landlord rights

tbs624

You may also want to have a look at the Administration of Justice Act 1970, s40, ref harassment of debtors

lynzpower

Looks like youhave had some great advice here Heelix.

If you do not get a satisfactory response from the police on Monday, I suggest that you approach the police complaints commission for further advice.

The Protection from Eviction Act IS a criminal offence and should be treated as such.

(

Part I
Unlawful Eviction and Harassment

1 Unlawful eviction and harassment of occupier
(1)In this section “residential occupier”, in relation to any premises, means a person occupying the premises as a residence, whether under a contract or by virtue of any enactment or rule of law giving him the right to remain in occupation or restricting the right of any other person to recover possession of the premises.
(2)If any person unlawfully deprives the residential occupier of any premises of his occupation of the premises or any part thereof, or attempts to do so, he shall be guilty of an offence unless he proves that he believed, and had reasonable cause to believe, that the residential occupier had ceased to reside in the premises.
(3)If any person with intent to cause the residential occupier of any premises—
(a)to give up the occupation of the premises or any part thereof; or
(b)to refrain from exercising any right or pursuing any remedy in respect of the premises or part thereof;
does acts calculated to interfere with the peace or comfort of the residential occupier or members of his household, or persistently withdraws or withholds services reasonably required for the occupation of the premises as a residence, he shall be guilty of an offence.
[F1(3A)Subject to subsection (3B) below, the landlord of a residential occupier or an agent of the landlord shall be guilty of an offence if—
(a)he does acts likely to interfere with the peace or comfort of the residential occupier or members of his household, or
(b)he persistently withdraws or withholds services reasonably required for the occupation of the premises in question as a residence,
and (in either case) he knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, that that conduct is likely to cause the residential occupier to give up the occupation of the whole or part of the premises or to refrain from exercising any right or pursuing any remedy in respect of the whole or part of the premises.

there is a copy in the British library should you be nearby) is "Aspects of Housing Law Jill Morgan 2007 reads:

The measure of damages:


Is measured by the difference in value as at that date when occupier left the premises...ie in other words the profit that the LL stands to make by acting unlawfully.
Claimant may claim
*general damages, loss of Quiet enjoyment, personal injury ( stress etc) Right to occupy
*Special damages- to compensate for specific losses incurred ,reasonable accommodation costs ( ie what do you have to give your friend for kipping on their floor) cost of any items that are in the property that you are not able to recover
*aggravated damages"injury to his proper feelings of dignity and pride; indignation, outrage and distress as a result of eviction
*exemplary damages ( my note- basically the business case & F-the occupier) "cynical calculation of profit and cold blooded disregard of claimants rights, whenever it is neccesary to teach a wrongdoer that tort does not pay.


My note on exemplary- could include for example the business costs to the LL of lawful eviction ( solicitors and court costs) that could be due to you, plaintiff.

This book is fantastic and if you can grab a copy from a library ( british library has a copy) there is a thorough section on unlawful eviction that obv I cant reproduce here.

Dont let this one rest, the law is crystal clear on this. Did your solicitor get recommended by Shelter or crisis?

Best of luck, keep us posted

theartfullodger

Best wishes Heelixx, there's a few of us thinking of you & happy to provide further advice...

Congrats for what you've done so far!

Artful

Heelixx

Dear Lynzpower,

In answer to your question above, I have not been appointed with a solicitor at this moment, the only people i have seen so far are:

Police (Crime Serial Number Aquired, LL Arrested for Affray - Now out on Bail due to blatent lies to the Police)

Housing Benefit (Was told within 2 mins of sitting down "Not our problem, we dont deal with this, plus if you need rehousing we can't find it for you, you need to find it yourself).

CAB (Helpfull to an extent, took copy of letters etc, made case notes then handed me a booklet called "Assured & Assured Shorthold Tenancy - A Guide for Tenants" and that was it.

********** Advice - Apparently are starting to write letters asking LL to refrain from any further actions??!!?? What will this do, I asked them to appoint me a solicitor & they said they couldn't until they get a reply from LL ???

Pillar to Post is the way i feel i have been treated by the local Authorities. Why does Britain unfortunatly have one of two things. . . .

"I'm alright Jack" attitude!

& the biggest one . .

"Pass the Buck" !

Be re-assured i will post updates to how this is going & turns out & if it means keeping on at these Authorities for action then i shall become truely Anal about it. (scuse the Anal remark, just couldn't think of what else to use).

Thanx also for your input + that goes to all who have tried to help & enlighten me with their knowledge.

lynzpower

Do you want to Pm me your broad location ( local authority will do) and Ill have a dig about and see if I can find a named person in your local area.

I am not giving advice (!!) but id be tempted to bin off thesee ***advice people as they dont know the law sop wouldnt be interested in them advising me tbh.

Illegal evictions is my real "pet project" and riles me like you wouldnt believe

Whatever I can do to help you right now, I will.

Hang in there, you can take this s-bag down

Also from the book above I quoted before "Rachmanism will not ever "return" as it never actually went away".

True indeed there are always idiots who feel the law doesnt apply to them. Its my motive in life to make it crystal clear it does

Heelixx

The biggest problem here that I can see lays with my House/Flatmate. He as mentioned before seems to think he is not bound to a "Joint Tenancy" & that i solely owe the money to the LL. I informed him that I would cover the debt in full & not ask from him a penny. Secondly, the other problem which also lays with him is. . . .

He is NOT willing to give evidence to the Police regarding the LL's actions towards myself for reasons as explained before in a previous post.

I believe at least one of these to be true:

A: He is involved with the LL & is reporting back to him anything that i do.
B: He has been also threatened by the LL & his henchmen to keep his mouth shut or the same will happen to him.
C: He's just a callous individual with no sense of Morals & want's to keep himself out of it with the "I'm alright Jack" attitude.
He just doesn't give a **** !


It would seem from the Police point of view they can't proceed any further without this guy informing them of what went on.

To enlighten you all further:~

When the LL slammed the front door (after all that was mentioned in post 50) to the Flat shut & I mean slammed so hard the architrave cracked, I proceeded into my Flatmates bedroom & said "!!!!!!, LL was bang out of order, can you believe that s***"

He replied (although being not even 8feet from the where the conflict happened)

"I didn't hear anything" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????

Strange that. . . . because as soon as i mentioned the word "Police" his ears seemed to work perfectly like there was some kind of Devine Intervention at play. He then said . .

"Why are you going to the Police & what do you expect to get out of all this"?

My reply to flatmate was simple

"You are honestly telling me that you didn't hear a word of what just went down & that you have a complete lack of moral fibre, you know what the LL just did was wrong, why are you acting this way"?

He then got a bit shirty & proceeded to pack items into a small holdall & leave the premisis. He didn't return within 15-20 mins so I evaquated myself from the property incase of any reprocussions.

Next day when I sneaked into the Flat at roughly 8am, the door lock was completely ****ed! & hanging off, it wasn't like this when the LL slammed the door shut, it was in perfect working order. My bedroom door was pushed so far open that it was wedged into the carpet, problem here was that i'd shut the door completely when i vacated the flat the previous evening. Flatmate was in his bedroom asleep! I got what i needed & got out asap incase the LL & henchmen wanted to come back for a spot of Violent Dancing!

Would be interested in what you all make of that.

(p.s. will be out for most the day, but shall resume on here this evening, good day to you all)

lynzpower

The biggest problem here that I can see lays with my House/Flatmate. He as mentioned before seems to think he is not bound to a "Joint Tenancy" & that i solely owe the money to the LL. I informed him that I would cover the debt in full & not ask from him a penny. Secondly, the other problem which also lays with him is. . . . disagree here - the biggest problem is the landlord and the fact he is in contravention of the law

He is NOT willing to give evidence to the Police regarding the LL's actions towards myself for reasons as explained before in a previous post.

I believe at least one of these to be true:

A: He is involved with the LL & is reporting back to him anything that i do.
B: He has been also threatened by the LL & his henchmen to keep his mouth shut or the same will happen to him.
C: He's just a callous individual with no sense of Morals & want's to keep himself out of it with the "I'm alright Jack" attitude.
He just doesn't give a **** !

any of these reasons are likely, the fear factor probably a major one however, this is not really your concern, as the LL has broken the law WITH YOU and the police and authorities are dealing WITH YOU, not co-tenant as YOU are the plaintiff and the law has been broken, they dont need any further proof than your evidence IMO and they should be investigating this crime and not ignoring it due to witness issues- every crime has witness issues
[/COLOR]

It would seem from the Police point of view they can't proceed any further without this guy informing them of what went on. NOT SO, indeed if you lived in the flat alone, should there be NFA? NO! The police are lazy and that is the bare bones of it

To enlighten you all further:~

When the LL slammed the front door (after all that was mentioned in post 50) to the Flat shut & I mean slammed so hard the architrave cracked, I proceeded into my Flatmates bedroom & said "!!!!!!, LL was bang out of order, can you believe that s***"

He replied (although being not even 8feet from the where the conflict happened)

"I didn't hear anything" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????

Strange that. . . . because as soon as i mentioned the word "Police" his ears seemed to work perfectly like there was some kind of Devine Intervention at play. He then said . .

"Why are you going to the Police & what do you expect to get out of all this"?

My reply to flatmate was simple

"You are honestly telling me that you didn't hear a word of what just went down & that you have a complete lack of moral fibre, you know what the LL just did was wrong, why are you acting this way"?

He then got a bit shirty & proceeded to pack items into a small holdall & leave the premisis. He didn't return within 15-20 mins so I evaquated myself from the property incase of any reprocussions.

Next day when I sneaked into the Flat at roughly 8am, the door lock was completely ****ed! & hanging off, it wasn't like this when the LL slammed the door shut, it was in perfect working order. My bedroom door was pushed so far open that it was wedged into the carpet, problem here was that i'd shut the door completely when i vacated the flat the previous evening. Flatmate was in his bedroom asleep! I got what i needed & got out asap incase the LL & henchmen wanted to come back for a spot of Violent Dancing!

Would be interested in what you all make of that.

i can understand your personal issue with your co-tenant, but this is not the polices or law or courts concern. I understand you feel tremendously let down, but swivel it around adn think about this from another angle. What the LL has done is purposeful to deprive you of the facility of living in the premises. If the LL is ( directly or indirectly) intruducing an element of fear to the other co-tenant ( and this exhibited by the co-tenants behaviour as listed above) then this is another example of the LL creating further obstruction to your quiet enjoyment of the property.

If they are in cahoots or not, it is not really relevant imo (and from what you say they may well be) the fact is that the LL has broken the law in terms of PFEA part 1, and that is the bare bones of the matter.

Dont confuse yourself with the whys and the wherefores the law is so so clear on this, It is a national scandal that police are so poor on this matter and this is why I suggest you raise this with the Police complaints commission as a matter of priority and that they are aware that their officers are not doing thier job and turning a blind eye to crimes committed in their area.

the more illegally evicted tenants that report this to the police complaints commission when they get a neglectful service from the police, the better, the PCC could uphold that complaint and this should force on further training in "macro" sense.

I would also phone crisis or shelter and find a specific solicitor that is skilled in dealing witjh these matters as this will not only get the LL where it hurts but ensure that damages paid for you reflect the trauma you are experiencing.

have you also let HB know that you are no longer at the property and that thier payments should cease- sorry if Ive missed this bit. As a taxpayer I dont want a single penny of my ( or our ) money going to this criminal.

lynzpower

Ps how much of your belongings have you got back? I would start today totalling up the cost of replacement of all of these items, every biro, every pair of socks, every mug.

Heelixx

Hi Lynz,

In answer to your question in post 88, the 1st thing i did after going to the Police station on the 31st Aug was to pay a visit to the HB. When i got to see someone i was with them for all of 2-3mins.
I asked what was i supposed to do with the money that was deposited into my bank account, 1. Hand it back to the HB, 2. Hold it in my Bank Account, 3. Pay it to the LL. Also i need re-housing.

Her response to me was:~

"you still need to pay that money to your LL as you're bound by a contract".
"We can't find you a new place to live, you will need to do this yourself"
"Go to ******** Advice Centre"
"We cannot do anything for you"

I just laughed & left the building before i errupted.


As for all my personal belongings in the Flat i have nothing, I haven't made a list of what is there yet but will start to do this immediately as there are expensive items like Digital TV's/Cameras, Computers/Parts, Hi-Fi's, Designer Clothes, sentimental items via family/ Unreleased non-Copywrite Music created by myself/ Designer clothes, Kitchen items (white goods, silver goods, ceramic items etc) etc. Thnx for you input

lynzpower

I just laughed & left the building before i errupted.

Honestly i DONT blame you. Id have been totally livid. Sorry for missing bits of the history there