Year 2 Day 156: No Worries?

Little man is getting in a nap before our "long" 3-mile journey to walk to Daddy's work this afternoon. We're supposed to be going to check out a house to let and it will save Matt having to come all the way in the opposite direction to come and get us.

What's that you ask? We've only just moved 8 months ago...why would we be looking to move again?! Well, this isn't by choice, really. As it turns out our landlords have not been paying their mortgage and have neglected to inform us that they were having any troubles. In fact, we've been waiting on the carpet in the bathroom to be replaced since shortly after moving in last year as it reiks of...well, unpleasantness. The letting agent stopped hearing from them in November and our 6-month lease was up in December. We wanted to sign another, but were forced to stay on month-to-month since the agent wasn't able to contact them. We see now why that is. It seems they might have pulled a runner.

This week we received something in the post 'To The Occupant' and since there were two similar letters in their names (because as I have mentioned on here before, they still haven't set up therir mail to be re-directed) we decided it was important and opened the occupant one. Inside was a 'notice to quit' which is basically a warning  that the mortgage is in arrears and about to be potentially repo'd. To top that off, after Matt phoned the solicitor, he was informed that it was not a buy-to-let mortgage, which meant they didn't even have permission to be renting it out (something I thought the letting agent would have been responsible for verifying before taking them on as clients -- guess not).

They have a court date now set for the 9th of April, but after much discussion, Matt and I would rather be proactive and start looking for someplace else to live now than to wait and be evicted after the court date. We have a child to look after now and it wouldn't be sensiblle to leave things until the last minute.

It's a shame really because we do like it here in Brierley Hill, and we like the house. Plus, we weren't planning on having to move again for another 2-3 years and we only just started discussing decorating the place a bit and making it our own.

::sigh::

So, we'll see how today's viewing goes, but Matt already thinks it's going to not be worth it because he says the area isn't nice.

We shall see.