Building Dispute - Notifying Mortgagee

Mia_August

Hello,

I am new to the forum and have a query on how best to engage a Mortgagee concerning a long standing building dispute.

I live in a small block of purpose built flats, share of freehold, since moving in one neighbour has launched legal action after legal action in what could only be explained as a bitter attempt to bankrupt the freeholder, a limited company with no income. Its sole purpose is to be the freeholder.

The reason they are doing this is, inexplicably, 10 years ago they repeatedly refused to extend their lease while all neighbours now have a 999yr lease this individual has a very short lease under 50yrs at present. - how do you even get a mortgage on a lease sub 50yrs?

At the time of lease extension 10 yrs ago there are very peculiar correspondence where the individual appears concerned that they would have to involve their mortgagee and for this reason they did not want to extend their lease.

Clearly bankrupting the freeholder is not desirable for anyone involved. The other owners are working very hard and going to great expense to avoid bankruptcy. this individual has also withheld service in its entirety for going on 3 yrs now, complicating matters further.

We have 0 confidence this owner will ever act reasonably and has become so entrenched and bitter clearly prefers to stay in litigation and watch the building suffer then to resolve matters.

My reason for posting is whether there is any hope of engaging the mortgagee? I have no doubt they would act more rationally and progress the process of consent for their unauthorised extension (they did built an extension to their flat without consent) update the lease based on the actual layout of their property and seek a lease extension following retro consent.

Any advice you may have on how to bring this to the Mortgagee's attention would be hugely welcome, are there certain departments which deal with matters like these? to what extent could the freeholder have an obligation to make the mortgagee aware that their mortgagor is trying to bankrupt the freeholder? I believe Barclays to be the mortgagee according to the Land register, if there are any specific contacts at Barclays that would be greatly appreciated.

Comments and advice are extremely welcome! many thank in advance

MWT

Sounds like the freeholder needs to take some advice on dealing with vexatious litigation.

This is not a recommendation for this firm, but it is a good description of what is involved:

https://www.bindmans.com/knowledge-hub/blogs/vexatious-litigants/

See what others have to say, but I cannot immediately see any circumstances in which the mortgagee would step into the middle of this...

Mia_August

If anyone has any other thoughts or comments it would be greatly appreciated