help!!

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