my Leasehold/Freehold property and it's issues.

[BazzaS]

Expect them to bring up every communication and claim that you’ve been dodging them / not providing them with an address to serve to.......

[HP Mum]

They were communicating with lawyers associated to me too

 

They can’t serve a SD on your lawyers, only you.

 

As I said earlier - the lawyer stopped communicating  around the date on the SD they incorrectly served.  And the bank told me the receiver was now handling things and not to deal with them anymore.   The receiver never asked me where I was.  But he did email and I did reply or he did get auto reply.

 

Since I did have email communication with them - I don't think they could say they did everything possible to find me,  All they had to do was ask!  And then we could have discussed the situation. 

 

It almost is the reverse - they did nothing to try find me.  And if a PI is employed to do surveillance then he must have realised only one person - the wrong one - lived at the  wrong address.

 

Does anyone have any info re post #26 and #28 above?

 

The property is being marketed for sale and the receiver is negotiating offers, so there was no reason for me to expect bank/ lawyers to be trying to locate me to serve any papers.   

 

Surely any loss to them has to be proven upon an agreed sale.  It hasn't sold yet,   They may still get a high enough offer to prevent any large debt?  There could then be a different discussion re terms of repayment?   So I was not expecting anyone to be trying to find me!

 

But this is a bit of a digression from what  should I be doing NOW?

Should I send them an SAR? 

If they do intend to serve me correctly this would be useful, yes?

 

I am sure they have added all sorts of unnecessary costs to the debt that could be challenged?

 

Also there is a question over if they even had a valid notice of assignment?  They would have to produce that in the SAR wouldn't they?   This was a real query for me ages ago but it never got pursued legally.

[unclebulgaria67]

If they can't serve the papers to you personally, they will use other ways to proceed with your bankruptcy in your absence.  

 

It just means that you won't have had the opportunity to challenge the process and it could therefore make things more difficult for you.

 

I am not quite sure what you hope might happen, if the bankruptcy is delayed a couple of months.  Given the property has not sold in 4 years, it seems unlikely there is going to be a sudden change in fortune.

 

I would suggest that you obtain local advice about your current circumstances  . Many Solicitors offer a free half hour consultation. There are local insolvency advisors.  You need to understand why it may be better to cooperate with the process now, rather than avoid contact, hoping that delay is your friend.

[HP Mum]

Thank you UncleB

 

I have only realised what is going on in the last few days. 

So now confronting the situation and trying to work out what I need to do urgently. 

 I get that delay is not my friend.

 

Yes I understand they can proceed in my absence. 

So I need to stop that.   

 

They had the ability to ask me where I was and didn't

- they started a SD/Bk process knowingly behind my back so I wouldn't have the opportunity to discuss/challenge etc.   

The question is what do I do now?

How do I contact them?

 

Do I email the bank and receiver

 - ask for an update on the sale process and at same time attach a SAR on the basis of getting to the bottom of all the costs and finding out about correct assignment of a loan? 

 

Should I take this opp to also say I now know about the SD?     

That it has just been brought to my attention that they have been bizarrely delivering mail to relative without making any attempt to contact me directly by email?

 

Would they now need to serve the SD properly? 

 

And thus I would now have the correct timing to respond - 18 or 21 days ?

 

I am just concerned that they want to by-pass the SD and immediately push ahead with BK petition

- which would seem unfair advantage to them. 

 

 Can they?

 

 

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Contact the process server or creditor trying to make you bankrupt. Provide them with your contact information.  Get them to write to you, with details of their current proposals of dealing with the situation.

 

In the meantime, try to obtain some local advice about all aspects.

 

The important thing is what actions you can take that will allow you to move on and not have this mess to worry about.

[HP Mum]

Thanks

I do not have £s. 

I have to do it all myself. 

 

The situation is more complicated than just me. 

I was the leaseholder.  

 

Separately, the family hold the fh (I can never personally benefit),   

The bank have tried every legal means to get the fh and failed.   

Wasted time, whilst my interest accrued. 

 

The freeholders have their own legal argument with the bank and the bank has limited time to respond/act before they run risk of forfeiture of the lease back to the freeholders...

 

The bigger value is in the lease now. 

But long-term the value will be with the freeholders. 

Raising the funds to pay off my debt is being looked at

- aside from their legal action on poss forfeit.

 

There are discrepancies with the bank's paperwork. 

Dates wrong and signatures missing on important docs.

 

I understand one may question how the situation could change soon after 4y.   

But it seems the market is changing.

Properties of similar value in the locality have remained unsold in 5y

- but agents are now seeing more interest and offers on these properties. 

 

The bank has advised they have offers at a certain level but have been reluctant to accept.

They spent the last year in futile attempt to get the fh. 

 

If they had pursued the offer for the lh 1y ago there would be very little shortfall

- or any shortfall could have been potentially dealt with on some sort of financial agreement?

 

imo they want to pursue bk and get the house so they can take advantage of this poss rise in values.

 

[BazzaS]

Your bankruptcy would only get them the leasehold (or portion of the value thereof) and not the freehold, though?

[unclebulgaria67]

"" I do not have the £'s"

 

Have you tried to find out what free help you can obtain locally ?  

 

Seems very complicated.

[HP Mum]

Bazza - yes correct. They loaned knowing it was lh too.

 

UncleB

- I've only been on the case the last few days.

I have applied to court Triage for free help. 

But they declined til they know more details.

 

Filled in form with details.

Now waiting to hear if yes and a date. 

But suspect I may have to wait weeks? 

 

This is why it's important to get the clock ticking from a proper SD service. 

This is why I ask if they need to go backwards with their process and re-serve the SD properly

- which gives me the 18-21 days

 

Yes it is complicated.

[honeybee13]

Do you have a local law centre that could help, HP Mum? If you can't fund a lawyer that could be one of your choices.

 

HB

[BazzaS]

55 minutes ago, HP Mum said:

Bazza - yes correct. They loaned knowing it was lh too.

Nothing unusual about a LH mortgage, other than:

a) they routinely offer a lower LTV ratio

b) if the value of the lease isn’t increasing, the equity decreases over time, as the term remaining decreases.

 

b) may be of particular import if the remaining term of the lease is of the order of 80 years or less.

[HP Mum]

Honeybee - not sure what u mean by law centre?  I emailed local courts free legal centre for free civil Triage help. Will be able to follow up on Mon.

Or do u mean citizens advice?

 

Bazza - it's bit more than 80y.  The value in the fh is long-term and theres v strict covenants preventing any development/ alterations 

 

 

[honeybee13]

Here's a link to the local law centres forum.

 

https://www.lawcentres.org.uk/

 

HB

[HP Mum]

Thank you Honeybee

I will follow the link and revert

 

Bazza

- I made the comment about them agreeing to loan on lease as bank's very expensive lawyers messed up.

They thought their t&cs would allow them to grab the fh.

They didn't check the small print on legal docs that showed I wasn't the owner.

 

I'm confused on the process

- Does the claimant have to start again and serve the SD correctly?

[unclebulgaria67]

The serving of SD's is covered by legislation, which the process servers must follow.  So if service to the person is not possible, they document that alternative ways have been used. 

 

You can only argue about service later, if you are not currently taking part in the process.

 

Can I suggest that you get the insolvency advice and advice about the complex housing issue you have from someone qualified and in possession of all of the necessary documents.  Get that advice now, as that might help you now rather than worry about SD service.

[HP Mum]

I'm so lost on how to handle this.

It seems these people are months ahead of me.

And I have no energy or brain power or time or money to do what needs to be done.

 

You say serving SD is covered by legislation.

So if I contact this processor and ask why he wasn't given my email or # to text me and offer him the opportunity to serve me correctly

- would that work? 

 

I don't understand how they can deliberately abuse the system? 

These people have never asked where I am, yet have communicated by email. 

They are clearly trying to expedite a situation behind my back. 

And using intimidating tactics.

It's all a bit too much

[unclebulgaria67]

It is the Bank/mortgage company that must have decided that bankruptcy is the way forward, so you need only contact them to advise your current contact details.  But do so in writing by recorded delivery.   This is just in case,  the issue of you not advising of a contact address is ever raised later in any Court process, you can provide evidence that you did inform them.

 

The legislation on serving the SD is  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/1024/part/10/chapter/1/made

 

 

[HP Mum]

Also - the irony is not lost on me: that they are spending all this money on a processor to knowingly waste time at the wrong address and adding it to MY debt. 

One email is all it would have taken to ask me

 

UncleB - I actually do not have a fixed contact address. 

I was made homeless and could/ can not afford to rent anywhere. 

 

 Knowing how hard it is to function in life without an address I have not changed anything

- every business still has the original address and all my mail is on divert to a place where I can collect

- but I do not have a home address to give anyone. 

 

 I have been communicating by email with the bank, lawyer and receiver.  

[dx100uk]

unlawful fees for 'whatever' can be reclaimed or removed.

[unclebulgaria67]

Have you checked the London Gazette to see if they have posted any public notice ?

 

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/notice?results-page-size=10&categorycode-all=all&numberOfLocationSearches=1&location-distance-1=1&service=all-notices

[HP Mum]

Thanks for the link UncleB

Proof of service of statutory demand

10.3.—(1) Where section 268 requires a statutory demand to be served before the petition, a certificate of service of the demand must be filed with the court with the petition.

 

(2) The certificate must be verified by a statement of truth and be accompanied by a copy of the demand served.

 

(3) If the demand has been served personally on the debtor, the statement of truth must be made by the person who served the demand unless service has been acknowledged in writing by the debtor or a person authorised to accept service.

 

(4) If service has been acknowledged in writing either by—

 

(a)the debtor; or

 

(b)a person who is authorised to accept service on the debtor’s behalf and who has stated that this is the case in the acknowledgement of service;

then the certificate of service must be authenticated either by the creditor or by a person acting on the creditor’s behalf, and the acknowledgement of service must accompany the certificate.

 

(5) If the demand has been served other than personally and there is no acknowledgement of service, the certificate must be authenticated by a person or persons having direct personal knowledge of the means adopted for serving the statutory demand, and must contain the following information—

 

(a)the steps taken to serve the demand; and

 

(b)a date by which, to the best of the knowledge, information and belief of the person authenticating the certificate, the demand will have come to the debtor’s attention.

 

(6) Where paragraph (5) applies the statutory demand is deemed to have been served on the debtor on the date referred to in paragraph (5)(b) unless the court determines otherwise.

 

So:

1) above - how can they issue a certificate of service?

 

2) above - how can they provide a certificate of truth that it has been served when they know it has not?  Furthermore - recorded

delivery letters have now been sent by relative to processor/ lawyer stating that processor knew they had wrong address.

 

3) above - I only just found out this week and have not yet acknowledged service in writing. 

I could now write to the bank/processor so would that mean that the clock starts ticking from, say, tomorrow?

 

Re 6)above which relies on 5: 5a) - the steps taken to serve were not by direct contact with me

 

5b)  - how could they claim to the best of their knowledge etc that the demand will have come to my attention?

 

UncleB - yes I had. And I just rechecked.  Nothing.

 

Dx - should I send bank a SAR relevant to property? Ell-en recommended one on a different thread.   Trawling through papers this w/e and I see there are some potential discrepancies/ copy & paste issues. 

[dx100uk]

An sar to the legal owner of 'whatever' should have been sent months ago.

however that will reveal a contact address that you must thus verify, so thus give a valid and varified SD service address.?

 

[unclebulgaria67]

If you are of no fixed abode, you could write to the Bank/mortgage company advising that you have no current contact address and the only address that they can use to contact you, is an email address.   

 

I think what the process server will do is say that they have delivered or attempted to deliver the SD to your relatives address, as they had no other UK postal address.   If this is argued later,  then so be it.  

 

If you send an SAR with no postal address to advise them of, how are you going to receive the information back ?

[HP Mum]

Could they not send to previous address?  If mail is on divert to a place where I can collect would that be ok?

 

Can info from a SAR request be sent by email now?

 

For the record - I just remembered that the bank did send a letter by recorded delivery to the previous address - and I did collect it and they will have a record of signature and the date that I collected it

 

I have spoken to relative.  Asked if any other mail has been sent to them for my attention.  Turns out someone tried to send something to relative last September-ish and the letter was returned 'return to sender, not at this address'.  I asked if they could remember the name/ address.  Turns out it was the receiver. 

So the receiver would have been aware I was not at that relative's address.

 

Furthermore, the receiver/ their lawyer also emailed me, attaching a legal Notice, in August.  The attached Notice was incorrectly addressed again, but not relative's. (am sure it would have been rts by whoever lived at the other address too)     

 

However, the email was acknowledged - in the sense I passed the email on to appropriate lawyer to deal with.  That issue was dealt with by mid-end October by lawyer response.   So - the receiver/their lawyer and the bank used email to contact me/ knew it was received and dealt with.  So why not email me directly again when they want to serve a SD on me?

 

There's some explanations: they didn't want me to respond / wanted to intimidate me.

The truth is that they have been putting me under immense pressure to influence the freeholders to relinquish the fh. That's what the autumn legal notice was about.   Lawyers had to respond - the fh was/is not mine.  Again the cost of the legal notice action was added to my debt.

 

Would this all be enough to show they knew I was contactable?  That I was not avoiding them?

 

The bank had repeatedly threatened b.  They said they would forego b if they were given the fh.  I suspect they are bullying/ intimidating me in the hope the (family) freeholders step in and relinquish it.  But that can't and won't happen.

Edited February 23, 2020 by HP Mum

[unclebulgaria67]

Don't think the legislation allows for service of documents by email. 

 

If the Bank has possession and cannot sell it, they may be wanting to let the property, so they need to have the ownership transfered to them.  Not sure why they cannot sell it at a loss, unless the leasehold period is not for enough years to satisfy a purchasers Solicitors. 

 

You could just remond the Bank in writing of your current situation, that you are still of no fixed abode, so anything important needs to be communicated via email. They could arange an appointment st nearest Banking branch to serve you with any documents, if you wanted that.