Bailiffs visited our rental demanding LL money?

[jalapen0]

We’ve just had a very strange situation whereby a bailiff came to the door and hand-delivered a ‘removal imminent’ notice. We rent this property and the letter was addressed to our landlord, but I’m not sure what to do?

Despite advising we are not the people named on the letter, the bailiff said that because we reside in the property, we are responsible for the money owed!! We’ve messaged our landlord but what are our rights and what do we do if they come back? The only things in the property are ours!

Yes, but to be fair, some of the people who avoid bailiffs are also pretty unsavory characters and aren't entirely above claiming stuff like it's not my house and I'm not them to avoid having their stuff grabbed and taken away.

Yes, this is true, but bailiffs should still operate within the law and not lie about what they are legally allowed to do.

We’ve had this twice. Once it was the previous tenant, once it was the landlord. Just showed them the tenancy agreement on my phone and never heard any more.

I suspect your LL has a residential mortgage on the place and is in breach of their mortgage agreement by renting it out. Lots of people do it unfortunately. I would start looking for a new place to rent.

If that was the case, the owner would need to have defaulted on the payments, and even then the mortgage company would be after repossession, not removal of goods.

It’s most likely an old debt from when the landlord lived there.

That’s a remarkably specific assumption. Removal imminent probably means goods to the value of the debt, not removal of OP herself! It’s much more likely it’s an old bill from somewhere. When we had similar it transpired that it was from the landlord having the utilities in his name during a gap in tenants but not paying the bill(s), he lived abroad so presumably not picking up the post IDK. Anyway easily sorted- we showed the bailiffs the tenancy agreement on our phone, told them who the letting agent was and that was the last we ever heard of it.

Never good if a landlord hasn't given their actual residential address and has run up debts. With the increase in interest rates and CoL I would definitely be wary.

Bailiff was trying his luck. Just don't open the door and repeat that you are not the person they are looking for.

This happened to me when I rented a flat in Fulham a few years ago. The previous tenant was actually the landlord's son, and hadn't paid his council tax. When I told the landlord what happened he went ballistic, and sent me flowers to say sorry (and no doubt gave his feckless son a kick up the backside). But bailiff was very persistent and kept asking me to open the door.

Hope you managed to sort out the situation. I think the law regarding repossession with tenants has changed sometime around the 2008 crash.
It used to be that the bank could reposses and put the tenant's possessions on the street without notice. We were in the situation and it was incredibly stressful. I still remember the call I had with Shelter and being utterly shocked that the bank could just turf us out without notice even if we paid all our rent on time. There were lots of articles in the newspapers about people in that situation.

Luckily I think now they have to give you a few months notice (I would check, it might not be long). And maybe keep an eye on rentals, some landlords are utter scum.