My lender's solicitors obtained a County Court Judgement in 1994 giving the lender the right to re-possess if any more mortgage repayments were missed or if the re-payment of arrears (which I was managing at that time) was not kept up at the same rate.

I was living abroad at the time, and despite the lender and the solicitors having written to me at my German address prior to the court action, the court was not informed of my actual ie foreign address. The result of this was that the court summons went to my UK property address and my tenants at that time did not forward this to me.

By the time I was made aware of the situation the court hearing had taken place. Had I known in advance I would have attended and objected to the lenders petition.

In my opinion I was denied my civil rights and it would appear that the recently adopted European Human Rights Act might be in my favour. Does anybody know if the EHRA has been applied to shortfall liability claims cases? Are there any successful uses of the Act to fight unfair debt claims?

-- Mary Contrary (julywarned@hotmail.com), April 15, 2002

Answers

Human Rights

Mary,

I don't know the answers to your questions, but you could visit the Lord Cancellor's web site where you will find the Human Rights Unit.I have been trying to contact them on "www.humanrightsunit@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk" which is supposed to be for finding out more about some aspect of the law or guidance on human rights law or policy. However,the e-mail address doesn't work & I am currently trying to find out why. You can see this on web page "www.lcd.gov.uk/hract/aspect.htm" Furthermore, I have also seen on their web page "www.lcd.gov.uk/hract/contact.htm" a section for taking up a personal case, which might interest you too. There is another e-mail address for general queries "general.queries@lcdhq.gsi.gov.uk", which I'm going to try now,and if that doesn't work I'll write to the Home Secretary,Queen Anne's Gate. I'll let you know if I get anywhere.

Mark

-- M Amos (idgroms@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002.