Florist locks herself in warehouse in council rent protest

[dutchman]

A florist who got into rent arrears with Coventry City Council has barricaded herself into a warehouse in a bid to stop the unit being repossessed.



Dupé Adeoye has been locked inside the warehouse, on a small industrial estate off Fletchamstead Highway, since Thursday and claims to be on hunger strike in protest over council action to evict her.

The 53-year-old, from Earlsdon , has run Faith & Flowers wholesalers for three years, but mounting debts and rent arrears saw her run into trouble with the council.

She says she raised finance against her home to clear the majority of her debt, but bailiffs were sent into the warehouse to recover assets after she remained £5,000 in arrears.

In a subsequent letter to the council complaining about the “traumatic occurrence”, Ms Adeoye claims the bailiffs took far more stock than they should have to cover the £5,000 debt.

In her complaint to the council, Ms Adeoye says: “They systematically stripped the business of over £100,000 worth of assets including items that bailiffs are not allowed to take under the law.

“These included tools of trade such as computers, card machine, printers, till, fax machine, telephones, as well as all my disability equipment.”

When the Telegraph arrived at the scene earlier today, council staff were entering the warehouse with police officers, but left after speaking to Ms Adeoye.

The mother-of-one told the Telegraph: “I have been through hell. I am staying in here and going on hunger strike as part of a protest to get somebody to investigate the way the council has behaved.

“It’s been a stressful time. People have been trying to put me out of business and the council has removed my stock.

“I just want to be allowed to live, work and run my business and make my contribution to the community. That’s all I am asking for.”

A spokesman for the council said: “We are taking legal action and it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on any accusations being made.

“We have followed appropriate steps in managing this case. The council’s commercial property team repossessed one of its units on March 5 because of rent and rates arrears. This follows months of correspondence with the business owner.

“We are aware that the tenant had since broken into the unit and we are working closely with the police to manage the situation as safely as possible.”

[rebbonk]

Since the Bailiffs will be looking to recover the debt of £5,000, they will take items of far higher value. The reason is that they will have to sell these items via an auction and auctioned items seldom fetch a realistic price. I was once told that Bailiffs expect to only obtain 10% of value at auction, so in this case they would likely be looking at taking goods to the value of £50,000.

In all honesty, it looks like this lady is fighting a losing battle. There comes a time when it makes sense to give up.