Ground Rent debt

FAaron

Hi,


I have a debt with Mainstay Residential for unpaid Ground Rent.


Can anyone point me to any good threads regarding Ground Rent, the law behind it, the company Mainstay, and how to go about tackling this?


I tried to set up some sort of payment plan a year ago. They responded by demanding a monthly repayment figure that I could not afford. I told them what I could afford. I was then told that their office had to speak to "someone higher up" to approve any sort of repayment figure that I could afford. This back and forth went on for months, with me ringing every month to check if there was an update. A year or so later, nothing. I spoke to someone from Mainstay on the phone last week regarding this year's Ground Rent (which has gone up a considerable amount). I offered to pay half of this year's Ground Rent by the end of May, with the other half coming next month. I asked about a payment plan again for the debt, and again, no answer of substance. How do I solve this? This has been the only debt I have that I haven't been able to institute some sort of repayment plan.



Mainstay strike me as a dodgy company. They have nothing but 1 star reviews on TrustPilot.



Can anyone point me to any threads worth reading, any links, advice, info, etc. regarding all or anything of the above?

DCFC79

Threads about ground rent just use the search function.

Kentish_Dave

How much is the annual rent, and how much is owing?

You want to be very, very careful here. It’s rare, but you can forfeit your entire lease if yo let this progress far enough and fail to engage properly.

Ground rent is not normally a large amount, if you cannot pay this how are you covering your mortgage and other payments?

Trying17

And communicate with them in writing, so you have a record.

sourcrates

Hi,


All this time you have been waiting for them to get back to you, have you been paying them anything, or have you saved up the ground rent payments you should have been making ?


Letting things slumber waiting for them to make a move, is not a good policy, you should just have paid as much as you could afford, thus avoiding this debt escalating.


One day you will find this has been passed or sold to a debt collector, and as said above, your lease could be in jepody.

[Deleted User]

Chin up - least you aren't dealing with this lot yet
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5592602/help-property-debt-collection-ground-rent-do-we-have-to-pay-them
Seems the whole pay online page has been under construction for some time... not good for a debt collector :rotfl:

Some reading:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-6697109/Trapped-toxic-leasehold-Dont-ripped-TWICE.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-47389090

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39514546

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/great-leasehold-rip-how-firms-12703160

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2019/03/leasehold-and-ground-rents-could-be-scrapped-under-new-recommendations/

If it's any consolation asking for payment plan should be the last thought and really the financial statement you get to do isn't the best - if it goes to a debt collection you could easily be charged upward of couple of hundred extra £'s added on (even if I've got off lightly according to above thread alone) - my only way round it is to try and consider in being somewhat late this is the interest being added on and I'm no where near a year - I certainly wouldn't let anyone add this on again. I do understand your frustration at the vague answers for such power that can threaten your home, seems it's not anything new sadly and when people say it is just the likes of the payday loan industry profiteering, well. I do beg to differ.