Taking my finger off the self-destruct button

Horace

I am with Rose on this one - boot them out, I wouldnt be able to trust them in the house either. Put the house on the market and give them a month's notice to quit - they have dillied and dallied for far too long now and they are costing you money:mad: I personally, wouldn't waste any more time on them unless it is to send them an eviction order.

I know what it is like to be madder than a cut snake - I have been that way today, nagged within an inch of my life to the point where the friendship will cease. I have been promoting my small business only it seems that I am not moving fast enough according to friend - I am now skint to the point that I have registered with an agency for temp work. I sub contracted for this same friend until Friday of last week when he announced that he didnt need me for several weeks and I was relying on that money:mad:. It is ok for him he has family at home who shop, cook and clean and he has office staff - I have no one and have to do everything myself. I was really mad on Monday as I had gone to London and was told that I would get a VIP Pass for the concert to find that there wasn't a VIP Pass at all and I could have come home on the coach the same night instead of forking out for a hotel room and cab fares (had to have a cab at night because there was no way that I was walking from the West End to Earls Court in the dark).:mad:

This weekend, I shall be busy photographing and listing as Ebay are having free listings this weekend:cool: I have a ton of wedding stuff to get rid of so I must stop being lazy and get on with it.

poorbutrich

Wordsmith wrote: »

Am I cross? No. Am I mad? No. Am I hopping mad? No. Am I madder than a mad person having a hopping mad mad fit? Doesn't even come close.

House negotiations came crashing down today after I extended my Tuesday deadline to Thursday because the buyers said they had definitely transferred the deposit monies but they hadn't got to the solicitor yet and I thought, fair enough, there's a hold-up with the bank. When the money still hadn't got to the solicitor yesterday and the buyers weren't contactable by phone (that is, the letting agent managed to talk to Mrs Buyer who was adamant the money had been sent off but her husband wasn't responding even to her telephone calls), so, giving the benefit of the doubt again I said that if the money hadn't got to the solicitor's bank today and Mr Buyer hadn't given a satisfactory answer as to why not, then I was definitely pulling out. I duly sent off the email giving my solicitor that very instruction at about 10.30 today, only to be told that Mrs Buyer was still saying the money had gone and the letting agent had given them two months' notice to quit the house. And there was me thinking things might still be OK but I was again the last to know anything. When I calmed down a smidgen, I realised that the letting agent wouldn't have given them notice without talking to me. So I emailed him. At the same time one of his assistants phoned me and said the Mrs Buyer had been in floods of tears on the phone this morning saying that her husband was still saying he had sent the money, but she knew he hadn't. And now she was worried I would kick them out. Is the man deranged? Surely he knew he'd get found out eventually. Apparently this isn't the first time he's done something like this - I was told a story but as it doesn't involve me I don't feel I can repeat it here.

So, all that agonising about whether to sell. Three months of expectations. Another two months of will they / won't they follow through. And a further month of being angry but still thinking it might happen. And being assured it would and so making plans for the money. Oh, my lovely plans.

And now, now, getting on for £1,000 spent. No house sale. No money. Maybe no tenants.

When I've calmed down (I'm thinking Tuesday week), I will have a think about what to do next. Put the house on the market? Get in new tenants? Let the waster tenants stay? (Apart from Mr Tenant-Not-Buyer being obviously a bit loopy [sorry, not very PC, but am I bovvered?], they were excellent tenants.) The cheapest option would be to let them stay. But. But but but ...

Oh how frustrating for you and Mrs Tenant. :mad:
Hope you're ok.

beanielou

What a blooming pickle.

chevalier

oh stuff it that is terrible. I am so sad for you. What an absolute twit Mr Tenant is. I too would suggest they leave, but it depends on whehter you would get tenants easily again. If they did leave would it give you the option of going back. Would that make financial sense?
chev

miggy

Grrr. That's awful. No wonder you are mad.

The only thought I can offer is, should you continue to have them as your tenants, could the tenancy go in the woman's name only? She seems to be the one to deal with.

Lula-Hula

I'm seething on your behalf; my favoured aunt has just gone through a not dissimilar scenario selling her house abroad.

Some people apparently have no shame, consideration or conscience.

I can understand your thinking re them being otherwise excellent tenants. If however, you should calm down & decide to let them stay I personally would want to draw up a new contract whereby they have to give you a month's deposit & a months rent up front ( or however other way you can to get the £1,000 back) & I would also increase the rent & only have them there on a 3 month contract.

On a lighter note, you could have an 11 year old who's just been to a riding party & now wants a horse :eek:. The previous party attended, which was ice-skating, brought forth a yearning for ice dancing lessons.

Thank god the Army aren't doing parties or I could see myself trying to park a tank ... although I could then drive up to visit your tenants for you

Wine, whine & then more wine may help.

Wordsmith

I have calmed down, a whole week before the e.t.a. Thanks for your comments.

I told the letting agent yesterday that I will let the tenants stay on. Since then, though, two things have happened to make the bad situation worse.

First, I decided that as I will be letting for a while longer I should be a bit more up front than I have been. There is a proper contract, and I have landlord's insurance, and the Revenue know about the letting, but right at the beginning when I phoned the mortgage company to ask what they would do "if" I decided to let, they said I would have to write to them and they may or may not increase the interest rate on the repayments. At the time I was already having to find an extra £300 to top up the rental income and I had no job here, so I sort of forgot to let them know about it in case they put up the repayments. Now that things have stabilised a bit I wanted to do the Right Thing and inform them, but when I phoned today they said that they would not even consider giving me consent to let. Oh. My. God. What do I do now? Just forget about it again - even though they now have it on their database that I am "about to" start renting (OK, so I was trying to be honest from this point forward, not retrospectively) and that I no longer live in the property? I asked on the relevant bit of the forum what's the worst that could happen, and was told that the mortgage company could repossess and force a sale. Would they bother, if the mortgage was being paid on time? Will I get arrested at the airport when I next fly in? Will the tenants use this information if they find out? I could try to get a buy-to-let mortgage. But not living in the country? With my debts? On my income? It's not going to happen.

The second thing is this blasted chimney. The solicitors were happy about it, the buyers' mortgage company was happy about it, I think even the buyers were happy about it really. But I have been worrying about it - mainly, could the tenants capitalise on the knowledge of the lack of building regs? I asked the letting agent yesterday to organise a structural surveyor to check it is safe, for peace of mind, and so long as it is, I could just leave it be. But it is just the tenants ... So I asked the relevant forum here what other landlords would do, and the responses were very much of the form of "just get on and do the work", "your insurance may be invalidated", "what if the chimney fell down on someone" and so now I have the fear of God in me and feel I have to do something about it. I think it will cost thousands (which will come from where?), and I will have to have the house empty while the work is being done so I won't get any rental income, and even then I may not be able to let it because the mortgage company won't allow it. I could just try to sell without the work being done, and offer the indemnity insurance to potential buyers - apparently this is common.

I have worked six late nights on a book that got to me late, should have been finished weeks ago, and I had to do one section twice because they sent me the wrong file. Tomorrow I have to go to the restaurant to work on some financial stuff to do with the part of the business that has been sold, and short-fuse client will be there, so I will be on edge. I hope all this means that I am just tired and emotional right now and come Thursday I will be in a better frame of mind and can dust myself off and come up with a cunning plan. I have asked a builder to give me a quote on the chimney works, so I will at least have something to work with.

Favoured friend came over for a week. The tart was beside herself with happiness. I took a day off and we went out and about for the day - eating cake and going to a pub for a meal. A big treat for me.

Brian is a bit off-colour, so a visit to the vet may be on the cards. Finn is in fine fettle and is driving me demented. I keep having to shut him in the naughty box so I can get work done.

I promised my sister I would get some new bits of her web site up today, so I'd better get on and create them. I am so tired and fed up that I have been mooching about eating too many choc bars to get motivated today - and I have masses to do.

I hope you all are well. Sorry about the negativity. The normal state of mere grouchiness will resume shortly, I'm sure.

Wordsmith

chevalier wrote: »

oh stuff it that is terrible. I am so sad for you. What an absolute twit Mr Tenant is. I too would suggest they leave, but it depends on whehter you would get tenants easily again. If they did leave would it give you the option of going back. Would that make financial sense?
chev

I could go back, Chev. But I would have to start all over again - no job, no freelance clients, no savings to tide me over ... at least here I have work at the moment. And I'd have to leave the hovel to fall down a bit more ...

I must confess I am rather down about it all - I wasn't getting too excited, but at one point I was just hours away (or so I thought) from having a healthy bank balance - enough to get me completely out of debt, or to get a goodly amount done on making the hovel a home (not enough for both, sadly) ... and now it seems to have come falling about my ears.

There's a reason, though ... darned if I know what that is right now, but I know there's a reason ...

chevalier

i was just wondering if selling the hovel to move back might bizarrely be easier to sell....

moo2moo

Alternatively you could not extend the tennants contract at all. You owe them nothing. You could put the house in the hands of an estate agents with instructions to sell it at auction or by tender as a vacant possession with instructions not to accept anything under whatever figure you choose. That way you don't need to do anything about the chimney or the mortgage company and your problems are other.

Meanwhile - the chimney.... if the tennants are happy with it and two lots of surveyors are happy with it why the !!!! are you worrying about it? It ain't going anywhere. Yes of course it "could" fall off and crush someone but the likelihood of that is akin to you winning the lottery.

Hope you cope with the short fuse client without exploding at him!