Landlord in debt?!

VanyaHargreeves

I live in a rented house, and my landlord still gets quite a lot of mail to this address. He asked me to open his mail and pass on the information to him.

He has been getting a lot of letters from a certain bank asking him to pay back a loan. Every time I've received a letter I've let him know, and sent him a scan or photograph of it. He says every time that he will get in touch with them. He also told me last week that he was ringing up to change the address of the account.

However, the letters have gotten progressively worse and today a letter came through dated almost 10 days ago saying that he's been served a default/termination notice.

My question is what can I do to protect myself from bailiffs etc? I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to make him get his act together and sort it out?

Certainly he gets enough rent from us to be able to pay it back - it's not a huge amount - of course, I don't know his other circumstances!!

Any advice would be really appreciated.

greensalad

I believe a bailiff has to have proof that anything they are seizing is held in the name of the debtor, so you should be fine on that front. However I don't know what the situation is with houses as they could perhaps take the house...

I would advise you don't open his post any more and instead just save it up a week at a time and ask him to collect it. Or write up an agreement where you post it to him weekly/monthly and deduct the postage costs from what you pay in rent. Don't get involved.

timbstoke

Keep your tenancy agreement close by, and take a couple of photocopies. A bank statement showing your rent payments, and the address of your landlord would also be handy. If bailiffs turn up, don't let them in, tell them you're not your landlord, and give them a copy of your tenancy agreement and your landlords address/phone number, then leave them to it. They're not interested in enforcing a debt against the wrong person, so as soon as they're satisfied that you're not the one they're looking for, they'll go away happy.

PasturesNew

Keep your tenancy agreement and passport/ID close to the front door, in case you want to prove you're you and not him.

sourcrates

The only occasion a Bailiff would turn up is if the loan your landlord has defaulted on, is a secured loan on the property you live in, and he/she had been taken to court, and had judgement awarded against him/her.
In that situation you could lose your home, but the chances are it is an unsecured loan, and as your landlord does not live at your address, and presumably you have a different name to him/her, then you wont have anything to worry about.

If you are not named on any writ, then its not your problem.

Tixy

If a lot of his post is still being sent to the property you rent then you may want to consider if he has permission from his mortgage lender to let the property.

Are any of the letters being sent to the address in relation to the mortgage?

I'd also ask him to get all his post redirected to his current address and say that you are not happy for him to use your address for his post anymore.

VanyaHargreeves

Thanks all for your advice, it's really reassuring to know that they can't really do anything to us.

The debt in question is an overdraft so I think the house is probably safe.

I will write him an email asking him to sort out his post. However I'm not sure if we're going to get far with it as we've been living here for around a year and a half, and our shorthold tenancy ends in September when we'll all be looking to move out.

He's a reasonable person so I think that it should be okay, but I will be back if there's any problems trying to get him to redirect his post!

[Deleted User]

dont open his mail really don't,redirect it or better still get him to either redirect it or collect it from you BUT don't open it

PaulW922

As has been suggested above, IF a debt collector or a bailiff turns up, all you need do is demonstrate that you are not your landlord. You may also wish to provide his current address - no reason why not. On some forums you will be advised to tell bailiffs etc to get lost, or 'prove it' etc but this is a circumstance where I think being cooperative will pay dividends.

PinkPoppies

Tixy wrote: »

If a lot of his post is still being sent to the property you rent then you may want to consider if he has permission from his mortgage lender to let the property.

This was my first thought too.

I guess if you are moving out in September anyway it's not a massive problem but if you see any mortgage letters through the post big alarm bells need to be ringing!