Illegal access to property?

[scatts570]

Hi,

I hope someone can answer some queries for me.

I rent out a flat in London and was recently contacted by my tenant informing me that dust from building work that was being carried out on the flat below had entered my flat and left it uninhabitable. It would appear that the flat below mine is having extensive refurbishment carried out including the removal of their ceiling, (leaving my tenant able to see the flat below through the floorboards, and the builders to view up into my tenants flat!) and also work being carried out to the outside wall, which I obviously share, (A large hole has appeared!)

Now, I had not been aware of any work being carried out on this adjoining flat and under the party wall act I feel that I should have been informed of this.

The person carrying out the work has solicitors and is denying any wrongdoing although has offered to pay for the cleaning as a gesture of goodwill.

I have also since found out that whilst my tenant was away on holiday the surveyor acting on behalf of this person somehow gained access to my property and carried out a survey. Surely this is trespass?

The estate agents that hold a key to my property claim they were contacted by the management agents who asked for the keys to gain access.

The management agents claim that this call was never made by them.

This leads me to believe that someone has fraudulently obtained my keys and illegally entered my flat and carried out work in an adjoining property without ever informing me.

The whole situation ended up in me losing a sale on the flat and my tenant giving notice. I didn't want to get a solicitor involved as I can't really afford to hire one. However, I feel that these people shouldn't be allowed to do this sort of thing and get away with it just because they have some money.

Does anyone have any advice for me.

Kind regards

S

[waterbottle]

Trespass is a civil wrong so the police don't get involved. Even if you do manage to tie it to some sort of crime (i.e. damage) you will have a very difficult task in trying to get them to do anything.

People in this sector seem to do all sorts of 'favours' for each other. Again, really hard to get anyone to do anything.

If you want to make any progress with this you will first have to get everything in writing. Letter from the estage agents saying they had to give the keys to someone. Letter from the tenants saying they moved out because of upstairs mess.

Once you have this, you may be able to move on with some action. I would suggest that you take any money offered, without prejudice if possible.

Maybe tell the agents to sod off if they dished out the keys and annoyed the tenants.

[scatts570]

Thanks for that Waterbottle. It just seems wrong that someone can do all that and not have to answer for anything.

No one said life was fair I suppose.