Tricks tenants get up to

clutton_2

In May last year i was asked by one of my tenants if i had a free house for her son's girlfriend - lets call her C. C is 18 and was 8 3/4 months pregnant at that time with twins, and in hospital The "home" she had before her hospital admittance, with "friends" had suddenly told her their house was too small for her and twins and she was no longer welcome. Her kids were in danger of being taken into care.

I happened to have an empty property, and so ran around like a you-know-getting it thoroughly cleaned and redecorated for new babies, going to the hospital with the Tenancy agreement, and housing benefit forms and all the other stuff thats needed. I even let her off finding a guarantor as i thought she would be reliable.

She was a fine tenant, keeping the house reasonably clean, paying the rent on time (*via housing benefit direct to myself), and having paid a Deposit which she had borrowed from her father.

She signed for 6 months, and i explained that i wanted long term tenants, and that if all was well at the 6 months point, she could have a new contract for a year.

Just before the 6 months i explained that she could certainly have a 12 months contract, or it could just stay as it was on a rolling contract. She chose the rolling periodic contract - but also asked if she could install SKY - so i assumed a long term tenancy was on the cards.

a week after the 6 months she phoned and said she was leaving in 3 days time as she had been offered a 3 bed house by the council and was leaving. i explained that as she was unable to give me a months notice, i would be claiming her deposit.

Her boyfriend now entered the scene and was in the background called me all the fiiiing b.....es he could lay his tongue to. i did not respond to this.

s/he have now gone to the Deposit Protection Scheme claiming that i was not in communication with anyone, that i had gone AWOL, and that they claimed the deposit back in full on those ground.

i submitted a statutory declaration to the effect that insufficient notice had been given, and that i was not claiming for repairs (although my cleaners got 5, yes 5, hoover bags of dirt from the lounge carrpet alone - i wonder if this was the cause of the babies asthma ??)

they have now come back to the DPS with more lies - that i always knew that she would only stay 6 months and that i had refused to extend her tenancy - altho why these are ground for deposit retention when they moved out after the Fixed Term, i really cannot say.

i feel so saddened by all this - i tried to help a young lass when she was in serious trouble, and i am now being treated as if were some kind of monster ....

when LLs were able to keep their own deposits, i would have been able to retain the money and rely on the tenant taking me to court

now

i have had to write 3 statements for the DPS,
prepare a written statement
go to a solicitor
pay for a Statutory Declaration
now i have to photocopy the tenancy agreement,

and the end is still not in sight

s/he will no doubt want to invoke the Dispute Resolution Service

this is the second time a vindictive tenant has taken me through all these steps for reason at all

it makes me wonder why i am still in this business at all

clutton_2

another tenant left in december, after we had spent £7k on the property 2 years ago, and left it like a pigsty, (needing another £5k of work ) and left owing 6 months rent, having paid none of their bills for months, and asking me if i would deal with their post ????????

silverchair

I dont have anything helpful to add, except that its a really horrible thing that the tenant has done.
What does the boyfriend's mum say about it?
I suppose she just takes other people's help for granted.
She will no doubt be one of these mums who uses their pushchair as a weapon on the bus to barge people out of the way (though I obviously have no way of knowing whether there are loads of buses where she lives or that she actually takes the bus)

You sound like a fantastic landlord. Just be more careful next time.

barnaby-bear

clutton wrote: »

another tenanted left in december, after we had spent £7k on the property 2 years ago, and left it like a pigsty, (needing another £5k of work ) and left owing 6 months rent, having paid none of their bills for months, and asking me if i would deal with their post ????????

You do quite often counter daily mail arguments about DSS single mums and say that you've found them to be good tenants... is the tenant you are getting starting to change?

Ladybird20

...its makes me wonder why we bother to put roofs over peoples heads dosnt it when this is the way you get treated.. i am thinking when the time is right to put mine up for sale,,i am fed up with the required legislation that is becoming more and more ,,,, i can look back and think my lets have been great vehicles for making money,,but hell the hassle you have to go through and the political correctness can be overwhelming

kunekune

I'm sorry this has been done to you, because you are so clearly one of the least-biased, fairest LLs we have on here. From her perspective, I suppose it was a no-brainer: you get offered a council flat, you take it. But I wonder whether the system needs a bit of a re-think. If it is quite common to get offered accommodation like that at short notice, and councils are using private LLs for spillover tenants like this one, then they need to think about whether it's fair to say "get in within a week or you don't get the flat". If this happens too often, then no-one like this woman will get anywhere to live while waiting and hoping for that elusive council flat. Of course, that isn't the nirvana she thinks, and it could be she'd be better staying with a good LL like you, but .. ykwim.

Of course, there is the other stuff as well! Whoever pays or helps pay the rent, there is no excuse for being a rubbish tenant.

poppysarah

Ladybird20 wrote: »

...its makes me wonder why we bother to put roofs over peoples heads dosnt it when this is the way you get treated.. i am thinking when the time is right to put mine up for sale,,i am fed up with the required legislation that is becoming more and more ,,,, i can look back and think my lets have been great vehicles for making money,,but hell the hassle you have to go through and the political correctness can be overwhelming

Aww bless. It's not all about profit.

Ladybird20

i know poppysarah..it makes me smile when people naivly post on here saying they are gunna do a btl....i have been doing it years now ,,they dont know the half of it.....

Pssst

Well thats BTL for you...it all seems so easy on paper but the trouble is,quality tenants are hard to find.

poppysarah

Pssst wrote: »

Well thats BTL for you...it all seems so easy on paper but the trouble is,quality tenants are hard to find.

There are some tenants who would say that a good landlord is also hard to find.

skap7309

Pssst wrote: »

Well thats BTL for you...it all seems so easy on paper but the trouble is,quality tenants are hard to find.

:eek::eek: Quite a cheeky sentence there! Its a business, if ya dont like it sell up and get out. As above, many say that about landlords.

I rented once..............never again.