The unfortunate landlord

slightlycontroversial

I've been reading throught the threads and have sympthy with those who are having tenancy issues as I have been a party to unrasonable landlords in the past as a student. Now I am experiencing things from the other perspective. We have a student flat and the tenants have left the place in a complete state with everything from general untidiness to burning the carpets and removing items. What do I do to resolve this in the best way possible?

bookduck

I've never been in this situation, but you have gained the most valuable lesson - experience.

Hopefully you still have their deposit? An inventory? a Forwarding address? A lease that makes them as a whole responsible, rather than individuals? Guarantor? Before and after photos?

If they are not responsive, then a small claims court is the way to proceed.

tbs624

Did you have an inventory signed by both you and your tenants?

Did you take deposits and if so, were they scheme-registered as required by law if the contract s tarted after April 6 2007?

Were the tenants on one contract with joint & several liability?

Did you have guarantors in place?

Bungarm2001

Go after the b^ggers...we are currently persuing 3 soon to be ex-tenants, students who have trashed at least part of the house, one who left left without telling us. All owe rent.

Over the years we have let out to many students and some have been model tenants, others not too bad (at least made an effort to clean up sometimes!) and others just treated the place like a playground. Still others have held their hands up, given us the deposit to keep to go towards rectifying the damge and still others who have actually come back and cleaned after we kicked off over it. We even made one lot return all the crockery and cutlery that was in the house..cheeky sods thought it was for them to keep??!

We are throwing the book at this last lot mainly because they are in serious arrears with the rent. We haven't checked inside most of the property yet, but we have told them that if it isn't clean, then the cost of this will be coming out of their deposits. To be honest, I am sick and tired of the saying 'students will be students' when we have told people some of what they have done in the past, like it doesn't matter or it should be expected. This year we are getting tougher and not letting them get away with anything...we wouldn't accept it from our other tenants, so why should we expect or accept it from students?

Go after them mate..do everything legal and by the book and get some recompense.

clutton_2

the other argument is - clean it all up and move on, ask for higher deposits next time, dont waste too much time and energy on this one case - use it as a learning experience and move on - it may well end up costing you more in terms of your own time than you gain back from the ex-tenants - unless you have dotted every conceivable "i" and crossed all "ts" you will probably lose in court anyway

its a bitter pill to swallow - but ............

Bungarm2001

clutton wrote: »

the other argument is - clean it all up and move on, ask for higher deposits next time, dont waste too much time and energy on this one case - use it as a learning experience and move on - it may well end up costing you more in terms of your own time than you gain back from the ex-tenants - unless you have dotted every conceivable "i" and crossed all "ts" you will probably lose in court anyway

its a bitter pill to swallow - but ............

Why would he lose in court? As long as everything is in place re inventory, deposits etc why would he lose?

I could understand if you said' you'll never get the money'.....assuming you win, getting any money out of them is nigh on impossible, unless you have guarantors signed up too. Hopefully the OP has. In the case we have going at the moment, the parent of one of them has actually been to the office and is desparate to resolve the situation to prevent her child from starting off their professional career with a CCJ, so things are looking hopeful.

poppy10_2

There's little point chasing students - just keep the deposit and chalk it down to experience

brit1234

I personally think it is shocking that all these buy to let landlords are moving into student accommodation, it makes me sick.

When I was a student we rented a minimalist properties for cheap. The landlords didn't do much and there was much to break. That was the student landlord relationship. Now people have in the last 8-10 years have moved into the market to make a great deal of money and student rents have soared butting students in huge debt. Its wrong and all those landlords who get burnt I think it is justified.:mad:

sooz

Hade wrote: »

I'd never let to students.
As my experience as a student, I'd say ask a good deposit before hand and make absolutely sure you have the contact details of their parents etc.

Let to students through their uni acredited landlord scheme. At mine...all those years ago ...the uni had a greater hold over us than the landlord & him holding our deposit. Any arrears at the end of the tenancy and we didn't get our degrees :eek:

tbs624

sooz wrote: »

...the uni had a greater hold over us than the landlord & him holding our deposit. Any arrears at the end of the tenancy and we didn't get our degrees :eek:

I think that applies with most Unis and their own halls of res but LLs who are accredited by the Unis don't generally have the same support. Esssentially you are entirely separate from the Uni but have to comply with their LLs Code of Conduct to be advertising via the Uni Accomms office.

tbs624

brit1234 wrote: »

I personally think it is shocking that all these buy to let landlords are moving into student accommodation, it makes me sick.

When I was a student we rented a minimalist properties for cheap. The landlords didn't do much and there was much to break. That was the student landlord relationship. Now people have in the last 8-10 years have moved into the market to make a great deal of money and student rents have soared butting students in huge debt. Its wrong and all those landlords who get burnt I think it is justified.:mad:

Brit - what a load of tosh. Those type of properties are still out there if you or anyone else want them.

Bit of a chicken and egg situation on the standard of current student properties overall though - many students have a list as long of your arm of things that they just could not live without and drive the market on.

Students also put themselves in debt by drinking too much down the Uni bar, using taxis to get to town and buying ready meals and takeaways & droopy designer jeans . Guess that's the fault of bar staff, taxi drivers, shops and catering establishments?

The bottom line is that no student tenant(or any other tenant) should think it ok to deliberately trash a rented property and not have to pay to put it right .