Advice Needed Please!!

magicmike26

Good Morning All

I have a bit of a dilemma which I will now attempt to put into writing....

I took over the rental of my family home along with my partner and 3 month old son, when my mother and sister emigrated to Holland on November 1st. I paid a £400 deposit to my mother and agreed a monthly rental of £500, which has been paid by standing order each month.

She came back to stay, along with my sister on the 18th of December. Her manner was a disgrace all week, with her intention to clearly upset and cajole us into leaving the house. This culminated in a huge argument on Xmas day, resulting in her calling the police and having myself, my partner and my baby son removed from the house at 2am.

Since this happened, we have been staying with friends. My mother will not allow us into the house and has put all our clothes into bin bags which I have had to collect from the driveway of the house. All of our furniture and possessions are still in the house at present.

I need to know what rights I have regarding the deposit and also any advice that you guys could give me on how to proceed with getting my furniture/possessions back.

Many thanks in advance

Mike

princeofpounds

Nasty situation.

You have to ask yourself what you want to achieve from this.

Recovery of your possessions?
Re-entry to the house?
Prosecution of your mother?

You see, if i understand correctly and you were renting the house your mother owns, she did not live there and then had you chucked out, she was committing the criminal offence of illegal eviction. This can be prosecuted with heavy compensation, fines and potentially even jail sentences.

There is of course the matter of a few details to confirm this is actually what has happened, and you would most probably need to engage a lawyer and generate enough evidence for a case, but that's the most likely situation.

The fact that the police removed you isn't really relevant. They are often less than clueless on housing matters and frequently assist illegal evictions unfortunately. You might wish to complain about them as well.

Question is, do you really want to pursue this route with your own family?

As for the deposit, you should be looking at a letter before action and then taking your mother to the small claims court if required. You would need to evidence that it was paid as a returnable deposit, your mother could either try to deny it was a deposit or to prove that damages were caused that justify its retention. The decision would be made on the balance of evidence as it would be a civil case. Assuming that you fall under the deposit protection legislation (which is likely) then you could also threaten to sue her for the 3x deposit penalty for not protecting it. She can avoid this by retroactive protection, which would mean you would then reclaim it through arbitration rather than court. It would also have the interesting side-effect of confirming there was a tenancy, which would strengthen the illegal eviction case.

I would be more inclined to consider court for return of deposit as it is a civil rather than criminal matter and a more obvious injustice within a family.

As for the furniture, you need to look up the tort (interference with goods) act. You will need to write to her requesting access to the goods within a reasonable deadline and point out that she has a legal duty to safeguard them and provide reasonable opportunity for you to collect. If she fails, we are looking again at court.

magicmike26

princeofpounds wrote: »

Nasty situation.

You have to ask yourself what you want to achieve from this.

Recovery of your possessions?
Re-entry to the house?
Prosecution of your mother?

You see, if i understand correctly and you were renting the house your mother owns, she did not live there and then had you chucked out, she was committing the criminal offence of illegal eviction. This can be prosecuted with heavy compensation, fines and potentially even jail sentences.

There is of course the matter of a few details to confirm this is actually what has happened, and you would most probably need to engage a lawyer and generate enough evidence for a case, but that's the most likely situation.

The fact that the police removed you isn't really relevant. They are often less than clueless on housing matters and frequently assist illegal evictions unfortunately. You might wish to complain about them as well.

Question is, do you really want to pursue this route with your own family?

As for the deposit, you should be looking at a letter before action and then taking your mother to the small claims court if required. You would need to evidence that it was paid as a returnable deposit, your mother could either try to deny it was a deposit or to prove that damages were caused that justify its retention. The decision would be made on the balance of evidence as it would be a civil case. Assuming that you fall under the deposit protection legislation (which is likely) then you could also threaten to sue her for the 3x deposit penalty for not protecting it. She can avoid this by retroactive protection, which would mean you would then reclaim it through arbitration rather than court. It would also have the interesting side-effect of confirming there was a tenancy, which would strengthen the illegal eviction case.

I would be more inclined to consider court for return of deposit as it is a civil rather than criminal matter and a more obvious injustice within a family.

As for the furniture, you need to look up the tort (interference with goods) act. You will need to write to her requesting access to the goods within a reasonable deadline and point out that she has a legal duty to safeguard them and provide reasonable opportunity for you to collect. If she fails, we are looking again at court.

I can't thank you enough for your advice on this matter, you've given me a lot to look into and I really appreciate you taking the time princeofpounds.