please any advice on recouping rent arrears?

tucbiscuit

Hi, any advice much appreciated.

My situation is I had a couple in a house I let out and they got well behind on the rent, roughly £2,000 by the time I got them out.

I got a court order aginst them where they offered to pay me £200 a month until it was repayed ('they' being the tenant and his two guarantors). They then paid me one payment and stopped saying that as I had kept the deposit of £695 they want to miss a few payments as I can use that as the monthly £200 for a while.

That was annoying, but ok I thought, now the time has come for them to resume payments and I haven't recieved anything.

I have instructed my solicitors to resume the case by sending letters to all 3 involved, but I am not hopeful.

What further action can I take if they don't pay?

relevant points being; the tenant doesn't work as far as I know

the guarantors don't work or own a house as far as I know, in fact they are on pensions to my knowledge




lastly as you can see the guarantors aren't much use, would I have any recourse against the letting agent for accepting them? thanks in adavnce for any help

tucbiscuit

just had an update from my solicitor, apparently the guarantors won the house which makes it more likely I will get my money, still though and advice appreciated

northerner79

It doesn't cost as much as you think get a private investigator to do some searches, he/she will find them. The investigator will then write to tenants explaining you will be pursuing the money from them, this will all be recorded and could damage their credit long term and they would have great difficulty getting a mortgage. The investigator will take a % of recovered monies.

mlz1413

If you have a court order you can get a warrant of execution (sounds extreme I know) to recover goods or money to the sum owed or a charging order I think this can go against the house but then it would be a long term decision.

Also look up garnishee orders these can be register this on a bank account if you think they have money or money paid to them.

I'm not sure how much liablility a LA would have for arrears but I would certainly start a complaints procedure to find out what credit checks where done and if everything they promised you in their contract with you was adhered to.

tucbiscuit

thanks for the replies, my solicitor has sent them a remider to pay within 14 days so we shall see what happens

my solicitor also mentioned taking a charge on their property, does anyone have any experience with that?

mlz1413

I looked into this many years ago when awarded a court judgment but didn't actual receive any money.

Yes you can get a charge put on the house but you only get paid when the house is sold. I guess you can then spend more money on forcing a sale but I didn't get into this as you need to be prepared to wait months or even years.

If you ask the courts they will send you leaflets on all the methods of enforcing a ccj, you can probably look them all up online too.

theartfullodger

I'd suggest (from my personal experience) that you need to be very determined & patient... and your best option is if any of the debtors works in a "PAYE" type job ...
Read this as some background...
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=19574

and these..
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/tenant-tracing.htm
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/debt-collection.htm
- for tracing people ..and collecting debts..

Cheers!


Lodger