Latest news with #bailiffs
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
I'm finally about to regain control of my property
Regular readers of my column will likely remember the ongoing saga of my tenant eviction. To refresh your memory, it's the one where the tenants asked me to serve a Section 21 so they could get a council house. We will bypass the moral outrage and get to the meat of the story which is the Section 21 was issued on January 23 2024. It expired and the tenants should have left on March 28 2024. As the council advised them to stay put, they did, and we went to court late in 2024 whereby the tenant was ordered to give up possession of the property on or before December 30 2024. The council advised the tenants to stay put until the bailiffs arrived and, in the interim, offered to pay me thousands of pounds to keep the very same tenants in the very same property. I was tempted by the offer, but, anxious what the tenants may do if they found out I'd sold out to the offer from the council, I continued with the possession action. Fast forward to May 2025, and I finally got a date. The bailiffs are attending on June 19 2025 – precisely 449 days from when the Section 21 expired. When you take into consideration the date from when I actually served the notice, it's 514 days. Now, I know you're probably familiar with stories about tenants being hoofed out overnight by greedy landlords, their possessions scattered across the pavement, and I'm here to tell you it's all BS. And what is further twaddle is Labour's Renters' Reform Bill, which aims to abolish Section 21. I have no idea what the Labour Party think it's doing when it already takes an eternity to try and get your own property back. Without Section 21, I am just weeping at the number of tenants who will lose their homes as I – and many others – continue to sell up rather than remain in this insane industry. I only thank the property gods that my tenant is still paying rent and looking after the place. Just imagine the financial misery and hardship that would be put on a landlord if that wasn't the case. I know (as many readers continue to tell me) that I'm screaming into the wind, but I am going to yell very loudly all the same, because what is happening is truly bonkers. The latest Ministry of Justice figures show landlords waited over seven months on average to regain a property through the courts in the first three months of 2025. Obviously, that's an average and doesn't even take into account the colossal wait for a bailiff (add on an extra five months). But what my real-life case does demonstrate is how utterly broken the housing justice system is. It is ludicrous that Labour continues their rampage against private landlords in the face of such major problems. The Conservatives may have started this war on landlords, but at least they had the good sense to recognise how ill-prepared the system was and say: 'Hey, we better fix this before we pour more oil on the fire.' Write to me: secretlandlord@ Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
22-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
I'm finally about to regain control of my property
Regular readers of my column will likely remember the ongoing saga of my tenant eviction. To refresh your memory, it's the one where the tenants asked me to serve a Section 21 so they could get a council house. We will bypass the moral outrage and get to the meat of the story which is the Section 21 was issued on January 23 2024. It expired and the tenants should have left on March 28 2024. As the council advised them to stay put, they did, and we went to court late in 2024 whereby the tenant was ordered to give up possession of the property on or before December 30 2024. The council advised the tenants to stay put until the bailiffs arrived and, in the interim, offered to pay me thousands of pounds to keep the very same tenants in the very same property. I was tempted by the offer, but, anxious what the tenants may do if they found out I'd sold out to the offer from the council, I continued with the possession action. Fast forward to May 2025, and I finally got a date. The bailiffs are attending on June 19 2025 – precisely 449 days from when the Section 21 expired. When you take into consideration the date from when I actually served the notice, it's 514 days. Now, I know you're probably familiar with stories about tenants being hoofed out overnight by greedy landlords, their possessions scattered across the pavement, and I'm here to tell you it's all BS. And what is further twaddle is Labour's Renters' Reform Bill, which aims to abolish Section 21. I have no idea what the Labour Party think it's doing when it already takes an eternity to try and get your own property back. Without Section 21, I am just weeping at the number of tenants who will lose their homes as I – and many others – continue to sell up rather than remain in this insane industry. I only thank the property gods that my tenant is still paying rent and looking after the place. Just imagine the financial misery and hardship that would be put on a landlord if that wasn't the case. I know (as many readers continue to tell me) that I'm screaming into the wind, but I am going to yell very loudly all the same, because what is happening is truly bonkers. The latest Ministry of Justice figures show landlords waited over seven months on average to regain a property through the courts in the first three months of 2025. Obviously, that's an average and doesn't even take into account the colossal wait for a bailiff (add on an extra five months). But what my real-life case does demonstrate is how utterly broken the housing justice system is. It is ludicrous that Labour continues their rampage against private landlords in the face of such major problems. The Conservatives may have started this war on landlords, but at least they had the good sense to recognise how ill-prepared the system was and say: 'Hey, we better fix this before we pour more oil on the fire.'
Irish Times
21-05-2025
- Irish Times
‘I soon regretted not putting on pants': Unwelcome early-morning callers arrived at my door, demanding £1,000
Bang, bang, bang. Ding dong. Ding dong. Somebody was at our front door, knocking insistently and ringing the bell. Upstairs in bed, I turned blearily to check the time. It was 6am on a Saturday. This had better be good, I thought. But I knew it wouldn't be. I am not a morning person. My wife catapulted out of bed and answered the door as I hovered in semi-consciousness. In my haze, I became vaguely aware of a strange man's voice remonstrating with her. That got me up. I arrived at the bottom of the stairs to find two men, both dressed in black. The smaller one was doing all the talking. Behind him was a much bigger man standing in silence. Small Guy was jabbering away, but my attention was on Big Guy as he eyeballed me from across the threshold. He was a looming, menacing presence. You could have fitted three of me into his trouser leg. I soon began to regret not putting on pants of my own. Eventually, two phrases from Small Guy's relentless soliloquy registered in my reawakening brain: 'court judgment' and 'enforcement agents'. Who are you? I asked. 'We're bailiffs,' the reply came. Small Guy thrust a letter into my hand as if serving me with papers. READ MORE They were collecting a debt and hinted they might take property. We soon established the debtor was the previous tenant. Let's call him Tom K. Nothing to do with us, I told Little and Large. He doesn't live here. Don't know him or where he is. Prove you're not Tom, Small Guy said. Meanwhile, Big Guy eyed up two bikes chained up outside the front door; they belonged to my wife and daughter. I rather impolitely told Small Guy that I shouldn't need to prove anything to strangers who had woken my family at 6am on a Saturday. Oh, but you do, he said, or we will come back. He asked for something with my name and address. Reluctantly, I grabbed the first thing to hand: a Spectator magazine delivery that had arrived in the post addressed to me. No, no, no, Small Guy said, that won't do. He wanted something more official. 'That won't do?' I repeated to myself in disbelief. Who does this goon think he is? Small Guy waited expectantly as if I owed him something, which he believed I possibly did. My failing composure finally shattered and – probably not to my credit – I let forth a stream of invective. As I explained before, I am not a morning person. They chose to wake my family at 6am on a Saturday without first checking that the right guy lived there. As far as I was concerned in my grumpy early morning state, the only thing I owed these men was a b****cking. Why didn't you call at a decent hour? Why are you acting as if you have official power over me? Why should I prove anything to you? I bid them a coarse adieu and slammed the door. Bailiffs and the debt agencies that employ them are regularly criticised by UK consumer groups for their increasingly aggressive tactics. I had been living in Britain for less than three weeks when a story truly stunned me. I don't believe it would ever have happened in Ireland. The Times newspaper revealed a debt agency working for British Gas had been breaking into the homes of vulnerable customers behind on their bills and forcibly installing prepayment meters. The bailiff business is booming in England and Wales and their biggest client is the UK state, through local authorities chasing unpaid council tax. Not including Scotland, roughly 2.7 million debts are referred by local authorities to bailiffs each year. The Money Advice Trust, a charity, runs a campaign called Stop The Knock, which aims to dissuade councils from a knee jerk use of bailiffs. I couldn't get back to sleep after our visitors. Later, I asked my youngest daughter if she had heard them. 'I heard you shouting,' she said. 'It made me feel sorry for them.' As the crude online acronym goes, I asked myself AITA? I opened the bailiff's letter. It was a threat to take property over Tom K's debt of £1,000. It included a mobile number. I found a Thames Water bill in my name and texted him the image. Then I called his number. It was Small Guy. I asked who owned the debt. Wandsworth Council, he replied. But, I complained, the council tax is now registered in my name. A simple phone call to the council before knocking on my door would have proven Tom K was no longer the tenant. Come to think of it, the council should have checked this essential detail itself before the 6am goons were sent. 'That's right. But the left hand in the council doesn't tell the right hand what each is doing these days,' Small Guy, now a philosopher, said. 'That's why this country is in the state it's in.' I felt my anger coming back, but also the disapproval of my daughter. I hung up. It would be a long day.
