plz help out of mind with worry about getting sued

theartfullodger

Pixieface wrote..

:mad:
she has had a bad experience my a***e she was some benefit scrounging lazy never done a proper days work in her life!! and yes I fell for a sad story and felt sorry for her now the scrounger has done this to me!!! it was her lifestlye that made her ill not my property, she is after a fast buck and nothing else and as for my grammer cant you see that i am stressed and asked for advice!!!! not a lecture on the length of my letter stick your advice up your a****s i wont bother to use this site again !!!

Thank you for your kind words and warm thoughts: Unfortunately as you will see some words have been mangled but I'm sure I would appreciate them if I knew precisely what they were. Please feel free to PM me with them directly so I may see exactly what you mean.

Best wishes. Landlords must stick together, keep on raising standard and learn from each other: I'm certainly learning from you!

Cheers!

Lodger

tbs624

Artful, I think you are perhaps being a little unfair - its clear that the OP is stressed and Robert's post no3 plus the original wording in your post 4 (now removed) clearly hit the wrong button for her.

She has after all got a trashed house, no current T, unpaid rent, a redundant partner, litigious former tenant and may have made things worse for herself by assuming abandonment of the tenancy..... .You did , however, give her good advice in post 2

The OP may not return but anyway…


Pixieface , you said:

“In April I discovered she had been taken into hospital with pneumonia and was told that she would not be returning to the property as it was damp in the property that had caused her to contract pneumonia,..”

My emphasis.

It’s not really clear from that sentence whether formal notice was given or not. If it wasn’t then you may have added to your woes. Taking on board what you say about your current financial situation , I still think that you need to get yourself a solicitor with specific LL&T experience. Yes, it will cost you but a T who knows the ropes, and who has the back-up of a good lawyer, may well run rings around you otherwise and cost you more in the long run.

Get the yellow pages out and find the contact for your local LL association ( or google your hometown and LL Association) - they will be able to recommend a local solicitor to you. The alternative is that you have a look at www.landlordlaw.co.uk, which is run by a solicitor, and seek advice there.

You do have specific obligations *if* a T reports damp (or general repairs) issues to you but your T should have notified these things to you in writing. She would need to show that she had actually notified you not just say that she had.


You need to read up on the causes of condensation and mould ( give any future T a copy of one of the council booklets on how to keep it at bay) and understand clearly which are likely to apply in this case.

It would probably be best in the circumstances to simply thank the T's solicitor for his letter and say that you are seeking your own advice before making any further response.Then do just that.

CouponWoman

Hi pixiface

what a nightmare you have had to put up with.

Can you check your home contents insurance, or other insurance policies as some have legal expenses cover included in them. you can then phone them to get proper legal advice.

I hope you get statements from neighbours and previous tenants, as to the state of the property.

You should also bill the tenant for the damage and removal of rubbish etc. bill for all cleaning, repairs, redecorating etc as the property was not left in good condition. Also bill for failure to give proper notice, as per your tenancy agreement. Also bill for lost rent on the property whilst it was empty (prior to her terminating the tenancy) and also for when under repair. Make the bill as large and official looking as possible and send it to her via her solicitor asking for payment within 14 days.

The fact that you had the property repaired prior to hearing from the solicitor is also in your favour, there is nothing left now for them to photograph.

Bear in mind this girl was possibily ill due to her lifestyle and lack of money/food etc, and as she has now instructed a solicitor you will need to get your own solicitor asap

If you ignore her claim things might go further. However if you do not have insurance the claim might go nowhere anyway.

By the way, other than sending a bill for damage etc do not communicate with the solicitor just in case you drop yourself in it so to speak. Please seek proper legal advice.

good luck to you and your family

tbs624

Also bill for failure to give proper notice, as per your tenancy agreement. Also bill for lost rent on the property whilst it was empty and under repair.

You'd possibly be claiming twice for the same period if you did that - if the T failed to give proper notice notice within a Fixed Term then the LL can of course look to recoup unpaid rent for the remainder of that period. However, if the period when it is empty and under repair also falls within that original FT timing you can't effectively "double dip".

Given the mess that things are in now it is perhaps best that the OP discusses this one with a legal adviser *first*.

Fire_Fox

pixieface wrote: »

Hi hope I have posted this in right place, I have been a lurker for a while now and think is great how helpful this site is, now I need help as I am out of my mind with worry, basically I am a landlord of a small 1 bedroom property and I rent it out myself and do not use a letting agent (in the future I will) I rented it out 6 months ago to a young couple with a baby as they were desperate for a home and she was claiming housing benefit, at first everything was fine with paying the rent, not always on time but first two months I received it as they dropped it off at my home address as they had failed to set up a direct debit yet again, on the 3rd month they posted it through my door when I was not in and to my horror it was not in full and no matter how many times I contacted her she ignored my calls, I tried to give her 48 hours notice to go and sort it out but she ignored me.
so for three months I received no rent so I contacted housing benefit office and they said they would sort it out, to which they have, can I add at this point her boyfriend had left and was not living there.

Did you have a tenancy agreement in place? Do you have any evidence that you wrote to your tenant regarding the late or non payment of rent?

pixieface wrote: »

In April I discovered she had been taken into hospital with pneumonia and was told that she would not be returning to the property as it was damp in the property that had caused her to contract pneumonia, I have now received a solicitors letter saying that she has made a claim for personal injury due to the property been damp. I am so angry at her as she is just trying to rip me off!!!

Did the tenant give their notice to quit the property (usually one month)? Or had you served her proper written notice (usually two months)?

pixieface wrote: »

When I went to the property to change the locks and sort things out I was disgusted at the state she had left it in holes in walls and doors had been punched out and everywhere had a thick coating of nicotine, she had also defrosted the fridge and the freezer and let the water drip all into the kitchen which has lifted the floor tiles and seeped into the living room area which has now black mould all over and there was evidence that they had been growing an illegal substance in a walk in wardrobe in the bedroom.
There was an area of black mould in the bedroom but that was due to her not opening the windows other than that there was no damp in the bedroom as said in the solicitors letter, the neighbours have often commented to me about the state of the property as her curtains were never open and condensation was running down the windows and bin bags were left out for weeks on end causing vermin to be in the garden and it looked unsightly.

Do you have any dated photographic evidence of the state of the place? Did you take a full inventory including the condition of the decor at the start of the tenancy? Did the tenant have a damage deposit - what has happened to this?

pixieface wrote: »

Anyway I have received a letter from a solicitor and it states I should NOT go into my property and do any renovations to it until they send an independent person to inspect it for damp and that they want all the names of the past tenants (to which I have never had any complaints before) it also says that the tenant contacted me on more than several occasions regarding this...this is a total pack of lies, now i am worried as the day she left we went into our property and carried out work in it such as removing wall paper and getting it re plastered in the bedroom as it was in a disgusting state and we also took up the kitchen floor and paid a fortune to get rid of all the stuff left over and empty the bins that were full of rotting food and nappies, the bins and the bags were full of maggots!! We needed to get this work carried out as we need to put it up with a letting agent as we will be struggling to pay this mortgage as well as our own mortgage (as my husband recently been made redundant and our funds are low) I am gutted as I have never had problems before renting it so never felt the need to get an agent involved and now I wished I had of done as I now know they would have fought my corner for me and now I have learnt my lesson big time as I will never rent to DHSS again.

The fact that this tenant was on benefits is neither here nor there. Did you take up references from verifiable sources? When you say the day she left, do you mean the day she went into hospital or the day she handed her keys back after giving notice?

pixieface wrote: »

Can anyone advise me on what to do as I cant afford to incur solicitors bills, I know she is lying and she wants to take me to the cleaners, the where there's a blame there is a claim which really p******s me off!!!! I was thinking of getting half hours free advice from solicitor also getting statements from the neighbours saying about the condensation running down the windows and also getting my phone statement and looking at the number of phone calls that she made to my phone (3) and mine to hers millions!!! and getting my own independent person in to do a damp test should I fight my own corner or get a solicitor involved but I really cant do this as I cant afford it and I am not a member of any landlords association either (foolish I now know!!)

now should I write back to this solicitor and tell them that I have renovated the property as I need to re rent it and that we started work on the property on the day she left and we didnt receive solicitors letter till the 9th May also state she is lying and that I am more than happy to get my own independent person in and give them my past tenants contact details. Help and advice greatly received.:mad: :mad::mad::mad::mad:

You need a solicitor if you don't have all the documentation mentioned in my earlier questions as you haven't followed protocol. If you have done everything 'by the book' and have photographic evidence I'd forward copies of it all to the solicitor with a covering letter. Chances are he will tell her she doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Without meaning to be rude, you need to lay out your letter to the solicitor better, using paragraphs and shorter sentences as it's really hard to get the full picture as it is. Also try very hard to calm down. You may well have the right to be angry, but you need to address this problem in a calm and logical manner. It's actually irrelevant to the legal action that she didn't pay the rent: the conditions she chose to live in are your line of attack.

amersall

Robert_Sterling wrote: »

I think some people might be put off by the length of your sentences.
One sentence has more than two hundred words in it.

how sad are you?? sitting and counting how many words in one sentence, you obviously have nothing better to do

penny-pitstop_2

pixieface wrote: »

:mad:
she has had a bad experience my a***e she was some benefit scrounging lazy never done a proper days work in her life!! and yes I fell for a sad story and felt sorry for her now the scrounger has done this to me!!! it was her lifestlye that made her ill not my property, she is after a fast buck and nothing else and as for my grammer cant you see that i am stressed and asked for advice!!!! not a lecture on the length of my letter stick your advice up your a****s i wont bother to use this site again !!!

You are at best letting illegally a substandard property.

Pneumonia is very serious, as are the spores from a damp living environment.
Reap what you sow...:rotfl:

Ladybird20

...how about calling the police about the illegal plants that were grown at your property????

Geenie

Lets get back to the facts. What sort of properties are these that are so damp they cause pneumonia to those living in them!

I have rented, bought and let, but I have never been in a place that needed windows opened every day to avoid damp!! I had calor gas heaters at one time that caused condensation, but I could still live there, aside from a bit of wiping, without opening every window each day! Any house can get mould damp issues, but if persistent then you have bought unwisely.

penny-pitstop_2

Ladybird20 wrote: »

...how about calling the police about the illegal plants that were grown at your property????

I think the original poster should first verify that she can distinguish between mould/damp smell & other illicit smells!

Hey, rent my flat, just make sure you ventilate & heat it to save the damp becoming dangerous!