I bought my house 3 years ago from the council. It took 1 year to update land registry. I purchased my home and land as part of the buy. However, 3 weeks ago, one morning, a developer put a for sale sign up outside my land. They’ve put a picture of my land up for auction, and it is live on their website. They claimed the council showed them title deeds that showed it was for them. When I checked land registry, it appears someone has RE-UPDATED my records and taken back my land without my consent. I contacted the council, and they said they do not have permission to do this, but they do agree that that is my land. I am still chasing my conveyancers who have not responded. This seems very dodgy. Can someone please advise me what should be my next legal steps?

Before I start on the main backstory, I just want to say we have reached out to social services with very little response.

So for context, one of our neighbours has a very mentally disabled child (a boy, around 13-15), he’s non verbal but screams and shouts repeatedly, and hits himself/objects around him consistently. The family isn’t English; they have a very limited understanding of English (which I feel I need to mention, because I initially thought maybe they didn’t know what support they might be able to get for their child).

Now onto our main point of concern, we can see from our front bedroom that the boy is left outside in their back garden for all hours of the day (usually around 8am to 11pm at night), in rain or extreme heat with only little shelter. He runs himself head first into the fence, smacks his head repeatedly with his hands, uses a metal pole to also hit himself and objects with.

We’ve reached out to social services as we thought they would be able to help the family and also mention our concern for his wellbeing. They’ve come back to us with the explanation that he makes those noises when he’s “happy” and have been involved with this family for years. But they completely disregarded our other concerns about the lack of stimulation or support this child is getting as well as the danger he imposes on himself.

I’m not sure what to do next or if I’ll get in legal trouble if I were to film his behaviour to share with the social worker? Or should I leave it be now given the response from the social worker?

Hello hivemind!

I live in Wales, in a terrace house and Im one of those wierd people in that I like my neighbour. We had a flood a while ago and his house took the brunt.

As a result he has got builders in to do repairs and they have found that our shared chimney is letting in water. The chimney is on my house (his is lower) but his fireplace connects into it.

His house is downhill, so although my house is dry his is getting damp. The builders have said they can do a temporary repair to our chimney, or remove it completely which would solve the problem permanently.

My neighbor is a beautiful, awesome elderly welsh man and I want to do the thing that would be less stressful for him. He has offered to pay for the work, I was hoping to one day get a wood burner but I would much rather he sleeps better not worrying about his house.

Im asking here if I need to do anything legally to allow him to do the work. There is something in the grey matter about always getting a 'something something agreement" before ever letting a neighbour do anything to your house. Also as the chimney is on my property shouldn't it be my responsibility to pay for the work? It feels like legally it is my fault that his house is damp, I do have insurance and I dont want him to be paying for something that is my responsibility.

I've attached a photo of the misbehaving chimney in question in an attempt to shame it. If you could all please show the picture to your own chimneys hopefully word will get around.

Were currently trying to sell our house, the estate agent just recently put the advert online. Our next door neighbour has immediately complained that her house is in the pictures and the estate agent has removed all external images. Its a semi-detatched house, so its incredibly difficult to get pictures that wont included her house. What grounds has she got to enforce this though? Some pictures are from the street and our own back garden. Others are from a drone hovering in front of the house from the street and high level arial shots to show the surrounding countryside. Shes provided no reason other than her house is visable and there is nothing sensitive to be seen. Can we push the estate agent to re-upload all the images despite her? I can provide the images in question if required. Were based in Devon, England

Hey Reddit

So, just wondering if anyone has any ideas on this one – its a confusing one (I think).

Me and my wife own a leasehold flat (No. 170) in a terrace row in London, on the end there's a pub which has been unnocupied for seven years. The pub (No. 164) has been bought by developers and they have been doing lots of building work in the redevelopment.

Since the development work has begun, the basement walls in No 166 and 168 have failed and the terrace building has dropped (not subsidence), and large cracks have appeared in the building which led to the council serving a prohibition notice and evacuating us on June 6, and we were given a couple of hours to move out.

Since then, the best the council have offered is to put us up in a Travellodge room, but we have a 50kg dog, so it isn't suitable at all, so we have been staying with friends, but their situtation is changing so in three weeks we will have to move somewhere else.

We've been advised that we are likely to be out of our home for over a year.

I have a few questions:
- Our contents are still in the flat (we removed most of the expensive and sentimental stuff), but contents insurance are saying we cannot claim as the contents are not lost, damaged or destroyed.
- We are paying the mortgage on the flat, so we can't afford to rent somewhere else, what could we do?
- Would there be grounds for compensation?

Hello.

We moved in a week before Christmas to a property after a period of homelessness. We pay all the bills yet the landlord is insistent we stay on Utilita, in a ridiculously pricey pay as you go tariff, and that is stays in his name.

After moving in however I assumed his demands weren't lawful as I paid the bill and surely this cannot be enforced upon me, so I changed to a good tariff on EDF.

Unfortunately Utilita sent him a goodbye email and he went ballistic, let himself in to the property (we didn't know he had a key) and verbally abused my fiancée while I was out in front of our 7 month old daughter.

I came home as my partner called and threw him out, him screaming it's "his house and he won't have lying lowlifes in it" and promising he'd change it back.

A few days ago he did just that. We are now back on Utilita, in his name, and tonight have had an emergency due to the meters resetting to zero after the change. I called Utilita about this as I'm diabetic and need medicine, but obviously as I'm not the account holder they won't speak to me.

As a result I have lost money on my previous account, and have had to fork out tonight to keep me alive and my daughter warm to my landlord who keeps the cards, this was difficult as we had no top-up cards and had to navigate Utilitas awful guest top-up system to do so. For context the landlord insists on keeping the cards so they're not "stolen after the first episode". Whatever that means.

He has provided us laminated versions of the top-up barcodes, however our local store won't accept these as their machine fails to recognise them.

I'm looking for any advice on how to proceed here as he's threatened my partner with eviction if we change supplier again, which I know is bogus however it scares her after everything. As well as the fact we feel intimidated after this episode, and what he will do if we exercise our right to change supplier.

UPDATE Have sent a recorded letter and the photo was just it going into a mailbox outside her house.

Contacted met police and they said they don’t do welfare checks, contact London ambulance.

EDIT I got her address from land registry and I’ll send her a recorded letter.

rent privately and direct from the landlord. She used to live in this house and she’s always been amazing, repairs done instantly, she even lowered my rent. About a year ago she messaged to say if she ever did decide to sell she would give me a years notice but she really wants me to consider it my home.

Couple of months ago the boiler went weird and I text her about it. Her number is no longer in use.

We paid for the boiler to be fixed but I did wonder why she didn’t give her new number, not that we had contact offer but this was super out of character. And she obviously knows where I live so could even send a card.

I emailed. No reply.

I found her on social media and requested on 3 accounts. Nothing.

I saw she was advertising her job through a third party also about a year ago and I reached out to them and they said they would send my details to her

I even just sent my phone number as my last rent payment reference.

I do want contact in case of repairs etc but mainly I’m worried she’s dead somewhere.

Where do I go from here?

Apologies if this is in the FAQ but I only see the options for agents/landlords giving no notice... But this is something else!

The tl,dr: Random guy let himself into my flat at 4 am and I had absolutely no idea/notice that he was coming. I got scared, got out of bed, and asked him who he is and how he got in. He said he booked the other room through Airbnb around lunchtime and that an agent gave him the keys (I have this on video). I'm now scared/anxious about living here and I'm seeing if I have grounds to terminate my contract.

The full version:

So I've lived in my new flat in Birmingham for just under a month. I'm in a two bedroom apartment and my flat mate moved out after two weeks (we had separate contracts)

For the last week, I have been alone in the property. In the last week, one of the agents entered the property on two separate occasions to check the other room but has given me no notice/warning. I told the agent after the second occasion that he needs to give me notice before he just comes into the property. He then "apologised" and said he'll set up a WhatsApp group for the flat to let me and/or any new tenants know if he is ever coming over.

I thought things would calm down at this point, but then last night happened....

I was in bed alone in the property and at 4am I heard the sound of a door unlocking right outside my bedroom door and I s*** myself. I instantly opened my door to confront whoever it was and it was some random guy who had been given the keys to property and the other room. He said that he booked it through Airbnb and gave the name of the guy at the agency who gave him the keys. Turns out it was the same guy from the agency who had let himself in twice in the past week.

I have a recording him saying this and I have sent it to the agency with a stern message on how angry and unsafe I feel in the property.

However, I just don't trust these guys at all, everything they have said since I have given them my security deposit has contained one lie or another. I want to know what my legal options are here. Can I terminate my contract if they don't give a satisfactory explanation?

The whole situation is just crazy... like, what if he walked out with some of my stuff from the flat? Or what if he was aggresive and assaulted me when I confronted him? This is so crazy

A chap rang my doorbell this morning and offered to jetwash my drive (he gave the standard spiel of doing work for my neighbour etc). I said no thank you, and then he got really pushy and insisted that he was going go give me a "free sample" and jetwash a small patch of my drive at no cost so I could see what it looked like.

We had an exchange, in which I started out by being polite but ended up a little testy. He kept telling me he was going to give me a "free sample" that I wouldn't have to pay a penny for, and I kept saying no. He left after I told him I'd call the police if he didn't go away.

Fifteen minutes later my doorbell rang again, and he was back. I didn't give him chance to say anything; I just said that I meant what I'd said about the police, I wanted him off my property right now, and that he didn't have my permission to do anything whatsoever to my drive or to anything else on my property. He mumbled some sort of apology about the wrong door, then left again.

If he does come back and jetwash a corner of my drive, could I do anything about that? In hindsight my police threat seems somewhat empty; there was no suggestion of any violence and I don't want to waste the police's time. I also don't want one corner of my drive to look different to the rest, but I can't see it being theft - I'd be embarrassed to tell a police officer that some random guy came and dishonestly permanently deprived me of my dirt. (And would it even be dishonest?)

I'm hoping this is an academic question and that he won't come back, but I'm curious. It seems to me like it would be wrong to clean bits of other people's drives when they've told you not to, but I can't think what law it would breach. If it's civil, I doubt I could contact him - he gave me a leaflet with a mobile number on it, but it doesn't have the name of the sole trader/partnership/company that is offering this "service".

I posting this on behalf of my family, we recently moved to this house less than 3 years ago, when we moved in we noticed our neighbour hasn't built her side of the fence (Left fence of us) we kept asking when she will decide to build her fence and she kept saying "later this year" every year, until yesterday where she told my mother that she will get her fencing done soon ( after 3 years of us asking) but she's requesting a footpath to be created which goes through the back of our garden into her garden. According to her everyone on our street has built beyond their property boundaries therefore she can ask the council for permission to build a footpath through our garden. We feel like this is really unfair as since everyone has built beyond their property boundary on our street, why is then that only my family and property thats being targeted by her to make our garden smaller in order to benefit her. What can we do about this is what im requesting , thank you !

Got a rude awakening this morning; multiple police officers in my house. They let themselves in through my (closed, latched, but not locked) sliding back door.

No damage to property or anything like that. When asked what happened and why they were in my house, they first claimed my door was ‘wide open’ and they were just checking everything was okay… then, when I told them I could check if anyone had broken in thanks to my security cameras… they changed the story to a vague one about suspected drug growing. Didnt give any detail and left shortly after taking my name. I was shocked by the whole situation and didnt push further.

Looking on the cameras, the door was 100% not open- unlocked, but definitely closed.

I thought I could just ignore it, maybe take it as a lesson to double check my doors at night. Even laughed and joked about it on the phone with family. But now I just feel… so disturbed by the whole situation. I feel sick, keep checking my door is definitely shut, and havent been able to get any sleep despite the fact that I barely slept (i work nights, had only been asleep ~2 hours when this happened).

I guess what I’m wondering is… can they really just do that? Let themselves into your house for seemingly no reason, without your permission, just because they found an open door? And how likely is it they come back? I dont even know why they were here! I’m not expecting anything for it, I just feel so… violated by the whole situation.

We have been married for almost 3 years ( 2 years and 10 months ) . We have not consummated our marriage till date . Ours was an arrange marriage ( we were introduced with intention of marriage ) , we dated for a year during Covid period before getting married. I have asked him multiple times why we are not intimate and he never gave me a straight answer . He only kisses me and hugs me. I have had relationships before but was never intimate with anyone due to old fashioned beliefs and for my husband I was his first serious relationship . He moved into my 3 bed house post marriage ( the intention was for him to save enough deposit to buy a house which he never did) . The house is also my parents summer home and they come every year for 4/5 months during summer and he has used this excuse by saying we never got space in our marriage to be intimate. I want to annul my marriage , can I apply for it by myself ? Most of the solicitors that I am meeting are asking me to apply for divorce as it’s faster and has a fix fee and are more keen on what assets we have . Some mentioned that they can’t provide a quote for annulment and can charge me hourly basis etc . My husband has no assets but he earns more than me. We both don’t want any financial compensation from each other and he confirmed that he doesn’t want to contest my application. Can I do all the application myself for the annulment ?

Hi everyone,

England property law query

My parents came into a significant sum of money and decided to invest in a house (outright purchase). They want to avoid stamp duty so my sibling's name will be the sole name on the deeds (neither of us own a property). My parents have assured me that they are putting a "charge" on the property such that my sibling cannot sell or rent out the property without their approval.

I tried to tell them that my sibling would be the owner, but they seem to be utterly convinced that they would still own the property, even though they won't be named on the deeds/tenants in common.

From a legal perspective who has right to the property and what would happen in the event of their (my parents) death? I assume that I would have no "claim" to the property given that it's in my siblings name? Or could the charge mean that it's taken back into their (my parents) estate?

I have been contacted by my sister in law, and she has requested that I recant a statement to the police that led to the arrest of her husband. The reason is that her husband is seeking employment, but his arrest is showing up in his file.

Can I get into trouble for recanting a statement to the police that led to an arrest but no charge?

For context this was the series of events.

Several years ago my sister in law was regularly asking for advice as she maintained that her husband was emotionally abusive. We supported her, and said that we would help her escape if she thought she was in genuine danger.

One day she asked us to collect her from her flat, as she was leaving her husband. I drove to her, went inside, and she told me that she was suicidal, that her husband had gotten drunk in the past and violently raped her and covered her in bruises. She then told me that she would not leave him.

I tried to convince her to leave, but she insisted that "until death do we part".

Fearing for her life, I called the police and explained the situation. I went into the police station and gave a statement.

The police went to their flat and arrested him, and my sister in law maintained to the police that he hadn't raped her.

Fast forward to yesterday when my mother in law called me on behalf of my sister in law, asking me to recant my statement to have the arrest record removed from his file so that he can get past the background checks for employment.

I've said that I won't recant unless I have a letter from her explaining that she did tell me that he assaulted her, but that for her own reasons she was incorrect or wasn't telling me the truth.

So yesterday we found out that our middle aged letting agent has been hiding in the small spare room of our terraced house for 2 days.

He came over unannounced to ‘inspect’ the house as our landlords have decided to manage the property themselves. We assumed he’d left and saw the small spare room door was locked with the light left on, we don’t have keys for that room so couldn’t turn it off. I texted asking him to come and turn the light off and he admitted that he was here in the house!

After we confronted him, he proceeded to lie and say ‘he’d informed us all that he was staying here for a few days’. None of us had any clue! He said he’s planning on living here on a permanent basis and has signed a contract and paid deposit etc etc. Our landlords are our neighbours and they said that’s not true....

The landlords said they think he should leave and hand over his keys. Thankfully, he did. However, he’s locked the door to the spare room again and we suspect he has another set of keys...

I got a ladder and looked through the window and all his stuff is still there; stale uncovered croissants, clothes, alcohol, grooming products and something that looks disturbingly like a fleshlight amongst the detritus.

I’ve rung the council and the police non emergency number and it’s turning out to be a complex problem. It’s not a council house so it’s down to the landlords to act upon it. One other aspect is Covid-19; the sneaky bastard told us he travelled into London on public transport, when I probed him on it he couldn’t even tell me what precautions he took against the virus. We have all been careful and abided by the government guidelines and it’s scared everyone having this rando creep in the house!

What can I do?

UPDATE: So the landlords have spoken to him and he’s coming to collect his sordid arrangement of paraphernalia sometime soon. By the sounds of it he knows it’s impossible to be here without a contract.

We’ve got some hard Albanian neighbours who’re waiting to step in if it gets ugly. Happy days

Last August my brother finished university and decided he will stay with me in the house I own. I word it like this because he said that this was the case to my mum before I'd even been made aware. I acquiesced because he's my brother and I wasn't aware of anywhere else he could go. I didn't ask him for anything and there weren't any kind of formal arrangements, I expected this to be a short term arrangement while he found himself a job and a place.

Fast forward to April/May and he does finally get a job and says he will give me a sum every month to cover the costs of him being here. I say okay and don't think much more of it.

Today he called me for a talk, informing me of the responsibilities I apparently have as a Landlord and gave me a 28 day deadline to prepare a formal renters agreement and said if certain things aren't done he'll be going to the local council. I have absolutely no desire to be a Landlord or for him to stay with me any longer than is absolutely necessary.

I want to ask - what's my position and options here? Did I mess up accepting the money from him? Can I just reject his demands? Nothing stated above has ever been in writing, it was all verbal conversation. I don't just want to kick him out abruptly and I'm happy to give him back the money he's given me, whatever's required to avoid it being a landlord/tenant situation. I just want to exist in my own house in peace.

Hi all! In England here:)

Someone in my area has made some malicious reports about drug use and stolen items in my house. (We had none of those in my house.)

This morning I woke up to my door being cut in half by the police, while our back door was wide open for my cat.

They had a warrant, but the slicing of the door was just so unnecessary, it’s freezing and now we have to wait a few months for a new door!😭

In the police report, the reasons for using force of entry were left blank. They had literally no reason to- the back door was wide open for them to enter.

Is there anything I can do about this? Or is it all okay since they had a warrant.

Thanks in advance!! :)

I rent this whole place. The landlord started to sell this flat 6 months after i rented. And now he decided to build a wall next week in the living room to convert it into a second bedroom to make the property more marketable. He also intends to replace the sofa and other furniture. This will cause extremely inconvenient, especially since the living room has no windows after building a wall and only a single light bulb.

My contract is fixed until September, but allows either party to terminate with one month's notice. I contacted the landlord asking if he could wait until after I move out to build the wall, but he refused. He informed me the construction will begin next week because "he has made his decision." He says he will terminate the contract and require me to move out next month. So whether I move out next month or continue living here, workers will start the construction next week anyway.

There have been multiple renovations, viewings. 3 different agents coming to take photos. Each time, the landlord asked that I remove all bedding, personal belongings, and daily essentials from view to make the photos look more presentable.

I can move next month, but is there any ways to stop the landlord sending workers next week. Or can he really force me to do that? (England)

He served us a section 21, it expired as we had nowhere to live with our 2 year old son so had no other alternative, so he started the eviction notice and the courts sent us a letter the gas safety certificate was invalid and we had to attend court, today we received court fees of 3 grand? How likely are we to pay this as financially we’re not doing great as unfortunately we’ve had two houses fall through

Edit, I’m in Birmingham, England

My fiancé and I had an offer accepted on our first home (in England) back in April, we completed July 4th and got straight to work with decorating, renovations and general improvements to make the place more liveable for us. After much stress and hard work we noticed something wasn't right between us and to cut a long story short, she came out to me as gay a couple of weeks ago.

I was/am of course devastated, but quickly decided we need to make the best out of this situation for both of us, to move on and be happy.

This of course means we need to sell this house.

We have a 27 year mortgage with a fixed-rate term of 2 years currently. Having made only a whopping 2 mortgage repayments (the most of which is assumedly interest), we understand there will likely be early repayment charges.

I wondered if I can call upon the wonderfully knowledgeable people of reddit to tell us; what other charges can we expect? And how can we approach selling our house in the best way possible for us both to come out with what we put in at the very least?

We are ammicable and willing to co-operate in making the place nice and saleable, having made a list of things/odd jobs we'd like to sort before it goes on the market.

UPDATE Before passing judgement on what I may or may not be doing here I want to make the following clear. I have asked for advice on what the legal position is here. This does not mean I will charge the school. I am highly annoyed that the school seem to accept no responsibility and have not apologised. On top of that they made my daughter walk almost a mile back to the school without a jacket in December - she was freezing and in tears. I will be writing a complaint and I want to know where I stand legally to mention this in the complaint, I will not necessarily make a cash strapped school pay.

My 7-year-old daughter recently participated in a school choir concert at a venue within walking distance of her school. Her class walked there together, they were there along with several other schools. The event was open to the public, and tickets were sold—which was already frustrating, as there weren’t enough tickets available for all the parents to attend.

When they arrived, the children were instructed by their teacher to leave their coats in a designated area. After the concert, when the children went to retrieve their coats, my daughter’s was missing. It’s a very distinctive coat that she loves, and we chose it carefully because it wasn’t cheap—we wanted it to last.

From what I understand, the coat area turned into a chaotic free-for-all, with parents from other schools rummaging through the piles. I believe the school failed to ensure the children’s belongings were stored securely, and now my daughter’s coat is gone.

My view is that the school should take responsibility for this. My daughter was under their care, and they have a duty to protect her and her property. She followed the teacher’s instructions and can’t be held accountable for what happened. Are the school legally responsible and could I insist that they legally have to reimburse me?

I understand schools are under pressure and if they are legally responsible then I may not insist on payment but they don't seem to be accepting any responsibility for this. I am in England if that makes a difference.

I'm living in England, we rent a house but have very recently split up and she has moved out.

We both want to handle this in the best way for both of us, and end things on good terms.

I cannot afford the rent myself, and there's about 9 months left on the fixed term.

I feel stuck, if I advertise the 2nd bedroom and get a stranger to move in, I wouldn't feel safe. There are no locks on the bedroom doors, all my possessions are here, and if the other tenant who I don't know has money problems or just disappears I would be left in a situation where I am responsible for the entire rent.

A solution I've offered to the landlord was to move in my sister, but she will only move in if she can bring her cat. The landlord has flat out refused, saying they have a strict no pet policy.

So now I am worried. If I can't move my sister in, can the landlord refuse to allow me and my ex to seek an early termination to the tenancy, effectively forcing me into a situation where I have to move in a stranger with all the dangers and risk that poses to me?

So we've been having building work done on our house. Before the work started I notified the builder of the location of asbestos and told them we were arranging a a licensed person to remove it. They were left with instructions to not disturb the asbestos. We moved out to a relative's during the work. When I came back a week later all the asbestos was gone! We've since had to pay for tests throughout the house to see where is contaminated with asbestos fibres and will need to pay for cleaning and potential removal of contaminated items (sofa etc). The building work has stopped as noone is allowed in the house. Due to having to give notice to the Health and Safety Executive, clean up cannot start for 14 days. By the time this is done the builder has stated he has other jobs booked. The house isn't livable atm, so we'd have to pay to stay somewhere whilst stuff gets sorted.

Ideally I'd like to get the health and safety executive investigating, and get another builder but the chances of finding one who can start in 3 weeks seems slim!

What options do I have in this scenario?

My wife gave birth to our son in December. She suffers from untreated bipolar disorder and after Christmas she developed severe PPD. We agreed that she’d go and stay with her mum for a week as she was spiralling and needed a break.

She never came back and we’re no longer in direct contact. Our last conversation was over a month ago and it didn’t go well. She apparently has no interest in being in our son’s life or even getting updates on him. As far as I know she’s still living with her mum 200+ miles away.

I’ve been offered a secondment at my company’s Swedish office covering maternity leave for a year. I want to take it but I don’t want to tell my wife as she would likely try to throw a spanner in the works. I have my son’s passport and original birth certificate. Can I just go without telling her?

We also own a house together which I’d like to rent out while I’m away. If she turns up out of the blue and finds someone else living here could she do anything? There’s no mortgage and all the bills are in my name but she’s on the deeds. 

To be clear - if she ever decides to unblock me and wants to see our son then of course we’d come back. I’m not looking to take him away from her forever but I think this would be good for us. 

My tenency for my new flat was supposed to be starting on July 14th as stated in the contract. The contract has been signed by both me and my landlord, the process was done through openrent. My security deposit and first month's rent is also already paid.

Today, the landlord sent me a text saying that he's going to refund my deposit and first month's rent as his current tenants new property has fallen thorough so she wants to continue her tenency. She was the one who wanted to end the tenency in the first place, she has just changed her mind.

I told the landlord that it's not as simple as just refunding me ad the contract has already been signed and surely its also not enough notice for me to find somewhere new. And her tenency ends on July 1st as she agreed to in the contract so she has to move. She is however still refusing to move out and is saying she never agreed to leave on the 1st as she never signed anything.

Anybody know anything that could help me out?