Info required - ground rent letter

D3PO

Ok so I get home this evening and find a letter to the old owner of my house. Ive been in my property over 5 years but as the letter was entitled occupier and then the old owners name I decided to open it and have a look as it may be something relating to me.

Anyway what I found was a letter from a company called Birdfield Securities threatening court action and a summary judgement / mortgage against the property due to owed ground rent.

Im suspicious about this a few things dont sit right and have a few questions

1. Its got the old owners name on it, they wouldnt have been able to sell to me with ground rent owed as far as I know ? and through the process of updating the land registry during the sale surely this company would know who the house owner was ?

2. A google search shows this company was stuck off in 2000 by the CRO. I know this can be for something as simple as not sending in your accounts on time but how can I tell the reason they were struck off and if they are legit now ?

3. Given the letter wasnt addressed to me and Ive never got a letter from them much less a bill should I ignore it ?

4. Can they get a summary judgement without at least summoning me to court ?

If I genuinely owe something then fine I'll pay it but this jsut all seems a bit dodgy, ive read posts on other forums about other people getting similar letters even though they had bought out there ground rent 10 years earlier.

Obviously I will be contacting my solicitor tomorrow my biggest concern is if the letter was addressed to the old owner something in the land registery deeds if Fecked up, but if anybody has had a similar experience and could share it with me or has any answers that would be great

JuliusCaesar

It would be interesting to hear what your solicitor had to say. AFAIK, most people disregard ground rent. (Ground rent is an old concept that when you buy your house, you rent the ground it's built on - they were usually 999year leases. and no, I didn't put an extra 9 in there.)

Duckjob

My folks have being paying BirdField (or "Birdsh*t" as my mother calls them) for years. Something crappy like 15euro a year.

Surely you were aware when you were buying the house of whether it was a freehold agreement or not?

D3PO

Duckjob wrote: »

Surely you were aware when you were buying the house of whether it was a freehold agreement or not?

i believed it was freehold. either way if its not thats fine however I should at least get a bill annually Im sure your mother does.

Ive read online of people getting letters threatening legal action from this company even after buying out of the leasehold agreement. The thing that has me dubious is that its sent to the old owners name surely they would know who owns the house ?

I will let you guys know what my solicitor says perhaps their chancing their arm

Graces7

D3PO wrote: »

i believed it was freehold. either way if its not thats fine however I should at least get a bill annually Im sure your mother does.

Ive read online of people getting letters threatening legal action from this company even after buying out of the leasehold agreement. The thing that has me dubious is that its sent to the old owners name surely they would know who owns the house ?

I will let you guys know what my solicitor says perhaps their chancing their arm

We mark any letters addressed to previous tenants etc "RETURN TO SENDER " and post them.

Victor

You can buy out the ground rent for approximately 20 times the annual rent.

Make sure your lease does not expire as you may have problems selling your property.

D3PO

Graces7 wrote: »

We mark any letters addressed to previous tenants etc "RETURN TO SENDER " and post them.

so do i but not relevent here.

D3PO

anyway typical my solicitor is off today. So hopefulyl I well get some feedback from him tomorrow

D3PO

Just an update for those interested. Spoke to my solicitor this morning who checked my folio.

These guys are chancers not only am I not leasehold, but before the lease was bought out it was owned by Vicount Securities and not these guys at all !!

Just an FYI for others to be wary if they get similar letters. Contact your solicitor straight away would be my advise. Loooks like there trying to make some quick cash in the downturn.

Cathmandooo

Glad you got it sorted. Can these guys be reported?

D3PO

Cathooo wrote: »

Glad you got it sorted. Can these guys be reported?

Id like to do this but I have no idea who I can report them to ?

I dont think its illegal to send somebody a bill. I guess if people are stupid enough to pay for something they dont owe theres noting illegal there.

Victor

You could say its fraud. Talk to solicitor / garda.

Getwellsoon

I just came across this thread by Googling it. Guess what, I got a letter from Birdfield saying exactly the same thing. The OP could have been me, his/her story is exactly the same as mine - the letter was addressed to old occupants and I just came across it opening their mail by accident. My boss advised me to write to these people and demand proof that they own our land and to CC my solicitor on the mail.

What struck me as VERY SUSPICIOUS is that NO phonecalls or emails could be exchanged with this company. They are only open to calls on the first Thursday of every month and every correspondence must be in writing. Sounds very dodgy to me - this is the year 2010, we're not living in the middle ages here! It's like they are trying to avoid all forms of personal contact, which is very odd for people who are trying to get money out of you!

I'm going to write to my solicitor because when we bought the house she never mentioned that this was going to be an issue, and I'm sure I actually did check if it was a freehold/leasehold.

D3PO

just ignore them thats what im doing.

your right though very dodgy, no phone, no email address to contact, and the letter (or mine at least was typed on a typewriter) who in the hell sents typewritten letters in this day and age.

p.s just ask your solicitor who did your converyancing to check your folio number for you. If it ends in the letter F then your freehold. If it ends in the letter L then your leasehold.

If its the latter he can tell you who owns the ground rent claim for your house.

Getwellsoon

D3PO wrote: »

your right though very dodgy, no phone, no email address to contact, and the letter (or mine at least was typed on a typewriter) who in the hell sents typewritten letters in this day and age.

Haha, my boyfriend and I were just saying last night that it's probably some old woman sitting on top of a pile of money she's collected from ground rent, with a typewriter, sending out all these letters and refusing to use this new-fangled technology like phones and email haha... we were saying we'd like to knock her off her pile of money and hit her over her head with her typewriter.

Ok, we're weird. But this is what we envisaged!!

P.S. thanks for the info on the folio number!

Getwellsoon

My solicitor just got back to me! Turns out it IS legitimate! :eek: But we don't owe as much as they are asking from us, only from the date we purchased the house. Hopefully Birdfield will get back to us soon with a note of explanation and an invoice of how much we owe them since we bought the premises and the cost of buying it out... If not we'll just have to ring them on the one and only day of the month they take phone calls (still think that is BIZARRE).

Yes so just a word of warning to anyone who comes across this thread - it MIGHT be legit so always get it checked out.

Jo King

If you buy out the ground rent and your property in a county of compulsory registration you will have to register the title to the entire. That bwill add several hundred euro to the cost.

juke

Personally, unless the amount of years left to run on the Lease is less than c. 100 (you need 70 to sell or mortgage), I wouldn't bother buying out the ground rent. And I would ignore the ground rent demands.

If the amount of years left is less than 100, then I would buy it out using the arbitration method

http://www.landregistry.ie/eng/Ground_Rent_services/Ground_Rents_Purchase_Scheme_Explanatory_Leaflet/Ground_Rents_Purchase_Scheme_Explanatory_Leaflet.html

and I would not deal with the landlord (in this case Birdfield) at all, as the arbitration method is perceived by many (if not most) solicitors as resulting in a better title.

Welsh Rarebit

Thankfully I am not the only one.
In 2002 I decided to buy out my ground rent, paid my solicitor, got certificate
and 6 months later got bill. Wrote polite letter to 24 Suffolk St saying remove me from list as I purchased ground rent. Every 6 to 12 months I got letter and replied each time. In 2004 I paid my solicitor to reply. In 2006 I paid my solicitor to extract copy of certificate and send same by registered post.
No let up on demand and finally this year I decided to confront the Directors. Paid CRO for details only to discover false address supplied under 'directors residential address. Contacted the accountant who made filing who refused to give me the correct address he quoted 'Data Protection Act' which is a load of bull xxxx.
I contacted CRO-selling incorrect info, contacted the accountants representative body, ODCE, District Court Service and the Gardai.
Birdfield then lodged latest accounts to CRO still containing the false info despite it being brought to their attention. I repeated process of informing all bodies.

CRO advise they are pursuing matter-I will get refund. ODCE advise yes some matters were illegal-we plan to do nothing-we wont tell you why and we dont have to like DPP????
They then wrote to CRO and said -correct the problem?
Gardai are still investigating so I cannot comment further.

Any possibility we can get a full list of those who got false claims and anybody who paid even if they did not owe.

Monty Burnz

Welsh Rarebit wrote: »

No let up on demand and finally this year I decided to confront the Directors. Paid CRO for details only to discover false address supplied under 'directors residential address. Contacted the accountant who made filing who refused to give me the correct address he quoted 'Data Protection Act' which is a load of bull xxxx.
I contacted CRO-selling incorrect info, contacted the accountants representative body, ODCE, District Court Service and the Gardai.
Birdfield then lodged latest accounts to CRO still containing the false info despite it being brought to their attention. I repeated process of informing all bodies.

CRO advise they are pursuing matter-I will get refund. ODCE advise yes some matters were illegal-we plan to do nothing-we wont tell you why and we dont have to like DPP????

Good to know that our enforcement people are out there doing a great job of protecting the public as usual. :rolleyes: