Oh, I feel your pain... We had a similar thing happen to us, but we were fortunate that the police did not break in. The landlord and real estate company had a falling out- both claiming to be the legitimate "landlord". We got an eviction notice, and the police came and knocked on all the doors and told us to get out or bring new checks to an other place and sign a new lease(fortunatly, they did not force themselves in-- we discovered later that this was because it would have been very illegal for them to do so. We figure they were buddies of the owner or something and were just sent to scare us. My guess is your "police" didn't really care if what they were doing was not legal.) Well, we all stayed put and refused to pay a second landlord before we got our money back from the first. To make a very long, very stressful story short, we are still here and now have new leases with a new landlord. In the end, our new Qatari landlord ended up being much more reasonable and likeable than we had first perceived him. His lawyer is an idiot though and wrote the terrible, very illegal letters to us. (we never like our real estate company anyway)...
Here are my suggestions... Go to the courthouse (with a Qatari friend/colleague/sponsor ideally) and find out what the deal is with this "eviction". Although we were being threatened with eviction, it turned out that the person trying to evict us didn't even have right to do so!!
Try to find out who the "police" who kicked everyone out were. If the groups are still in court (and I can't imagine the case could be over that quickly) they have no right to kick you out. Try to get names, etc... Bring those names to the court.
Band together with your neighbors. We formed kind of a "homeowners association" and talk to the owners/landlords as a group. I think it helped and they realized that we weren't going to take this lying down. We also set up an e-mail mailing list so when one person found out a piece of info, he/she could pass it to everyone else. This was VERY helpful when they tried to negotiate with each of us separatly and make "deals". We stuck together and I think it worked out better for all in the end.
I would love to tell you it will be over soon, but ours was a long, long process. You might want to just find a new place (i know, I know, easier said than done). Talk to your bank and find out what you need to do to get your rent checks cancelled.
Oh, I feel your pain... We had a similar thing happen to us, but we were fortunate that the police did not break in. The landlord and real estate company had a falling out- both claiming to be the legitimate "landlord". We got an eviction notice, and the police came and knocked on all the doors and told us to get out or bring new checks to an other place and sign a new lease(fortunatly, they did not force themselves in-- we discovered later that this was because it would have been very illegal for them to do so. We figure they were buddies of the owner or something and were just sent to scare us. My guess is your "police" didn't really care if what they were doing was not legal.) Well, we all stayed put and refused to pay a second landlord before we got our money back from the first. To make a very long, very stressful story short, we are still here and now have new leases with a new landlord. In the end, our new Qatari landlord ended up being much more reasonable and likeable than we had first perceived him. His lawyer is an idiot though and wrote the terrible, very illegal letters to us. (we never like our real estate company anyway)...
Here are my suggestions... Go to the courthouse (with a Qatari friend/colleague/sponsor ideally) and find out what the deal is with this "eviction". Although we were being threatened with eviction, it turned out that the person trying to evict us didn't even have right to do so!!
Try to find out who the "police" who kicked everyone out were. If the groups are still in court (and I can't imagine the case could be over that quickly) they have no right to kick you out. Try to get names, etc... Bring those names to the court.
Band together with your neighbors. We formed kind of a "homeowners association" and talk to the owners/landlords as a group. I think it helped and they realized that we weren't going to take this lying down. We also set up an e-mail mailing list so when one person found out a piece of info, he/she could pass it to everyone else. This was VERY helpful when they tried to negotiate with each of us separatly and make "deals". We stuck together and I think it worked out better for all in the end.
I would love to tell you it will be over soon, but ours was a long, long process. You might want to just find a new place (i know, I know, easier said than done). Talk to your bank and find out what you need to do to get your rent checks cancelled.