What to do with bad rental tenants? Apparently, nothing, just suck up the costs.

As landlords for the past 11 years with 2 properties and tenants ourselves for 10 of those years whilst living abroad, we've had our fair share of fun and drama.

We're still chasing a deposit refund from the last property we rented. The agents came with a pre filled in form to charge us for repainting the front door as it sat in direct sunlight, to change the locks, clean and repaint. All decided before they walked through the door, they also claimed air conditioning units we had NO access to were damaged.

The re decorating costs were removed due to it being a new build and there being settlement cracks, but we have no right of reply to the other issues and apparently they will need to clean the house after they've got it ready for new tenants. they don't seem to see the problem there, that is we returned it clean, it's not our fault they will dirty the house when decorating.

In another property they deducted gardening costs because they didn't rent the house back out until 2 months after our contract ended.

We've had 2 lots of tenants from hell with our family home that we're now back living in and a tenant in our flat in Wales who left a month early, left the hot water and heating on full blast, left junk behind, didn't pay the last months rent or bother cleaning and failed to report water damage as well as damaging the tiles behind the shower.

We've had 3 sets of rental agents. the first ones sold the business and shifted the management of our property. The tenants weren't paying on time from day 1, but the agent paid us and played catch up with the tenants until he could no longer afford it. We ended up going right to wire with a Section 21a, application for bailiffs and application for police to attend. 

During this time they failed to pay rent and they broke the oven and I was forced, by law, to buy a new one. The agents did nothing to support the eviction and when I retained the deposit, the agent took their fee for the time I'd been spending a fortune in the courts to evict. All I could do to recover my money was to make a claim through the small claims court, which would've cost me more money.

The second agents found us a couple of good tenants, but the last lot, moved into a freshly painted house, then after 18 months demanded it was repainted as it was in a state and threatened to withhold rent. I stood my ground and said no, so then they threatened to sue me for a friend tripping in the kitchen. During their tenancy we had the really cold weather and the boiler broke down. I provided them with money to purchase 2 fan heaters and informed them they had an emersion tank to heat the water, while they waited a week for the new boiler. They tried to claim the additional electricity costs from me, until it was pointed out, I wasn't obliged to provide them with anything for the week. Finally they claimed the building was a fire risk due to insufficient fire safety doors on the top floor. i was able to prove to the agents that they were and they had put themselves at risk, as well as my house by removing the automatic fire closures and doors. 

On this occasion the agents failed to take sufficient photographs and didn't date them and were late submitting evidence of damage to the Deposit Protection Scheme and I received less than 50% back of the deposit. The agents also sent in a painter and decorator and signed off his work without checking it. The decorator used emulsion paint on doors, skirting boards and walls, despite being paid to gloss the woodwork, repair holes in the wall and fit doors, that we had to refit. We were also charged a fortune to have the rubbish removed of which we received no reimbursement for and I had to replace fence panels, damaged by Ivy from next door that had been allow to grow over. 

The agents were clearly on the side of the tenants, from speaking to the neighbours after both sets, they said they were foul mouthed and intimidating. Weirdly though despite the neighbours telling me how much of a problem both sets caused with their teenage sons and noise, they failed to let me know via the email address they had for me.

The latest debarcle is a single bloke in our flat in Wales, he left a month early without paying rent. He left behind the things he didn't want, he left the place filthy and failed to report water damage after a leak. I only found out he'd left because the council tax got in touch. He did give meter readings to his energy provider but left the hot water and heaters on full blast. He handed the keys back to the agents who failed to join the dots and on their recommendation I agreed for someone else to move in the following week.

After a visit to the flat on the weekend, the tenant has been relocated to another property and I'm now searching for a plumber and tiler to sort the bathroom out so we can re let it (with new agents) They failed to do an exit inspection for over a week and I'm now chasing up the deposit plus additional costs so I'm not out of pocket. There is a huge difference between wear and tear and wilful neglect and damage.

Over the years I've searched for advice from other landlord, solicitors, from Citizens advice etc. All I've ever found is information on what a tenant can do to protect themselves from bad landlords, including advice on how to get rehoused if they can't pay the rent, to how they can withhold rent if the landlord fails to ensure their home meets minimum adequate requirements. For landlords the information available is about what the landlord is legally required to do.

I asked in a facebook group if anyone had experience as a landlord with bad tenants and how, if at all, they resolved the issues. 

I explained the flat was damp, but the tenant had failed to inform me or the agents, therefore I was unable to make repairs. 

Responses ranged from:

You shouldn't rent out a property that's in bad repair and poorly maintained (it wasn't when the tenant moved in a year ago)

Yep, same here, just had to write the losses off. (Done this too many times)

That's what the rent is for. (Rent received covers insurances, maintenance fees and is taxable as an income, in some instances there are mortgages to be paid)

We had bad landlords, the law is on their side, the tenant always loses out (I could send endless links for what help and support they could get in enforce the landlord fixing these issues)

You could try small claims court (It'll cost money and you might get back £5 a month, but you still have to pay for the work to be done) or just put it down to bad experience.

Make sure you get proper references and entry exit inventories and put the deposit in the tenancy deposit scheme. (Done that, at the cost of at least £500 per let period)

In my opinion the rental agents should do more. They find the tenants, arrange the references, organise entry and exit inventories, carry out inspections and can arrange for repairs to be carried out if informed by the tenant. For this they charge an arrangement fee, charge 10% monthly for collecting rent and bill you directly for all the above.

The rental agents don't check on the quality of the work carried out, they don't challenge the tenant to make any repairs themselves and deem everything as wear and tear and if a tenant does break something they only advise the landlord that they can ask for costs towards a replacement. They just rush from tenant to tenant, they say people are desperate for accommodation and said we could clean the damp, patch the tiles and move the tenant in.

That's not how we work as landlords, sorry if you've had a rough time as a tenant, this isn't the forum to tell me how brilliant you are as a tenant and how bad your landlords have been. But if you've had bad tenants and are looking for somewhere to vent your frustrations, please feel free to visit the comments section.

What can you do when it all goes wrong as a landlord?

I've updated the blog this week (May 31st 2015) as we're in-between tenants and after an unpleasant discussion on face book where I was called selfish.

There's plenty of information available if your a tenant, but very little about your rights as a landlord. I'm fed up as a landlord as being seen as the problem by tenants.
We're not running a business, we're letting out our home, that we still pay a mortgage for, at an additional charge. We pay insurances, fees to the rental agent for managing the property. We have to pay for electrical and gas safety checks every year, maintain the property both inside and out. When a tenant chooses to leave we have to in most cases repaint, pay new fees to find new tenants and usually have the property empty with no rent for around 2 months. 
As a landlord while we're living over seas we have to pay hefty fees to transfer money back to the UK and while the tenant is sitting there paying my mortgage for me, we're not actually making any money off it as don't forget there is tax to be paid also and then money has to be found in our host country to pay our rent to someone else to pay their mortgage.
There have been a few conversations on face book and twitter recently, where I've been called selfish for not siding with someone when the landlord has given notice because he wants to sell the property, that we're raking in money and swanning off to live abroad and might need our house back to pay school fees. So what? it is after all our house, which we've paid for, through hard work.

We appreciate that not all tenants are bad tenants and I'd like to see people accepting that not all landlords are unscrupulous , selfish and not caring, but after our experience with our first tenants, the money we lost and the amount we now have to pay for insurance to protect us should it happen again, we no longer accept tenants who require a guarantor or receive any form of income support support including housing allowance. We are not being selfish, it is our right.

Even more alarmingly and what prompted this update was someone of face book admitting to writing their own references.

My advice is to write the debt off, if you do get anything back it’ll be a long time coming, if at all. I’ve yet to find out if we’ll get any money back from our tenants or guarantor and it’s been an extremely stressful process, but since accepting we will probably never recover our money, we’ve been able to move on, put the past behind us and make sure we take the necessary precautions to ensure it never happens to us, or others if we can be of any use, again.

I had a rental agent and a contract and the agent carried out reference and financial checks and got  a guarantor. I thought they were doing us a favour, turns out the guarantor was needed not a ‘just in case’

In January 2013 I was contacted by the gas insurance company who informed me my land lord safety certificate was out of date as the tenants kept missing appointments, so I contacted the agent who said he’d sort it out and added ‘I’ll make sure January’s payment is made promptly. It was mid month, so I checked my bank account to discover no money had been received since October 2012 and that for the previous year it had arrived late every month. On contacting the agent I also discovered they’d received late payments via the guarantor on more than one occasion and that before they had bought the company the first agent had been paying me on time every month out of his own money.

So where now and this was my first mistake I took advice from the agent who said not to issue eviction notice until they’d caught up with missing payments and apologizsd for a ‘computer error’.

My contract states I give 2 months notice which was issued in February and then the agents sold the business and in the process the tenants were given 3 months notice and a date of May 24^th 2013 to vacate the property.

The tenants moved out August 8^th 2013 having not made a single payment.

I didn’t need a reason to issue a Section 21a eviction notice. I then had to apply to the court, which I did by flying to the UK to sort as my insurance company said I wasn’t covered for eviction. A month later I discovered I was covered and after a lengthy battle they finally agreed to pay back my court costs and appoint a solicitor. Due to the hassles of living in South Africa and managing issues from the other side of the world, it was decided I would remain in the UK until the bailiffs application had been issued and I spent 4 months in the UK sleeping on sofas at friends and family.

The application to the court gives 2 weeks for the tenants to respond as to why they cannot move out, once this date is up notice is given which can be up to 6 months.

The court gave a date mid July and if the tenants didn’t move out by then I could apply for an application from the bailiffs to forcibly remove them from my property. Once the date of August 12^th was given I returned to SA for a few weeks until I returned to clean and remarket the property.

I’d received annual inspections, the last one being in February 2013 and it did not state the level of dirt or repairs needed to the property. I also had to replace an oven at the property in the April as the door ‘fell off’ and if I didn’t I would be in breach of contract and legally the tenants could withhold rent…that’s a laugh.

In the meantime I went to the Worcester Hub and Festival Housing for advice, technically I was homeless and what they told me still makes my blood boil. They have advised the tenants to remain in the property until they receive the notice of eviction from the bailiffs before they can be rehoused, if they leave before that date they’ve made themselves homeless and won’t be rehoused.

When I asked what was on offer for me in regards to accommodation as my 14 year old was returning to the UK in August I was told I hadn’t secured housing for myself therefore I’d made myself technically homeless and wouldn’t be offered any accommodation. I had a 6-bed house I was trying to get back into, still paying a mortgage and not receiving any rent.

On completion of the exit inspection we sent local companies in for quotes which totaled over £5000 to clean and redecorate the house, plus the cost of the over grown garden, oven and window cleaning. Both companies that cleaned the oven and windows stated that these were the worst they’d ever seen and when I told the oven cleaning guy the oven was only 4 months old, he nearly passed out.

Having decided it was cheaper to clean the property ourselves I flew to the UK in September 2013 for 3 weeks and with help from friends @stephiemalverns @niffer62 and @brackett1 and my neighbours children and a steam mop from @bissellclean and hubby flying over for the last week we got the house ship shape and back on the rental market, with new agents, no guarantor and indepth reference checks after turning down people on housing benefit, people who had been backrupt and people who needed a guarantor.

In total we spent £2500 on repairs, paint, general DIY and preofessional cleaners, plus £700 on two return flights plus replacing items such as wardrobes, desk and a stolen chest freezer and the new tenants didn’t move in until December 2013, so with lost rent and a mortage to pay we were out of pocket over £8000.

So now to recovering the money from the guarantor and a solicitor who went on maternity leave.

Despite having sent all the receipts to the solicitor and them having the proof of missing payments from the first agent and the exit report. I’ve since had to send detailed photos to justify my need to spend so much on cleaning materials and to illustrate the damage to the walls, doors and ceilings.

I’m still waiting. The contract states the guarantor is liable for rent and damage and it also states that professional cleaning is to be carried out on leaving the property. Oven, carpets, windows, curtains.

I don’t know what the delay is, but when I add this snippet of information you’ll understand why this has gone on so long.

The solicitor was unable to locate the tenants or the guarantor, she hired a tracing company who came back with zero results.

I turned to google and face book and found them, addresses, emails and contact numbers within a day.

The current situation is we are waiting to hear back from the solicitor to say we will accept the £2,000 offered by the guarantor, without prejudice. He states we received the deposit back which covered the professional cleaning costs and the £2,000 covers the rent outstanding. He has failed to acknowledge the stolen items, the court costs, the damaged items, including a solid wooden door and furniture. Let alone the building work, complete redecorating of all the rooms, new toilet seats, etc, etc, etc.

We are accepting the offer as I fear we won't get any more. I think we are quite lucky that we got off so lightly.

The true costs of bad tenants

So here goes, 4 hours later and I've complied all the costs and evidence for my solicitor to attempt to claim damages and costs from the tenants, guarantor and rental agent.

The guarantor is only responsible for costs to the date the tenants left the property, in terms of outstanding rent. The tenants cannot be located and professionals have been hired to track them down. I cannot go into detail too much re the rental agents as I'm pursuing this matter either through my solicitor and/or the small claims court other than to highlight where I feel they've mismanaged the property.

Rent was not collected from November 2012 till I noticed in February 2013 having checked the UK bank accounts. It was then I realised that all payments had been made 2-3 weeks late and not once had the agents enforced the contract by charging an additional 10% for late payments, they however continues to take their 10% management fees on time up to and including after the eviction notice was served. They also gave the tenants 3 months notice instead of the 2 requested. When the tenants finally left after a costly trip to the UK to carry out the eviction procedure myself, I was informed by the neighburs and not the agent, who on entering the property called me to say 'the house was inhabitable and would require fumigating' yet his last inspection report in February 2013 stated 'light cleaning required' only. I was also informed by the agent that the house could not be re marketed while the tenants were in situ due to 'unwillingness of the tenants and the state of the house' yet the last inspection report in February 2013 stated the house required 'light cleaning only'

You can check out the other blog posts here, here, here, here and here with photos showing the extent of the damage and the efforts I went to, to evict the tenants.

Now it can be said we received money for 2 years, which we did, but we had a mortgage to pay, whilst renting a property in South Africa and UK tax to pay. We spent nearly 2000.00 GBP getting the house ready for the rental market and maintained the property during the rental period.

Our actual out of pocket costs are just under 2000.00 GBP, but if you see the list below you'll realise what it whole experience has actually cost and don't forget we carried out all the work, from cleaning to repainting and fixing holes in walls.

My costs to date are as follows:

Outstanding rent       1,900.00 GBP    June and July

                                      245.16 GBP    Aug 1- 8

Rent time house           704.84 GBP     Aug 9 -31

empty due to work        823.33 GBP    Sept 1-26

being done for re renting

Professional cleaning and repairs 

                                       943.15 GBP

Cleaning materials and DIY

                                        380.88 GBP

Personal costs inc phone, transport, postage

                                         433.93 GBP

Replacement to damaged and stolen items

                                          537.42 GBP

Return flights from the UK to evict tenants and carry out work

                                          19635.00 ZAR approx 1309.00 GBP

Total costs                         7277.71

minus deposit                      755.00

Outstanding                       6522.71

How to evict tenants following a Section 21a

When my husband was offered an Inter company transfer to South Africa with a 2 year work visa,  it seemed rather rash to sell our family home, after all the move may not have worked out, then what?

So we opted to rent out our family home with an agent. The house was empty for 3 months before tenants moved in. We paid the rental agent 10% of the monthly rent to manage the property on our behalf.

The agency has since been sold twice, but prior to the second sale we discovered the tenants weren’t making payments on time and had in fact not paid any rent since November 11^th 2012. Naïve of us to have trusted the agency to ensure rent was paid on time, naïve of us to assume we would be informed, but 6000 miles away and 2 years on, still adjusting to life as expats, we assumed that when we paid a company to act on our behalf, they would do just that.

Having finally extracted the rent arrears from the tenant’s guarantor, we opted to serve the tenants with a Section 21a notice giving them 2 months notice to evict the property. The agent opted in his wisdom to give them 3 months notice to quit with the date being May 24^th 2013.

From the last inspection report it was obvious there was lots of work needing doing to the property and as the tenants weren’t reliable we couldn’t trust that they’d make the necessary repairs and return the property in the state that they rented it. So I flew over to the UK to oversee this matter.

The tenants ignored the Section 21a notice and I then had to turn to a solicitor and the courts for assistance.

Assuming you have a short hold tenancy agreement with the tenants this is the procedure you are required to follow to obtain possession of your house, recover lost rent and make good repairs prior to re renting.

You are required to produce the following documents and I strongly suggest that in order to save time, should you find yourself in this position that, you obtain copies from your agent asap.

 

1.       Proof of ownership of the rental property, i.e. The Land Registry Office copies

2.       A copy of the signed tenancy agreement

3.       Rent statement

4.       Tenancy deposit certificate

5.       Evidence of service of the prescribed information that the landlord is obliged to give to the tenant in relation to the tenancy deposit scheme. I.e. a covering letter and the information that was given to the tenant

6.       Notices that have been served in relation to the property:

How, when and by whom

If served by royal mail, provide covering letter

If the notice was personally handed to the tenant, when the notice was served and by whom was it served

7.       Check in report/ inventory

8.       Tenant referencing documents credit checks, personal references

9.       For the purpose of enforcing any court judgement provide details of tenants employment, bank details and known assets

10.   Any correspondence between the parties agents, landlord and tenants

11.   Any details of any matters that the tenant has complained of, in relation to the state of the repair of the property and if items have been complained of what steps were/will be what has been done to remedy the situation

12.   Whether there has been any history of drugs and violence at the property and if a possession order is made you consider that the bailiff will require police assistance

13.   If the bailiff is required to take back possession, confirm who will be in attendance when possession is obtained and to arrange for the locks to be changed

 

Ensure your agent takes up these references prior to signing any contract so you don’t discover down the line that your tenants have done this to another landlord before.

 

In order to obtain an accelerated possession order of your property you will be required to present these documents to your solicitor. Who will charge you approximately £2000 plus vat to obtain possession of your property. You will also be required to pay £175 to the courts and a further £110 should bailiffs be required.

The process to obtain possession of your house can take up to 5 months and as most Insurance companies will only pay for 30 days accommodation, you should really issue an eviction notice at least 5 months before you intend to reoccupy the property.

Recovery of rental arrears and damages can take between 1-3 years so prior to renting out your property, ensure, like we did, you have enough money in your account to meet these costs Inc. mortgage payments.

Once you’ve satisfied the courts that you have given 2 months written notice to the tenants for them to vacate the premises you can request an Issue of proceedings for possession on the first working day after the date the tenants were due to vacate the property.

The tenants have 14 days from the date issued to provide a defence. If a defence is submitted then the possession order can be delayed for up to 6 weeks for a hearing.

The court will then serve the possession order and a date will be given to the tenants in which they have to vacate the property.

Today as I sit writing this post I have been in the UK for 7 weeks. The tenants are using a van and their car to empty the contents of a 6 bed house. This may take some time, they started 6 days ago. I expect to have the house back by Friday.

Failure to do so will result in a warrant for possession served by a bailiff in order to evict the tenant with a further cost of £110.

 

Evicting tenants

I had a short hold tenancy agreement drawn up in 2011 between myself (the landlord) and the tenants and have issued a section 21a notice, giving 3 months (legally only 2 months is required) notice for eviction. I am not required to give a reason for eviction. The rent has been paid by the tenant’s guarantor since November 2012 after continued late and missed payments.

I have kept to my side of the contract as a landlord, including purchasing a new oven since issuing an eviction notice.

I paid a solicitor £775 to make an accelerated possession order; I needed to supply a copy of the section 21a and a signed document from the agent who served it, plus the tenancy agreement.

 

The tenants had 2 weeks to supply a defence to the courts, normally citing critical illness, late stages of pregnancy (none of which apply) If the judge issues a possession order the tenants will normally have 14 or 28 days to leave the property. If this will cause them exceptional hardship, the judge may give them up to 42 days to leave.

If they don’t leave at this point, you can use bailiffs to evict them.

 

If your tenant is looking to be re-housed by the local authority, note that they will not normally do this until a possession order has been made against the tenant, and sometimes not until a bailiff’s appointment has been made.

 

I've had many offers from family and friends to go round and have a word, well we don't live in a 1970's movie and there are laws to protect the tenants from harassment.

 

It is a crime to harass or try to force tenants out of your house, if you attempt to do this they are entitled to claim damages through the court.

Harassment includes:

Anything that I do or don't do that makes the tenants feel unsafe. So I can't disconnect the electricity or water as many of you have suggested, I can't refuse to carry out repairs, I can't ask a friend to cause problems or make any threats physically or of violence to them.

It is illegal for me as the landlord to not give them the right amount of notice or just simply change the locks.

There is an awful lot of protection for the tenant, how they can get rehoused, how they can protect themselves and what their rights are if I as a landlord don't apply the law, but there's sod all around to tell me what my rights are....it appears I don't actually have any.