Building Dispute - Notifying Mortgagee

[Mia August]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and have a query on how best to engage a Mortgagee concerning a long standing building dispute.

I live in a small block of purpose built flats, share of freehold, since moving in one neighbour has launched legal action after legal action in what could only be explained as a bitter attempt to bankrupt the freeholder, a limited company with no income.

The reason they are doing this is, inexplicably 10 years ago they repeatedly refused to extend their lease while all neighbours now have a 999yr lease this individual has a very short lease under 50yrs at present. - how do you even get a mortgage on a lease sub 50yrs?

At the time of lease extension 10 yrs ago there are very peculiar correspondence where the individual appears concerned that they would have to involve their mortgagee and for this reason they did not want to extend their lease.

Clearly bankrupting the freeholder is not desirable for anyone involved. The other owners are working very hard and going to great expense to avoid bankruptcy. this individual has also withheld service in its entirety for going on 3 yrs now, complicating matters further.

We have 0 confidence this owner will ever act reasonably and has become so entrenched and bitter clearly prefers to stay in litigation and watch the building suffer then to resolve matters.

My reason for posting is whether there is any hope of engaging the mortgagee? I have no doubt they would act more rationally and progress the process of consent for their unauthorised extension (they did this also) update the lease based on the actual layout of their property and seek a lease extension following retro consent.

Any advice you may have on how to bring this to the Mortgagee's attention would be hugely welcome, are there certain departments which deal with matters like these? to what extent could the freeholder have an obligation to make the mortgagee aware that their mortgagor is trying to bankrupt the freeholder? I believe Barclays to be the mortgagee according to the Land register.

Comments and advice are extremely welcome! many thank in advance

[atticus]

I have acted in the past for freeholders recovering ground rent and insurance charges from long leaseholders. Generally, after giving the leaseholder a couple of opportunities to pay, writing to their mortgage lender has done the trick. Presumably the sums paid have been added to the mortgage debt.

[Mia August]

Thanks for the post Atticus, I'm glad to hear you have had positive results in the past. we have a fairly generic address from the bank in which to write. From phone correspondence they were quite receptive. would you recommend writing to the generic mortgage services address or should we go to more effort to find someone with greater responsibility within the bank and write to them?

[atticus]

I have no idea what a generic address is. I suggest that you write to the address that you have, giving full details of the mortgaged property, to enable the lender to identify the account.

You can also check the address given in the charges register of the Land Registry title for the flat in question.

[Mia August]

If anyone has any additional comments or thoughts it would be greatly appreciated.