Been Evicted

[annsummers]

Hi everyone...
We have just come back from holiday to find a letter addressed to the landlord and the ocuppiers of the house. After opening this, i find its an eviction notice from the local county courts stating we have to leave by 29th Aug 12noon. We have been paying our full rent no problems and are aware that the landlord is in financial diffculty and was selling the house at the end of our tenancy in december, but now this has happened. Do we have any rights or do we have to be out? Really concerned as we have no where to go. We are in the process of buying a house which wont be sorted til around end of september (surveyor only just doing checks!). So where do we stand? Please help

[themas]

It sounds as if the house has been repossessd by the mortgage lender and you are being evicted so they can sell it with vacant possession. You don't have any remedy against the mortgage lender so the notice is legally valid.

It is possible (but not certain) that actual eviction will take place some while after the date you have been given (assuming you don't go on that date). This depends on what stage the process has reached, & whether the lender has to go back to Court for an enforcement order if you don't go.

I suggest you phone or go to the Court that issued the document to try and clarify what exactly will happen. Also, you could try to negotiate with the lender a further month to give you time to get your house purchase sorted.

[GypsyGSD]

This happened to my daughter who was renting a house via a estate agent, the owner lived in ireland and decided he wanted to sell my daughter had a years contract but she was given notice to quit and had to be out within a month It was made worse as as she had 3 young children,her local housing authority found her a place 24 hours before the day she had to leave , of course she would have stayed with me but the situation caused a lot of upset and concern so I hope things work out for you GypsyX

[annsummers]

Yes this is causing alot of stress and upset. My children are due to start school in september and i just want them to be happy and not to move about too much. It just hope that the courts allow us to stay in til we need to as our only other option is to go to the council which they have advised Hostel housing which i wont do. My head is spinning and i dont know my next step

[soph0205]

You need to know who served the notice ie the landlord or mortgage lender.

If it was the landlord then he was supposed to serve you notice first its got to be a section (21 4b) which gives you 2 months to find somewhere. If at the end of the two months you dnt leave you will then get taken to court the court will then tell you a date to leave, if you do not leave on that date then it will go back to court and then there will be a date made for the balliffs in which you have to leave.

I dnt really know about if mortgage lenders are tryin to repossess the house, i would look into it if i were you.

Anyway find our and post back.

Good luck

[annsummers]

Just thought i would post my outcome!

Had hearing today and the judge went against me. I rang the lenders solicitor as a last minute plea to allow us to stay in for a couple more weeks. I was to then find out that the LL had paid his arrears off this morning so we are allowed to stay in the property until completion of our house purchase.

Landlords need to think before letting their properties and stop allowing innocent tenants to go thru such problems. i will NEVER rent again!

[annsummers]

I was told by the judge that i can claim compensation against the Landlord. can someone please tell me how i go about this as i cannot bring anything up about it online as i dont know what i could actually get compensation for? Also how much are we talking?

[themas]

At the time the judge made the comment he thought you were going to be evicted, which would probably have resulted in you having additional costs which you would not have incurred if you had been able to stay till the end of the tenancy. These costs would have occurred because the LL breached the term of the tenancy contract giving you "quiet enjoyment" of the property so the claim would be for compensation for breach of contract, and the amount dependent on what your extra costs were.

In the event, you are being allowed to stay so presumably have not incurred extra costs (unless you have had to spend money dealing with the problem). If you want to claim you would have to do so in the County Court, which would incur a fee & there would be no guarantee you would get your money back if the LL is really in financial difficulty. Probably best to forget about it unless there is a lot of money involved.