Mid 1995 my father received letters from a debt collection agency on behalf of Abbey National regarding arrears on his repayment mortgage for his second home - semi-detached property.(posted 8491 days ago)My father was actually out of the country at the time due to matrimonial problems and without responding to the letter directly i took it upon myself to immediately bring my father's account upto date. Since the mortgage was almost near maturing i thought it would be a shame to lose out to repossession and associated costs.
The second house was actually empty at the time and over the next 2 or 3 weeks i proceeded to totally redecorate the house with a view to quickly renting it out to meet the mortgage payments. The redocorating was done on late evenings due to work commitments during the day.
When trying to enter the property one evening i failed to gain access. To my surprise all the locks had obviously been changed. The next day i rang Abbey National who confirmed to me that repossession of the property had been excuted. When i demanded to know the status of the mortgage account prior to repossession the person on the phone refused to acknowledge that the account was not not in arrears at the time.
He did however say that inspectors were told by a neighbour on visiting the property that the house was 'ABANDONED' and without wanting the property to fall into the hands of vandals/vagrants and in a state of disrepair, Abbey National thought best to take immediate possesion. How they thought the property was abandoned is beyond me as decorating tools/equipment, the newly painted woodwork and the newly fitted kitchen were evidence of on-going work in the house.
It goes without saying that the neighbour who misinformed the visiting inspector about the house being abandoned is the same neighbour who kept pestering my father with ridiculous repeated offers of buying the house for his extended family. The only way to shut him up was to offer him the same he was offering for his own property! This same neighbour now actually OWNS the house having bought it from Abbey National.
My question is given the time lapse since the repossession does my father have any cause for complaint bearing in mind that
1 - no arrears existed on the account 2 - no repossesion order being served 3 - mis-information from neighbour.