Acenden and me

[dont like bully boys]

We had a reposession order slapped on us by these pariahs when my husband became mentally ill and I had to cease work to become his full time carer which gave us substantial money problems in September 2009.Long story short, we struggled to make the both the mortgage payment and the extra £50 a month that Arsenden demanded. It seemed every month they were sending letters to say our mortgage payments were going up in line with Libor. In August 2011 we decided to try and sell the property and move into rented accomadation, first of all falling victim to National Homebuyers who demanded £500 up front before they would even speak to us. They made a ridiculous offer but it would just have cleared the mortgage so we decided to go ahead to get Arsenden off our back.

 

A little while later National Homebuyers chopped £15000.00 off the offer, which needless to say what answer they were given. Hence we didnt get the £500 back. We did however manage to find a private buyer, whom, whilst not offering full market value made a respectable offer which we accepted on 10th November 2011. I contacted my solicitor on the 18th January 2012 as from the initial scurry of activity in November we had heard nothing since November. He informed me that he sent papers to buyers solicitor on 25th November and had not recieved them back until 15th January, they were asking me to take out a policy to safeguard against any FUTURE land contamination !!!!!!!!! Needless to say the answer was no as there had been no issues with land contamination and the guy that was buying the house is a buy to let landlord who owns several properties in my street. We went to check the property after the high winds on the 21st of January and found a eviction notice from Arsenden scheduled for the 25th January. When I contacted them to try and sort the matter out it was a case of pay up or else. We decided to go to court and try to postpone the eviction as the sale of the property was imminent. We managed to get a postponement until the 16th February to allow the sale to proceed.

 

The judge gave us 21 days from the 25th or the next available court date. We were then more or less physically dragged into the county court office to reschedule another eviction date. The Bailiff did not have a free slot for the 17th which technically was the 21st day of the Judges order so Arsendens solicitor asked for the day before, hence not abiding by the judges decision. A freind of mine offered to pay the arrears off on his credit card so they would get off our back and the sale go through, but they didnt want to know as it was a credit card. My solicitor who was acting for us in the sale of our house was given my authorisation to deal with Arsenden and try and get them to back off. I spent one hour and 8 minutes on the phone to them at a cost of £15.78 as I only have a mobile and was told what they required my solicitor to send them to consider before they would back off.

 

My solicitor sent the necessary paperwork at 9am on the 16th February and at 10.30am I got Lissal [EDIT - PLEASE REFRAIN FROM PERSONAL ABUSE] of Arsenden on the phone asking why they had not got the apaperwork as requested. I told her they had and it had been sent to the fax number I was given. She denied all knowledge and said I was supposed to phone them to tell them the fax had been sent at 9am. I was not told to ring or I would have told them that i could not due to having no credit and she said I was lying as she had Matthew sat across from her and it was he who had told me that. Personally I couldnt have cared less if he was sat on her knee. I know what he told me as I wrote everything down I had to tell my solicitor and read it back to Matthew as I wanted to make sure I did everything right given the reposession was less than 12 hours away. She seemed to get some sort of kick in saying :

 

Well the eviction is going ahead at 11.30 unless you sell your house within the next 30 minutes. The actual time for eviction was 11.40 so not only were they going in a day early they wanted to go in a extra 10 minutes early. My solicitor rang me at 11.30 to say the eviction had been postponed to the following Tuesday. The house sale went through the next day on the 17th. My solicitor sent Arsenden £60193.54, as the mortgage stood at £56900.00 I think this amount was well over the top. My solicitors bill doubled to £1211.56 from £560.00 initially, the buyer got the keys and the minimal proceeds due to come to us is still with my solicitor as he had to give a undertaking to Arsenden to cover any shortfall?????????????? I contacted Arsenden and was given the old run around both by them and TLT solicitors, neither of which would tell me what the correct settlement figure was or what TLT costs had been.

 

All they had to do is reply to my solicitor to say payment was made in full. They said this would take approximately 4 weeks and I told them it bloody well wouldnt, from that I waS AGAIN PASSED ROUND and ended up back at Customer Services where I had started. A woman called Hannah said she would pass it to a senior as urgent and it would take 24 hours. That was the 24th February and still nothing has been sent. I complained using there online complaint form on the 24th and surprise surprise no response. I have just rang my solicitor and told him my money had better hit my account by tomorrow and Arsenden can do one. I am considering a course of action involving Trading Standards, The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the FSO. wHAT DO YOU SUGGEST ?????????????

Edited February 28, 2012 by Ell-enn
Broken down into paragraphs so it's easier to read.

[42man]

I have moved your post to a seprate thread. The first thing I would be doing is sending a SAR to them so you get a breakdown of all charges and other information.....any PPI on this at all ? And I would certainly inform the FSA and the Office Of Fair Trading too..