People living in a shared house in east Bristol have won a reprieve from eviction for the time being – after their buy-to-let landlord became embroiled in a bizarre legal row with his bank.
The tenants living in a house in Coombe Brook near Fishponds, suddenly learned they were to be evicted, because even though they had been paying their rent, the landlord had not been paying the mortgage – and the bank was repossessing the house.
People living in the shared house include a carer, a mechanic and a teacher. They say they were given just a week’s notice to find somewhere else to live, so enlisted the tenants’ union Acorn for help. Acorn activists blockaded the house when bailiffs arrived last week, and the issue has gone back to the courts.
The landlord of the property, Ivan Gerov, said Acorn had been ‘very helpful’, and he regretted that his tenants were facing the uncertainty, but he was involved in a legal dispute over the terms of his mortgage with the bank involved, OneSavings Bank.
A spokesperson for OneSavings Bank said as far as they were concerned, they were still in the process of repossessing the house, because Mr Gerov had stopped paying off his loan. “We followed our procedures throughout and tried to work closely with the borrower,” a spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, in this case we were unable to resolve the situation and have had to move to appoint receivers.”
Tenants union Acorn said they would continue to support their members living inside the property, and the action had managed to secure at least another 14 days respite while the matter goes back to court.
Acorn said that OneSavings Bank could choose to repossess the house and take on the tenancies to enable the people to remain living there, but chose not to.
“This eviction once again proves what we know is happening all over the UK for renters; landlords and banks often having no compassion or consideration for their tenants,” a spokesperson for Acorn said. “Hard working people threatened with sudden homelessness through no fault of their own. ACORN will always stand united in the fight against a housing system that prioritises profit over human rights,” he added.
Mr Gerov sent Bristol Live a 2,200-word statement outlining his philosophy, problems with the bank and his issues with what he described as discovering that he was two different legal entities. He claimed he also discovered that he thought he had a ‘mortgage’ on the property, but the buy-to-let loan was not classed as such, legally.
His issues began when interest rates began to rise, and the amount he received in rent for the property was no longer enough to pay the bank.
“I’ve had the house in Bristol for about ten years now, and during all of this time I’ve always had what I thought was a ‘mortgage’ on it,” he said. “And the so-called mortgage always made sense for the first half of that period – the amount of rent was covering or was more than the monthly payment for the mortgage, bills, repairs, council tax, marketing, maintenance, licensing etc. If the rules hadn’t changed, everyone would probably still be continuing to play on the monopoly board without being bothered too much about the fact that it’s a game.
“As soon as the economy was hit four or five years ago, interest rates also started going up, and as soon as I wasn’t able to refinance, the bank decided to keep sticking the knife even deeper and deeper literary every month or every other month until the so called mortgage on it’s own became more expensive than what was the achievable market rent.
“That made me say – wait a minute: Where is all this coming from? Can they do this? Do we have a contract? What is a contract? What rules over the world of commerce?” he said.
“One of the first things I discovered was not that I had a dual personality, but the existence of two completely separate entities which both had my exact name. My passport said IVAN STOYANOV GEROV in all upper case, same applied for bank cards and some other official letters.
“Surprise surprise – they were not addressed to myself as a living breathing man and one of the people (as addressed in some King’s speeches), as an expression of Consciousness, or as a creation of God, having a right to live on the land, or dominion over the Earth, or protection under Common Law, or whatever you want to call it,” he added.