BTL house sold without telling me

[dsthubbins]

I can hardly believe that this is happening. I've just received a letter from my BTL mortgage co telling me that they are sorry that the sale of my house didn't cover the full outstanding amount.

A quick bit of background: house is vacant and awaiting renovation (when I can afford it). The mortgage was with a particular mortgage co who have recently been taken over by another company. The mortgage was in arrears but I was paying regularly to the first co up until their take over. The new company wrote to me stating that they were taking over and that it was it - no more contact of any kind. At this point I got into real financial trouble and buried my head in the sand and failed to contact the mortgage co. My logic was (and I know this is wrong) but they'll contact me when they need paying. However, I received nothing, no phone calls, no letters. And nothing stating that they were going to repossess never mind sell the house.

Then today I get a letter stating the house has been sold out of the blue. I know that I have handled this badly but surely they cannot just do this without at least letting me know whats going on. All my tools were in the house along with various other items and if nothing else, it would have been handy to at least had the chance to remove these. Needless to say, the house has been sold for about half the amount owed.

Is there anything I can do at this stage?

[newstarter]

Are you saying you never recieved any possession papers,ie the n120 particulars of claim and the n11m reply form,absoloutely nothing at all ?,we need to get this straight before we go any further.

[newstarter]

The reason im asking the above is sometimes paperwork can end up a previous address or some lenders reps can be guilty of sharp practice and pass on corespondence to a previous adddress on purpose,this has been known to happen in the past.

[dsthubbins]

Seriously, I received absolutely nothing. Not even a letter saying that there was a problem.

The house is in England, by the way (rather than Scotland).

[newstarter]

You see a judge would have given them possession of your property,they couldnt just have taken it back,so a court case must have been heard somewhere and court papers issued to you so you could have chance to defend the action,if you as a defendent were not issued with the above paperwork then something has gone seriously wrong here and i would argue that if this is the case then the whole process would be deemed unlawful.

[newstarter]

A question here,can you say which company took over the outstanding mortgage. ?

Edited December 2, 2010 by newstarter

[newstarter]

I ask this because this company would be your first port of call

[dsthubbins]

The Mortgage co is Mortgage Express. Do they still need a court order with a buy to let property?

[newstarter]

In a word, yes.

[Killerschick]

The Mortgage co is Mortgage Express. Do they still need a court order with a buy to let property?

 

According to the Court of Appeal case of Ropaigealach v Barclays Bank plc [2000] QB 263 (the facts of which are very similar to the situation you describe) if the property is peaceably taken into possession i.e. there is no eviction, then NO court order is required.

 

The situation was looked at again in 2008 in the following case:-

Horsham Properties Group Ltd v (1) Paul Clark (2) Carol Beech and GMAC RFC Ltd (Third Party) and The Secretary of State for Justice (Intervener) [2008] EWHC 2327 (Ch)

This was a case where GMAC placed a residential property in the hands of receivers who sold the property with the owners in occupation. The purchasers of the property then proceeded to evict the (now former) owners who objected citing the Human Rights Act and saying they should be entitled to the protections available under the Administration of Justice Act 1970. GMAC were found to have acted legally.

 

In light of these binding court decisions (I don't know of any more recent cases which have overturned these) the position would be that Mortgage Express did NOT need a court order to take possession of your property or sell it so any attempt to overturn the sale or claim compensation for the way it was dealt with is unlikely to be successful. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it's better to know the legal position at the outset than put a lot of effort into a claim that's not likely to succeed.

 

You should raise the issue of any goods left behind and get them to account for what happened to them, particularly if the tools were valuable.

 

KC

[newstarter]

Killerschick i stand corrected,thank you for that,information

section 101 of the law of property act 69.6 states that

A lender has the power to appoint a reciever when the mortgage money becomes due.

69.7 the power of sale, when a default has been made for 3 months

intrest under the mortgage is in arrears and unpaid for 2 months.

 

Another quote here of intrest,69.2 general,"it is now rare for a lender to rely on the power implied by the L.P.A"

This illustrates to me just how determined G.M.A.C are to shorten their mortgage book,if i had not read it i wouldnt have believed it !