Found out landlord is probably doing some kind of fraud?

[LolaMacbeth]

Right, I want to be very quick on details. Sorry posting it here but wanted atleast someone to reply.

I've rented for 2 years now Assured shorthold agreement, periodic.

The landlord always receives letters in her name on my adress. I found it weird so started to send them back.

After a while she contacts me saying for me to not send them back, to just let them be sent to my adress no explanation as to why.

Fast foward some disputes we've had with repairs and other things. I now finally found out that these letters are from the lender, of her mortgage. The one she has on this property.

I didn't open them but I started to get curious and put a light against one them. It even reads the exact amount that she pays for mortgage and on going rates.

I went to the registry and it says this property is a freehold too.

Why would she receive such important letters in this adress? Why not hers? Why insist in these being sent here, she doesn't live here.

Should I try and clarify it?
Should I speak of this to the solicitor ( going for unlawful raise of rent refusal to repairs of structure of the property and other things)

The landlord will probably sell the property if the bank change her to an investment property instead of a private home.

What will happen then is she evicts you and gets someone else in to pay a much higher rent or she sells up.

Either way you will be homeless.

The best outcome you want to ‘buy time’ ask her why her personal post is being delivered there and tell her you’d like the rent to stay at its current rate for the next three months after which you will leave the house and use those three months to find an alternative rental.

If you want to buy time to remain in the property your best bet would be to leave her mortgage provider out of it.

She is currently at liberty to serve you with a Section 21 notice - but with a good specialist solicitor you can spin out the process of actually leaving the property for much longer than two months.

I have a feeling that her bank would act much faster than those courts which enforce housing law.

She can't evict me as she can't serve a section 21 without a proper license, or if fails to put my deposit in a safe scheme or provide the correct certificates which I can tell u she doesn't have.

The only way I'm evicted is if house is repossessed by lender or the next buyer if she sells the house ( with me inside) applies for a license follows the correct procedures and then evicts us. Atleast the 2 ways I know so far.

Furthermore considering my type of tenancy agreement means she can't increase rent more than once a year. Which she already did. So I am paying that increase that was put in place not a year ago.

I hope it doesn't come to that but no harm done in asking for more information.

Oh right. So if you know all the answers then what are you asking? 🤣

She can serve you notice with an assured short hold agreement?

Has the rent increased more than 7%?

To be honest I’d want you out assp.
No wonder so many landlords are selling up.
Have you put your name down for a council house?

You might find yourself in trouble for interfering with her post too which is a criminal offence. Nobody reading this thread believes you read her letter without breaking the seal of the envelope and a court won’t either.

She can't as she is currently renting without a license.
The increase was of 25%
I've had my name down for 8 years now.
Her post is very much sealed and unharmed 👍

Are you sure she needs a licence? Are you in a house share?
Im really not sure why you are posting here. You seem to know all the answers yet agreed to a 25% rent increase.

Her post is very much sealed and unharmed

Some of it anyway eh!

Read by shining a light on it indeed. Even if that’s all you did (and it’s very obvious it is not all you did), you interfered with her post.

You sound a complete nightmare. I hope you’re not depending on references from her.

Why post here when you apparently know all your ‘rights’.

Yes it's those selective licensing in certain areas of the county. Unfortunately falls on where I live now.

I didn't agree to that last increase.

I know alot of information because I had to research it. To protect us.

I asked on this post if I should clarify this letter problem with landlord and the solicitor but I already got my answer.

I learned something new about lenders and mortgages so I think the post was useful.

Thank you everyone

Agree with others, it sounds like she has not got a buy-to-let mortgage, she is telling her lender that she lives there. It sounds like she has not been a great landlord, and it may be that you need to look around for somewhere else, if you think your deposit has not been properly lodged with the official approved schemes, then you need to consider that too, because you would be unlikely to get it back. Rather than the entrenched positions of you "shopping her" to her mortgage provider, HMRC (I know you did not mention this, but OPs have), interfering with her post, and so on, all of which may speed up an unpleasant outcome, could you not attempt to have an honest chat with her about how you can all carry on. Despite it all, do you want to stay ? If so, understanding and negotiation directly is surely the best answer?

No they should not be using your address for their post but I also this

'I am reporting somrthing to you...'
'How do you know this?'
'I am opening their post and reading it'

May get you in more trouble than what benefit you have made up you will get

Why have you left it two years to complain about her post?

Being a freehold does not affect anything?

You don't necessarily need a buy to let mortgage we rented our house out several times without one but with permission from the bank.
I don't understand why she hasn't sent up a Mail redirection and suspect she may not have told her bank that she is renting.
I'm not convinced that creating a situation where she has to move back in is going to help you though as it is likely that you would have to be evicted for that to happen.

If you want hard cash and she hasn't put your money in a legal deposit scheme that is your quickest access to it.
Messing up her mortgage won't help you.

A private landlord - up to something naughty? Well I never heard of that happening before, OP, I must say !!! The most finest upstanding pillars of society are our private landlord chums!!!

Well if she is breaking her mortgage conditions she will either have to sell up or the bank will repossess. So you could still end up having to move out. Speak to Shelter, but meanwhile I wouldn't tamper with her post.

She's probably not told her mortgage lender she's renting out the property and isn't on a BLT.

I'd be careful here OP. If you threaten her with anything, I'm not sure it puts you in a good light but if it triggers her into telling her mortgage company (most likely) it will mean a higher mortgage repayment. That is likely to result in a higher rent for you or for her to sell the property. Both not ideal for you.

It's illegal to snoop into other people's letters, so if you are threatening her, you need to be able to have found out without snooping somehow.

I would just return the letters to her. I think that the safest thing for you and your child. I also suspect that's what most people would do. I don't think she's a financial benefit to be gained for you here.

Your thread title states that your landlord is committing fraud but your posts don't say that at all. It seems you are angry with your landlord for various reasons and by way of retaliation you have snooped through her posts. The blueprint of adding 2 plus 2 to make 5.

Your plan to harass her about her mail will make everything 10x worse and is of no benefit to anyone unless you take pleasure in causing problems.

What sort of fraud?

I've got a mortgage, not sure why you're receiving such an abundance of post? But to let or nor!

One statement per year and confirmation of rate switch if that occurs.

I'd do this. I'd also be suspicious that she's pretending it's her address, definitely don't go along with it

If she wants ut private ll should get the address altered. OP isn't obliged to give her the post.

She is obliged not to open it

In most areas of the UK you don’t need a license to be a landlord (yet) though you do in Scotland so that isn’t an issue.

i imagine the landlord has a residential mortgage with no consent to let. I’ve had that issue when the bank refused to give me CTL on a residential mortgage then doubled the mortgage rate I was paying!

true the landlord shouldn’t be doing this but you shouldn’t be opening their post either. If I was you I’d move. You sound pissed with your landlord (they don’t sound as if they’ve behaved brilliantly either) and I don’t think relations are going to improve.

It's perfectly fine to open post which has your address but someone else's name, this is because someone could be using your address to run up debts for example.