A 76-YEAR-OLD grandmother who has been ordered to leave the Greenwich home she has lived in for 46 years has branded the property firm “immoral” and claims it uses fear tactics.

Mabel Nelson is one of 20 tenants from Reade and Travers House who face a 200 per cent increase in their rent.

When Mrs Nelson received a letter from landlord Bankway Properties falsely accusing her of owing rent and demanding she leave her home she said she thought she would have a heart attack.

Mrs Nelson is the first person to be directly approached after D-Day war veteran Harry Denford criticised the landlords for hiding behind a wall of silence.

But now the huge rent hike and the demand for back-dated payments which were due to take place on August 6 have been delayed after tenants lodged an appeal at the Rent Assessment Committee. The appeal process could take up to six months.

Mrs Nelson, who has lived in Reade House, Trafalgar Grove, for almost half a century, said: “I couldn't sleep the night the notice to quit arrived.

“They said I owed them money but my book proves I owe them nothing.

“I think the landlord is acting in an immoral and self-serving way with no sense of social responsibility.

“The firm shouldn't be allowed to put the fear of hell into elderly people.”

Greenwich MP Nick Raynsford is furious after Bankways Properties, part of the William Pears Group of Companies, refused to apologise for sending the notice to quit.

He said: “The landlord is flagrantly breaching an undertaking to act in a caring and responsible way toward tenants an undertaking it gave when it purchased the properties from Greenwich Hospital charity.

“It is deliberately trying to intimidate the tenants in a most underhand and irresponsible way.”

A Greenwich Council spokes-man, speaking after a Trafalgar Grove Tenants' Association meeting, said: “The council is trying to help these tenants, who are very distressed, advising them how to cope for the worst contingency eviction.

“It would be the most frightful scandal if all these people were evicted.

“The whole thing is a nightmare.”

Bailey & Co, the agent acting for Bankway Properties, refused to comment.