Ok so I've never been on legaladviceuk before and I am by no means an expert but I don't know how long it takes for people to get good advice or if everyone does so here's my advice of steps you can take right away while you get better advice.

So my first piece of advice is don't panic. This man might be crazy but there are lots of things a landlord can't do and evict you just because he feels like it is one of them. You have lots of rights as a tenant and he can't force you to leave the property without a court order. Any attempts he makes to do so without one are very much in the domain of illegal. So don't let him get to you or your family. Chillax. Have a cup of tea and smugly sit on your sofa knowing he needs a judge to agree you're going before he kicks you out and that takes months.

You do not have to leave in two weeks if you don't want to. So do not panic.

And you are not going anywhere just because your Mum said she'd move out in a heated argument. That doesn't mean squat.

So you're just going to want to get a note pad that you can use as a diary and you're going to want to make the first entry the date of you calling the CO number and then coming over. The second entry about your interaction with your landlord and a summary of what he said while it's still fresh in your mind. Doesn't have to be anything complicated just a date and maybe a time and a brief description.

So it sounds like you've got a recording of him being crazy which is great because you're going to want to record everything and keep copies of everything. You're going to want a few plastic folders the ones with the button fronts that look like this.

Then you're going to want to get all the stuff you have to do with you renting which I don't know what you might have but a tenancy agreement, just any letters to do with you renting and put them in one of the folders. You can organize them later but just good to have them in one place. Then you're going to want one folder for any new stuff but we'll get to that but just have an empty folder you can keep stuff in.

For your photo evidence and this recording it would be a good idea to back it up to your computer if you have one or make a free google account and then put copies of them on there. Just so there somewhere easy to get to. Even just sending the photos over facebook messenger so that they're backed up there could be a good idea.

So yeah you're going to want to get more advice but until then just record everything. Type up a letter just saying in plain English how you'd like to deal with the problem with the gas and the threat of eviction in writing and not over the phone. How not to call your Mum but to write. Put the date on the top, then to: your landlords full name and address, then from: your name and address. Make TWO copies of it and put them in your folder. Don't give it to your landlord unless he gets in contact with you first by coming round the house or calling. If he calls say you would like to deal with this matter in writing and you'll be sending him a letter. Then buy an envelope stick one of them letters in it and put it in the post. Write copy at the bottom the other letter. If he calls or comes round the house make a note of it in your diary. If he comes round the house give him the letter in person and ask him to leave.


So now on to getting more advice. https://england.shelter.org.uk/ has loads of good advice and a free helpline. They will hopefully be able to tell you what to do and sign post you for resources in your area.

You can also go to your local citizens advice to get signposted to resources https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-we-provide-advice/advice/search-for-your-local-citizens-advice/

There are lots of people out there who want to help people in the exact situation your in. So don't panic. You also likely qualify for legal aid.

Obviously you'll want to get your gas on as soon as possible which your landlord definitely has a duty to do and then you can decide what you want to do in terms of your living arrangements on your terms in your own time. Not because this man bullies you.

Also you really did a great job of explaining what's going on in this post so why not print this out so that if you go to a meeting with anyone you can use it as a guide to make sure you say everything you want or have them read it.

Good luck getting things sorted! Sorry your gas got turned off! Don't let this horrible man bully you! And make your Mum and cup of tea and reassure her you're gonna get help to sort this stuff out :)

Don't let it loom over you.

Unless you're going to blow all the money you inherit, it probably shouldn't change your life plans much.

I'd expect you're going to finish school and maybe go to uni. You've probably always expected to get a job and, in about 10 years time, think about buying a house.

Given the value of the estate, your third is enough to buy a flat or a house, but it's not enough for you to be able to quit working (well, if you do you'll run out of money in 10 or 20 years, at most).

This money gives you a little security and flexibility, but it doesn't fundamentally change your life plans, I don't think. If you leave it invested for the next 40 years, with compounded returns, then it'll probably ensure a comfortable retirement (but you should probably still top it up, anyway, to make sure and to cultivate good financial habits).

I think you should try to be as grown up as possible about managing the probate period - a solicitor, for example, would help you ensure that your uncle and grandfather are fairly assessing the value of his share of the business. For all you know he owns a 50% share of a £10,000,000 business - how do you know they're not fobbing you off with just a fraction of it? My solicitor was a godsend - very helpful and insightful and she filled me with confidence at a very difficult time; I encourage your mum to call her if you haven't yet decided upon one.

Having got that side of things out of the way, just chill about the money and don't let it worry you too much. You can't afford to blow it, so you'll need to stick it somewhere safe and leave it for a long time.

Subscribe to /r/UKPersonalFinance and try to read a post or two there every day - ask questions there about anything you don't understand. Buy a copy of Tim Hale's Smarter Investing and Vicki Robin's Your Money or Your Life. You don't need to read them all at once, but they're pretty easy reading and you can dip in to them from time to time.

I think you should be planning to learn more about finance over the next year or two, so that you know the best way to save (well, invest, really) this money.

My god I wish I had found a succinct yet not dumbed-down summary of this sort of stuff when I was dealing with a personal injury case. I can't help but feel that the legal profession (not lawyers themselves) functions largely on information-hiding. Perhaps I should make a summary... I don't know if this is a good topic for wikibooks.

A summary of how CFA fee structures work

Okay so I want to make sure you have a good understanding of how the fee structure works:

CFA's operate as a cap on legal costs so that the law firm can only take costs and success fee up to say 25% of your award (this is the legal maximum).

Separate to this, if you win they will charge you:

• Their costs
  
• The product of their costs and the success percentage
  
• Less any money they recoup from the counter-party
  
  If you obtain no money they will charge you nothing.
  
  Amount paid on winning = minimum(Costs - Reclaimable percentage Costs - Success fee Costs, cap * Awa
  
  The figures you were quoted were pretty standard. I got quoted a 15% cap by some people. I have read on the internet about people getting a 50% success fee before going to trial.
  
  

  Alternative fee structures
  

  
  My understanding is that CFAs are the industry standard for how cases are funded. I kind of suggested not wanting to take a CFA and wasn't magically greeted with alternatives.
  
  

  Likely payout
  

  
  I imagine 10000 GBP is on the high side unless you have missed a bunch of work and not been paid for it or have a pretty nasty injury (i.e. joint injuries), or the prospect of future medical costs (e.g. arthritis). The legal system would seem to value your reputation a lot more highly than your limbs.
  
  You should go and read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guidelines-Assessment-General-Damages-Personal/dp/019875762X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk to find out what your likely payment is. This is what lawyers and judges and everyone uses to value damages. It is pretty much equivalent to case law. Your lawyer will just read this book find the appropriate section and tell you it. The judge in a case will read this book find the appropriate section and have a guess of where your injury falls in this section.
  
  

  Rant about personal injury damages guidance
  

  
  Having a bit of a moan: The fact that this book is not in the public domain is a real disgrace and the judicial college and the author of the book should feel and enduring sense of shame for how much uncertainty and wasted time they impose upon individuals by choosing to sell this book for a profit. Further, the lack of clarity and referencing in this book that has become a defacto standard for decision making again is a source of needless uncertainty and suffering.
  
  In their defence, this book was written before the advent of the internet and BAILII, so at the time of writing selling the book may have been an efficient means of transmitting this information. However, if the law commission is able to publish reports from the 1960s on the internet the judicial college should be able to publish this canonical document.
  
  It is slightly galling, to find you can't assess the value of an injury and because the author was unwilling to take the 10 minutes to list the cases that he spent hours reading "for the sake of brevity". As a reference work, brevity is not really the readers concern.
  
  The cynic in me thinks that the reason of not quoting cases might be because
  
  

• there is no case law basis for the valuations but the author wanted to create one
  
• the author wanted to leave judges as much discretion as possible.
  
  

  Nature of legal costs
  

  
  The issue in personal damage cases tends not to be about liability or non-liability rather how much the other party is willing to pay you and this is the reason that you end up going to court. (Although the possibility of the other part not being liable with push down the amount they offer you).
  
  The government introduced a system call one way qualified cost shifting: http://www.hardwicke.co.uk/insights/archive/articles/an-introduction-to-qualified-one-way-costs-shifting-new-cpr-4413-17 to encourage parties to settle out of court. Lawyers didn't seem that good at explaining this to me in conversations and I have a enduring interest in game theory, economics and evolutionary biology. So I would suggest getting an understanding of this from reading before talking to a lawyer.
  
  

  Economic discussion of incentives
  

  
  Regarding costs there are a couple of other things you should consider. I imagine lawyers are a pretty respectable profession; their costs will be accurate and they will work diligently on what they are doing regardless of funding meethod. On the other hand, there is a benefit of them having some skin in the game: this is an advantage of CFAs. This would probably show up when lawyers professionally and competently do something that you tell them to do which is a bad idea, or competently finish something that is not valuable for you. As such, if I was doing anything complicated I would want to incentivise lawyers with a share of the proceeds.
  
  On the other hand, before a case goes to court when you are just going through the correct legal motions, I feel these incentives are less important. This is mostly just me thinking out loud: a real lawyers experience would be useful here.
  
  If I was feeling forceful and energetic I might consider self funding until you have an offer from your counteryparty, but then taking on a CFA if you choose to go court. However I had no experience with this.
  
  In my case getting to the point of a having an offer cost about 3000 pounds though there were some complicating issues here.
  
  I imagine you could also tell your lawyer "don't spend more than this" and after this stage obtain a CFA. I don't know how happy lawyers are with this sort of stuff. I imagine they find collecting payment boring and lawyering interesting: a CFA gets rid a bunch of boring admin for them. "We win, we give you some money, done".
  
  There is also the complex question of loss aversion on the party of their customers, and them not wanting to be responsible for their clients actively losing money from a case.
  
  

  Where you get your lawyers
  

  
  It is perfectly possible to carry out this sort of case without ever speaking to your lawyer, so you can find lawyers from anywhere in the country and compare their fees.
  
  The exception to this might be if the injuries are very traumatic (or you are finding them traumatic) in which case seeing a lawyer in person can be advantageous from the point of view of not having another relationship to manage.
  
  (Edit: fix up lots of grammar mistakes... reddit is not the best medium for essay!)
  

This book is well worth buying, it explains the principles behind family disputes and how to best prepare and approach the situation. It's also bang up to date, and written by people who work in the system rather than bitter people with an agenda as you'll tend to find on the internet. The tenner it costs will pay itself back many times over if court action is started. In answer to your specific questions, I think the answers are No, Yes, No, Yes. As to the last point, if you are in secure accommodation (as in you're not about to be evicted for rent arrears or something), you're providing a loving nurturing environment and care, and promoting contact with dad, what more could he possibly have to offer than you?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/N2-Pro-1920x1080P-Recording-Dashboard/dp/B0742ZV9LV?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1

I have one of them. It doesn't give 360 degrees, but it's not far off. Put it this way, if that doesn't catch them, you can pretty much narrow down the culprit to 3 or 4 houses. Park a little further down the next day and you'll get them.

Alternative: Find a sympathetic colleague that already has a dash cam. Park on the same street, facing each other.

Buy 2 of them again, and its £10 for postage to London.

https://imgur.com/a/DuFDkNk

Then be more careful with them ! Problem sorted.


Or Go for this :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oypla-Garment-Clothes-Super-Heavy/dp/B00J2TF19A/ref=sxin_4_pcps-antenna?keywords=clothes+rack&pd_rd_i=B00J2TF19A&pd_rd_r=00e146e2-8ab7-4846-abff-10693852ec20&pd_rd_w=K87xy&pd_rd_wg=1oN67&pf_rd_p=e75c3ba8-1eb4-4c93-9656-85d99db8a5b9&pf_rd_r=VRVVYZP0FK6K7Z0MYSEA&qid=1569427390

Its billed as super heavy duty, and Amazon customer service is amazing.

If you are a bit technical you can use an old phone as an IP camera with a free app and lean it against a window if a suitable one exists.

You can then use a trial version of something like blueiris to record stuff on your computer, with motion detection etc.

It's not as easy as a bought in solution but it's free.

Edit .. or to approach it from the other direction
JZK® 2 X Dummy Fake Surveillance Security CCTV Dome Camera With LED Blinking Real imitation for Home Security，Black https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01ARLEASY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dRVwDbVYMCAXJ

Though dated Bill Bryson is an American who wrote some good books that were well recieved in the UK based on his years living here. From memory he touches on things that we wouldn't even think to bring up in a thread like this as unusual.

I have to warn you, it was the folly of a young-and-stupid idiot. I couldn't find anyone interested in publishing it, so I self-published on Amazon. Couldn't get an editor, so it's got typos galore. And I'm pretty sure that it's about 10 pages of mildly interesting travelogue before it hits 90 pages of dry-ass game theory. Truth be told, I wrote it before I was diagnosed with Aspergers.

Caveat emptor: https://www.amazon.com/Importing-Democracy-Brian-Boyko-ebook/dp/B00G8TC4HY

I'd recommend looking at /r/dashcam for advice. I have this one but there are probably better, newer models available now.

> My Law knowledge is shocking, maybe a new bedtime reading category!

It can be interesting! I'd recommend The Secret Barrister - a somewhat satirical overview of the criminal justice system from the point of view of an anonymous barrister.

It can be a friendly introduction.

Civil law is slightly more impenetrable, as it is often more boring (until you need it, of course, as more people encounter the civil system in day-to-day life!).

It's merely my favourite book, a total page turner from start to end. The 12th edition is particularly wonderful.

this one has good price:feature ratio, and good reviews. just don't buy a super cheap no-name job.

I'm unclear if the phone involved is landline or mobile. If it's the former, I recommend getting a phone like this, which is the one I use. It allows you to block many numbers, to screen calls from numbers you don't recognise, and to block all 'number withheld' calls. People you want to hear from who have their number withheld can put 1470 before your number to temporarily reveal theirs so that their calls get through. Not that this is the solution to the scary taxi driver, but it could be a useful bandaid while the legal process goes on.

Ebay for overpriced but i found some on Amazon that seem the exact same
Here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Footwell-Interior-Multi-Color-Atmosphere-Underdash/dp/B07G7QGCMZ

Edit: i also wouldn't trust the double sided tape to hold it onto anything as when i did it fell of in seconds id recommend cable ties

Have you ever considered importing the Reddit inspired Poop Knife

Dunno really.

This electric one apparently costs 30p per hour, this one costs between 16p and 32p, depending on the heat setting. This oil heater apparently costs 20p an hour to run, probably because it retains heat better once the oil has initially been heated. The electric at full heat for 5 hours a day is an extra £48pm. The oil is about £30pm, so £18 difference.

Dunno if it would satisfy the landlord as being included in the electric bills, but would be cheaper for OP if he ends up paying for it.