Evictions/Bailiffs. Do people really not know?

My daughter was taken to court by her landlord.
She had letters galore, which all added to the cost.
The agency the property was let from maintained they were unable to contact the landlord for over 18 months, and she had already been paying off quite a chunk of arrears each month.

The problem stemmed from the council paying 4 weekly rent, whilst some months have more days.
It got into a huge battle, with talk of "lunar months" vs 28 day months.

The judge said he couldn't understand any of it, ruled that she owed £300 instead of the thousands that were racking up, and that was an end to it.

When I was working as an estate agent I had to attend many re-possessions on behalf of the Building Societies. I noticed in many of the houses that there were nearly always stacks of unopened letters in the hall. These were from debt collectors, banks, building societies etc. Sadly, I came to the conclusion that many of the people who had got deeply into debt buried their heads in the sand.

Meant to add * by mail

My work is in connection to the courts and it's always struck me as odd that they don't send out mail normally, recorded / registered delivery.
The position they take is that it's deemed court documents are delivered by unless they are returned.

I think there was a poster, not long ago, whose son was in exactly that position. He and his family were homeless while the tenant lived rent free in his house. He was paying mortgage and hotel bills.

There’s already a shortage of good quality rental property and telling landlords they just have to accept the risk of not being paid won’t improve things.

There has to be a balance.

suziewoozie

JenniferEccles

It’s worth also sparing a thought for the poor landlord in these sorry sagas.

Yes we all know there are awful rogue ones, letting out dreadfully maintained properties, but the vast majority are decent people letting property to supplement their income.

If a tenant stops paying rent and refuses to vacate the property it can take months for the landlord to get them out through the courts, and in some cases the property is vandalised, incurring more expense for the owner.

We have taken out a rent protection policy for peace of mind in case we should ever be unlucky enough to have a nightmare tenant.

What don’t you start a tgread about landlords then? Renting properties out is a business and all businesses have risks. Tough

Very hard on the young man who was sent abroad by his boss and had to rent out his flat to just about cover his mortgage. The woman who moved in didn’t pay any rent after the first month, but could afford to go on exotic holidays. Took months to get her out and poor man was lumbered with debts that took years to pay off and hampered his chances of buying a house when he was married.

That kind of theft is ok with you then Susie? As long as the world is dragged down to the lowest level and no one tries to plan to improve their future.

You seem very bitter!

there has been at least one successful court case against the programme I m amazed that with all the laws about not filming people how the programme makers can get away with it

That's just plain bullying of people who are in a terrible situation.
They probably don't know their rights, as Franbern says, and also can't think straight as they are being evicted.

Ohmother

Gosh. What an attitude suziewoozie. If you loan another person’s property it doesn’t give you the Goddamn right to leave it like a hovel! Some of the examples on these programmes just beggar belief how people have lived and expect people to be sympathetic about their money worries. Respect doesn’t cost anything.

Indeed, Ohmother! I've never watched a programme about evicting people - until one happened to be on TV yesterday, and I got interested . The particular circumstance was one man, with one small property to let out. When the tenants were eventually persuaded to leave, he had to try and clean what he said was ground in cat sht out of the carpets, in addition to having received no rent.

I can't see the fun in watching people be made homeless as a form of entertainment but I have equal sympathy for people whose property has been trashed and who have also been defrauded of legally owing rent.

I can believe it Chewbacca
We are very small scale landlords and touch wood have been very lucky with our tenants so far.
We started years ago when we could see what was happening with property prices, with a view to providing an income for our retirement.

We are certainly no where near on the scale of the infamous Fergus Wilson!

marpau Yes and a bit rude too but I will ignore!

Gosh. What an attitude suziewoozie. If you loan another person’s property it doesn’t give you the Goddamn right to leave it like a hovel! Some of the examples on these programmes just beggar belief how people have lived and expect people to be sympathetic about their money worries. Respect doesn’t cost anything.

Earlier this morning the theme music from the ITV programme 'This Week' was played on Radio 3 - Karelia suite by Sibelius.

It's spine-tingling to listen to, particularly as it reminded me of a time when TV documentaries were of the highest quality and worth watching.

I can't imagine why anyone watches a programme about evictions, screened as entertainment, rather than fact-finding.

This Week

suziewoosie Harsh

I've worked in debt the debt collection industry, in every type of debt, for over 40 years and believe me, every debtor is given plenty of warnings by both their creditors, their agencies and the courts. There is a lot of ignoring it, not acknowledging their debt and burying their head in the sand before it gets to the repossession of goods and assets stage.

There has been at least one successful claim against the tv company for using this film without permission of the people involved.
There is nowhere any information on any of these poor people being paid by the tv companies.
In some of these programmes, the people do refuse entry to the tv crews and they have to stay outside. Unfortunately, so many people are in just such a state of shock and have no understanding of their rights they do not think of doing that, probably do not know that they can. Never are they asked if it is okay for the tv crews to come in.

Wouldn’t be a landlord in the uk for any amount of money. Too much risk . It is not quite so bad here, at least non payers get evicted after a while. There are a lot of people who invest in property instead of shares etc, especially these days. We don’t but many of our friends do and they are protected to a greater level than they seem to be there.

JenniferEccles

It’s worth also sparing a thought for the poor landlord in these sorry sagas.

Yes we all know there are awful rogue ones, letting out dreadfully maintained properties, but the vast majority are decent people letting property to supplement their income.

If a tenant stops paying rent and refuses to vacate the property it can take months for the landlord to get them out through the courts, and in some cases the property is vandalised, incurring more expense for the owner.

We have taken out a rent protection policy for peace of mind in case we should ever be unlucky enough to have a nightmare tenant.

What don’t you start a tgread about landlords then? Renting properties out is a business and all businesses have risks. Tough

It’s worth also sparing a thought for the poor landlord in these sorry sagas.

Yes we all know there are awful rogue ones, letting out dreadfully maintained properties, but the vast majority are decent people letting property to supplement their income.

If a tenant stops paying rent and refuses to vacate the property it can take months for the landlord to get them out through the courts, and in some cases the property is vandalised, incurring more expense for the owner.

We have taken out a rent protection policy for peace of mind in case we should ever be unlucky enough to have a nightmare tenant.

My father was one of those that ignored bills, I remember a bailiff turning up when I was a child, because we lived in a large house he went away! Father went bankrupt in the end, all the money and the houses my grandmother left gambled and drunk away.

I have only watched one of these programmes - it started with bailiffs turning up at a company which hadn't paid a debt, a bank transfer was quickly made, but then it went on to a woman being evicted from her home and I couldn't watch any longer - how can anyone be entertained watching that kind of distress.

Totally agree with all that are saying it’s awful to have cameras watching these depressing moments in people s lives and I should have googled before I opened my mouth apparently they don’t get paid but there has been at least one successful court case against the programme I m amazed that with all the laws about not filming people how the programme makers can get away with it
Agree with you quercus sometimes it s a smallish amount that grows and grows when it’s ignored

These programmes are depressing and sometimes distressing to watch. Of course people should not ignore debts but the reality for many people is not that simple. Household financial management should be taught in schools from a relatively young age so that young people start to think about managing their money early. Many people are simply not very good at managing their money, and for people on low incomes this can be disastrous.
One of the worst aspects is that the actual original debts were often relatively small but the additional fees and charges added for court hearings and bailiff visits etc often increase the debt to huge and unmanageable levels.
It will be interesting to see how the situation with fines for breaking lockdown rules develops. Court imposed fines are determined in relation to income but lockdown fines had not been so adjusted. I wonder how many of these fines will never be paid, or will be reduced or written off by the courts. A student fined 10k for having a party is unlikely to be in a position to pay it back.

Doodledog finally something we can totally agree on!

If they are paid, then I expect that anything they earn will be taken off any benefits they receive because of our punitive means testing system.

It also makes these programmes even worse than I thought - it’s bad enough filming repossessions, but to offer incentives to desperate people to have them televised is beyond the pale. Imagine being so desperate that you would go from hiding things from yourself to public humiliation.

It’s horrible, and I don’t understand how anyone can get pleasure out of watching this sort of thing.

I don’t condone unpaid debt - in fact in some cases I see it as theft - but I also think that the safety net in this country has so many holes in it that it’s not surprising that people fall through it, and watching that happen is not my idea of entertainment.

Is it real or do you think they are actors?

If the TV have asked to film them, and offered payment, they would know the bailiffs were going to arrive.

Perhaps the offer of payment happens afterwards.