Here is a question to the blog clinic from Lisa (not her real name) who is a tenant:
I am a tenant renting a flat, In October I had to travel overseas for family reasons for three weeks. When I came back at 9pm on a Friday there was a notice on the door saying that the locks had been changed.
I called the number on the notice but only got through to a message saying the office was closed until Monday. I called the emergency number for my agent but I was told that I would have to change the locks myself, they seemed to think I had simply locked myself out. I had nowhere to stay so I had to check into a hotel for three nights.
I called the number on Monday morning and was told that the mortgage company had taken legal custody of the flat and they were now my landlord. The keys were with a new agent in town and I could have them if I took in some ID and proof I lived at the property.
I was told that the locks had been changed because letters and notices had been sent to the flat but I hadn’t responded, I found the letters in my mailbox but I was abroad when they arrived.
I eventually collected the new keys from the agent and when I entered the flat the water and electric had been turned off. There was red and white tape over everything including the toilet and I had to wait another day for a plumber to come and sort it out, which meant I had to spend another night in the hotel.
The whole situation was extremely stressful and cost me a huge amount of money, if I didn’t have my credit card I don’t know what I would have done.
I have tried to claim the money back by contacting the new agent but this has been refused, I was sent a patronising letter which blamed me for abandoning the flat for three weeks.
I have been told that it is illegal to change the locks without permission from the courts, is this true and does it mean I am entitled to some compensation for my ordeal?
This is a shocking case. You are quite right, neither your landlord nor the mortgage company were entitled to do this to you.
Three weeks is not an excessive time to be away from the property and the fact that you had failed to respond to correspondence does not justify changing the locks – when clearly your possessions were all there and you had not vacated.
I assume also that you were not in arrears of rent.
You should be entitled to claim compensation. I also think that the landlord – or in this case the mortgage company who have taken possession of the property – are liable to prosecution.
Probably the best thing to do is to contact a firm of solicitors who do housing work and see if they would be prepared to act for you on a no win no fee basis. You should be entitled to claim back all your expenses and compensation for the distress and inconvenience suffered by you.
Prosecutions are normally done by Local Authority housing enforcement officers. You may want to have a word with the your Local Authority about this.
Ah now as you imagine I get things like this quite regularly and so I have more questions for Lisa to clarify.
Is it the mortgage company who have repossessed or has it been taken into receivership?
Under the Mortgage Repossession (Protection of Tenants) Act 2010 if a property is not a buy to let mortgage and the tenant requests it the mortgage lender should grant two month’s grace to allow the tenant time to find somewhere else. However this concession is not allowed if the locks have already been changed and there has been no notice from the tenants.
If it is with the receiver it is quite common practice for them to allow tenants to stay on paying rent to them to discharge against the creditors.
I point this up because it sounds very much to me as it is the receivers who have done the lock change, not the mortgage lenders, for the simple fact that I doubt a mortgage lender would let you back in anyway.
Tessa is right in pointing out that the presence of all your possessions in the flat were ample evidence that someone was in residence. This should have alerted the court bailiffs who would have attended at the lock change.
Although technically speaking there was an illegal eviction confusion seems to have been exacerbated by the absence of any response from you and the fact that while all this was going on your were abroad, so i doubt a TRO such as I am would pursue a prosecution purely because I doubt it would get far in court.
However there is the matter of civil damages which are worth pursuing. Special damages calculated on the amount you spent on hotels and meals out and general damages possibly calculated at around £200 – £300 for each day you were out of the property.
As Tessa suggests, find a housing solicitor for this.
There must be more to this than in the given facts. I doubt that there would be any civil or criminal liability against the mortgage company, which may from the sounds of it not be the mortgagee but as Ben suggests, the receiver of the landlord. Protection from Eviction Act S1 (3b)would probably enable the person or agency who changed the locks to argue that they had reasonable grounds for their action (a possession order?)
In addition I doubt that the landlord could be prosecuted by the LA as they do not appear to have been party to this action.
Although it is standard practice on taking possession to turn off services, the red and white tape sounds a very odd thing to do, particularly as it included the toilet. There is no mention of the landlord in all of this.
I also concur that Lisa needs to seek initial advice from a solicitor and for her to be clear of all the facts before seeking advice.
Thanks for reminding me about the red and white tape Colin, I missed that. I just called my mate in EDF Revenue protection who disconnects cannabis farms and illegal supplies. He advised that the only time they put up tape of this kind is when there has been a lawful, court ordered lock change; the agents dealing with the eviction get in a plumber to drain the system so there are no problems when the utilities are disconnected.
So it seems likely that eviction may well have been by court order and, as Colin says, the receiver or lender had reasonable cause to believe, so no illegal eviction.
The fact that they allowed the tenant back in leaves my money still firmly on the receivers. Two common firms are Dryden Fairfax or Walker Singleton, whose names may be familiar