Scum, one. Police, nil.
Discussion
How about this for a blood boiler.
A friend scrimped and saved for years to buy her flat while raising a daughter mostly single-handedly. When the daughter had reached 18, the mother got the opportunity to emigrate to Australia but decided to retain the flat in the UK as a bit of a pension. The daughter was first in line to rent it if she wished - she did. The daughter is no chip off the old block though, she's a pretty disgusting creature who despite her mother's best efforts/intentions has turned into the worst kind of feckless wastrel imaginable. Inevitably, the daughter does not pay the paltry sum required to cover the mortgage (about half what the going rent would be), is evicted and replaced by tenants.
After a year or so, the tenants serve notice to leave and the daughter claims she's a changed person, learned lessons etc etc and begs for the flat back. For the first couple of months, she pays some money to her mother to cover the mortgage, then stops. No amount of persuasion from her grandfather or her mother by long distance call, makes any difference. Unpaid 'rent', by February, stands at a few thousand pounds. The mother returns to kick the daughter out and sort out the flat for rent or sale.
The mother arrives at the property in February to be hit by the pungent stink of cat piss from the bottom of the staircase, let alone anywhere near the flat itself. She finds the locks have changed so knocks the door. The daughter has moved in a Moroccan boyfriend and the pair of them refuse entry to their squalid hellhole (the flat looked like a showhome a year ago). Better still, the scumbag neighbour calls the police. No matter, thinks my friend, "it's my home". But, no, the police attend and advise she's breaching the peace and must leave or be arrested - oh, and go see the Citizen's Advice Bureau. Who say go see a lawyer, who says "a few thousand pounds please".
The Moroccan does however agree that the flat's owner can visit with a letting agent at 3pm the next day. Unfortunately, the letting agent is not free at 3pm so the Moroccan says "tough". After a fashion, the owner and agent are shown around - and the flat is destroyed, the smell unbearable. The owner returns to Australia - lost earnings in Oz, wasted flights.
The owner returned this week with the intention of getting the flat back. The daughter and Moroccan weren't expecting this so the owner and a friend knock the door and the surprised Moroccan opens it. Owner and friend walk straight past him and are now in. The daughter was out. The Moroccan calls the police to squeal about his rights being breached, how the heating doesn't work, how the "landlady" and a stranger have "forced entry" into his home. The Moroccan doesn't like the look and sound of the owner's friend so goes next door for tea and sympathy. The door is closed behind him. From there, it's up to him to plead his case to the Courts for access, right?
However... the police arrive, the same police who visited the previous time. They threaten to arrest the owner and her friend for "breach of the peace" if they don't let the Moroccan back in. After a fashion, the police broker a compromise that gives the daughter and Moroccan 48 hours to clear out. 48 hours expired at noon today. The owner and friend return at the scheduled time. The occupants won't answer the door so the police are called.
The door is answered to the police, but not before various abuse and claims of "squatter's rights" are hollered through the letterbox. Now there is the daughter, the Moroccan and another scumbag in the flat. The owner points out the criminal damage to the flat and various evidence of drug use. The daughter claims "it was already like this". The police agree they could arrest the daughter for criminal damage but concede it probably won't stick when passed to the CPS. Furthermore, the Moroccan is now claiming he was roughed up on Tuesday. They have no power to remove them and warn that if any efforts are made to forcibly remove them, the forcers will be arrested. Go see the CAB etc etc..
Today's police guests concede that their colleagues on Tuesday were wrong to threaten to arrest the owner and friend, they will take the matter to their superiors. As for the flat and the owner? The flat is trashed, it will cost thousands to make it marketable, thousands more to displace the scum living it. The owner will return to Oz, default on the mortgage and be bankrupted in the UK in her absence.
Great eh? Only involve the police if you're criminal, they're really helpful then.
A friend scrimped and saved for years to buy her flat while raising a daughter mostly single-handedly. When the daughter had reached 18, the mother got the opportunity to emigrate to Australia but decided to retain the flat in the UK as a bit of a pension. The daughter was first in line to rent it if she wished - she did. The daughter is no chip off the old block though, she's a pretty disgusting creature who despite her mother's best efforts/intentions has turned into the worst kind of feckless wastrel imaginable. Inevitably, the daughter does not pay the paltry sum required to cover the mortgage (about half what the going rent would be), is evicted and replaced by tenants.
After a year or so, the tenants serve notice to leave and the daughter claims she's a changed person, learned lessons etc etc and begs for the flat back. For the first couple of months, she pays some money to her mother to cover the mortgage, then stops. No amount of persuasion from her grandfather or her mother by long distance call, makes any difference. Unpaid 'rent', by February, stands at a few thousand pounds. The mother returns to kick the daughter out and sort out the flat for rent or sale.
The mother arrives at the property in February to be hit by the pungent stink of cat piss from the bottom of the staircase, let alone anywhere near the flat itself. She finds the locks have changed so knocks the door. The daughter has moved in a Moroccan boyfriend and the pair of them refuse entry to their squalid hellhole (the flat looked like a showhome a year ago). Better still, the scumbag neighbour calls the police. No matter, thinks my friend, "it's my home". But, no, the police attend and advise she's breaching the peace and must leave or be arrested - oh, and go see the Citizen's Advice Bureau. Who say go see a lawyer, who says "a few thousand pounds please".
The Moroccan does however agree that the flat's owner can visit with a letting agent at 3pm the next day. Unfortunately, the letting agent is not free at 3pm so the Moroccan says "tough". After a fashion, the owner and agent are shown around - and the flat is destroyed, the smell unbearable. The owner returns to Australia - lost earnings in Oz, wasted flights.
The owner returned this week with the intention of getting the flat back. The daughter and Moroccan weren't expecting this so the owner and a friend knock the door and the surprised Moroccan opens it. Owner and friend walk straight past him and are now in. The daughter was out. The Moroccan calls the police to squeal about his rights being breached, how the heating doesn't work, how the "landlady" and a stranger have "forced entry" into his home. The Moroccan doesn't like the look and sound of the owner's friend so goes next door for tea and sympathy. The door is closed behind him. From there, it's up to him to plead his case to the Courts for access, right?
However... the police arrive, the same police who visited the previous time. They threaten to arrest the owner and her friend for "breach of the peace" if they don't let the Moroccan back in. After a fashion, the police broker a compromise that gives the daughter and Moroccan 48 hours to clear out. 48 hours expired at noon today. The owner and friend return at the scheduled time. The occupants won't answer the door so the police are called.
The door is answered to the police, but not before various abuse and claims of "squatter's rights" are hollered through the letterbox. Now there is the daughter, the Moroccan and another scumbag in the flat. The owner points out the criminal damage to the flat and various evidence of drug use. The daughter claims "it was already like this". The police agree they could arrest the daughter for criminal damage but concede it probably won't stick when passed to the CPS. Furthermore, the Moroccan is now claiming he was roughed up on Tuesday. They have no power to remove them and warn that if any efforts are made to forcibly remove them, the forcers will be arrested. Go see the CAB etc etc..
Today's police guests concede that their colleagues on Tuesday were wrong to threaten to arrest the owner and friend, they will take the matter to their superiors. As for the flat and the owner? The flat is trashed, it will cost thousands to make it marketable, thousands more to displace the scum living it. The owner will return to Oz, default on the mortgage and be bankrupted in the UK in her absence.
Great eh? Only involve the police if you're criminal, they're really helpful then.
Mother should have learned her lesson the first time and should not have rented the flat to her daughter again.
Mother should have learned her lesson the first time the police did not help and not relied on them again.
Mother, crying for sympathy, is a bit daft. She definitely deserves some sympathy, but is it really that hard to ask around and find the right people? Her daughter's fellow druggies would have probably sold her out and gotten her out of the flat on some pretext (week's holiday to Majorca/Butlins) while the mother could have changed the locks, and established that the property was "abandoned".
Dumb and dumber.
Mother should have learned her lesson the first time the police did not help and not relied on them again.
Mother, crying for sympathy, is a bit daft. She definitely deserves some sympathy, but is it really that hard to ask around and find the right people? Her daughter's fellow druggies would have probably sold her out and gotten her out of the flat on some pretext (week's holiday to Majorca/Butlins) while the mother could have changed the locks, and established that the property was "abandoned".
Dumb and dumber.
Cut losses and run. Unfortunately the UK is now a scum country and your friend has as much chance of sorting this out in an economical fashion as have so many white Zimbabwean farmers.
Even two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
Even two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
AJS- said:
Cut losses and run. Unfortunately the UK is now a scum country and your friend has as much chance of sorting this out in an economical fashion as have so many white Zimbabwean farmers.
Even two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
Agree completely. It's perfectly possible to let the dust settle then bounce the sEven two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
t down the staircase but, really, why bother? As for the mortgage company intervening, they have been contacted and aren't interested. Legals/reparations/declining market value make the whole proposition, literally, more trouble than it's worth and the mortgage company's disinterest says to me they will deserve the filthy hovel by the time they get to it.
bosscerbera said:
No tenancy agreement, not that it makes any material difference.
None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
How can not having a tenancy agreement make any difference? at the worst you would have a deposit which would cover some of the repairs.None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
and how did the 'cops' cost the flat?
Whinging landlords without a clue springs to mind here.
jules_s said:
bosscerbera said:
No tenancy agreement, not that it makes any material difference.
None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
How can not having a tenancy agreement make any difference? at the worst you would have a deposit which would cover some of the repairs.None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
and how did the 'cops' cost the flat?
Whinging landlords without a clue springs to mind here.
It sounds more like the daughter just needs a bloody good slap, and the boyfriend to be introduced to a bit of 2x4 in a dark alley.
I see what Bosscerbera says about the ill-informed bib"costing the house" ... this is a "domestic issue" more than a squatters rights surely as its between mother and daughter, and the costs that the first binb has caused in extra travel, legal and time may well cost the flat. Shame as I would imagine that this is probably the daughter's inheritance too ... more's the fool that she is.
bosscerbera said:
AJS- said:
Cut losses and run. Unfortunately the UK is now a scum country and your friend has as much chance of sorting this out in an economical fashion as have so many white Zimbabwean farmers.
Even two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
Agree completely. It's perfectly possible to let the dust settle then bounce the sEven two trips from Australia, and the hassle so far are fairly small beans compared to five years of trying to deal with ongoing court cases and legal fees, from Australia.
It might be worth getting the bank involved before defaulting on the mortgage and letting them reposess it, just to see if there's any way they can help. Good luck to her.
t down the staircase but, really, why bother? As for the mortgage company intervening, they have been contacted and aren't interested. Legals/reparations/declining market value make the whole proposition, literally, more trouble than it's worth and the mortgage company's disinterest says to me they will deserve the filthy hovel by the time they get to it.
Accuse me of criticising from the sidelines, but I've heard of quite a lot of instances of this from buy to let owners, and the further away they are from the properties concerned, the more difficult they become to solve. Much less dramatically, someone I know was running a constant loss as their tennants were continually complaining of trivial problems (I'm no fan of dodgy landlords at all, but calling out a plumber because the bathroom sink drains when the plug is in!) and the management company would charge about £40 per call out, for one of their employees to go and confirm there is indeed a problem, without fixing it or anything! They then had a habit of contracting an expensive tradesman to fix the problem. In all I think she paid over £100 for a generic, plastic plug that costs £1 from any supermarket.
She sacked off the management company after a while, but the thing is, trying to arrange all those things yourself, from half way around the world (she lived in Hong Kong) is a none starter. With time zones, phone bills and the sort of inevitable fact of tradesmen rounding up their time and expenses for a client who is completely unable to check their work, the costs and stress just outweighed any benefit.
I don't suppose many people will be leaping into buy to let now, but having considered it myself and decided against it I am constantly glad that I stayed out.
The success stories I have heard of have either been people with a trusted tennant and a trusted handy man who can fix things for a reasonable price if they are any distance away, or more often, people who stay local and rent out houses in the area they live in and do most of the work themselves.
jules_s said:
bosscerbera said:
No tenancy agreement, not that it makes any material difference.
None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
How can not having a tenancy agreement make any difference? at the worst you would have a deposit which would cover some of the repairs.None of it surprises me. The bit that makes my blood boil is the rookie cops' stupidity on Tuesday - that cost the flat.
and how did the 'cops' cost the flat?
Whinging landlords without a clue springs to mind here.
Yeah, if the daughter had been a proper tenant, she'd have had a tenancy agreement like the tenants who lived in it between the daughter's stays. And she'd have paid the going rent - about twice the 'keep' her mother asked her for, which roughly equated to the mortgage payment.
The cops cost the flat because the owner had peacefully regained occupation on Tuesday. There was no force, one of the occupants was out, the other walked out. The police then decided the occupants should be let back in and, if they weren't let back in, they'd arrest the owner and friend for "breach of the peace". Today's police are the ones pressing for the disciplining of their colleagues.
XJSJohn said:
Come on now Jules, this is a mother who has (stupidly or not) tried to do the right thing by her daughter, and then the daughter is taking the piss.
It sounds more like the daughter just needs a bloody good slap, and the boyfriend to be introduced to a bit of 2x4 in a dark alley.
I see what Bosscerbera says about the ill-informed bib"costing the house" ... this is a "domestic issue" more than a squatters rights surely as its between mother and daughter, and the costs that the first binb has caused in extra travel, legal and time may well cost the flat. Shame as I would imagine that this is probably the daughter's inheritance too ... more's the fool that she is.
Indeed,It sounds more like the daughter just needs a bloody good slap, and the boyfriend to be introduced to a bit of 2x4 in a dark alley.
I see what Bosscerbera says about the ill-informed bib"costing the house" ... this is a "domestic issue" more than a squatters rights surely as its between mother and daughter, and the costs that the first binb has caused in extra travel, legal and time may well cost the flat. Shame as I would imagine that this is probably the daughter's inheritance too ... more's the fool that she is.
Family or not I would have stopped them entering the place again
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