Tenant left without paying the rent & trashed the flat

Wickedkitten

LittleLeo wrote: »

The tenants didn't pay me for 6 weeks so the deposit has been used to cover this rent... total is £500 damages / £350 missing rent / £150 cleaning and painting (they drew on the walls and carpet with pen and drilled several holes in the walls) = £1000

What is the interest that you are talking about here

There is approx. £500 in damages and they owe £350 in rent plus interest

and how have you worked out that it is £500 in damages?

ben500

LittleLeo wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the advice... I got my deposit back.
I have not joined the landlords association yet. I will do this asap...
I have contents insurance that does not cover the damage to the furniture.
I have also spent £150 getting the placed cleaned and another £120 getting it re-painted, plus the damages and missing rent - about £1000 - is it worth pursing?

LittleLeo wrote: »

The tenants didn't pay me for 6 weeks so the deposit has been used to cover this rent... total is £500 damages / £350 missing rent / £150 cleaning and painting (they drew on the walls and carpet with pen and drilled several holes in the walls) = £1000

These statements contradict each other.

clutton_2

landlords are allowed to claim interest on outstanding rent in a moneyclaim claim against an ex tenant

just as is anyone who takes anyone to court for monies owed

chinup_3

clutton got it spot on. with no guarantor fprm signed by parents you cannot puruse through them ie you should do that next time. This is all par for the course of professional large portfolio landlords. £1k loss really is not anywhere near as bad as it can get trust me.

olly 300- opening someones elses mail IS CERTAINLY illegal ! has to be proven to be deliberate of course ;] [father a postman.]

ben500

chinup wrote: »

clutton got it spot on. with no guarantor fprm signed by parents you cannot puruse through them ie you should do that next time. This is all par for the course of professional large portfolio landlords. £1k loss really is not anywhere near as bad as it can get trust me.

olly 300- opening someones elses mail IS CERTAINLY illegal ! has to be proven to be deliberate of course ;] [father a postman.]

Only up to the point it arrives at it's destination, once out of the hands of the postal service it is no longer protected.

pineapple123

Having been in the same situation, it is unlikely that you will recieve any money back.
Having gone via small claims court after being owed rent and damage to property we did not get anything back and was even ordered to pay back the deposit.
We had our property let via letting agency and had followed all procedures correctly, inventory before tenants moved in, tenancy agreement etc etc but they recieved deposit back due to some technicality.

One of our previous tenants became pregnant and went on the social she stopped paying her HB to us and got into arrears we tried to evict her but was told she had the right to stay there as she had a baby until the council could rehouse her , hard luck if we didnt get any rent from her, was told this could take 6 months, luckly it didnt but we lost that money.


So we still rent out our property but are even more selective who we house, we now use a much better letting agent even if more expensive and continue to do the painting and repairs ourselves.
(we always let our property in good condition with usually a total repaint between tenants).
We also have a 2 month rolling contract with our current tenant.

Renting property can be a good investment if all goes well otherwise It can be a total nightmare.
Sorry for the long post.

Gorgeous_George

£120 buys enough paint for a Landlord to paint the house himself. When my BTL was trashed I paid a tradesman to decorate one room and the rest was done by myself and my family.

Getting tradesmen at short notice isn't always easy. Of course, if you are confident that the tenant will pay, you could wait and sue for loss of rental income as well. I don't trust the law to treat me that fairly.

GG

chappers

Whilst I feel for your position, and I am not having a go here.
There are a couple of points here, before you go chasing after them.

You say that they are 6 weeks in arrears--Eviction processes cannot be started until arrears are at 2 months

Can you prove that they have abandoned the property.

Technically you shouldn't have been taking any action until the 2 month period was up.

what tenancy were they on and how long did it have to run?

Now with regards to chasing them and opening their mail.

Tough luck ,if I were trying to chase an ex tenant for rent/damages I would use every possible piece of evidence in my posession to try and track them down.
Whilst you have no recourse against their parents, I would be straight on the phone or writing a letter to them at their parents address and if that didn't work writing directly to their parents explaining what their little 5hit of a son/daughter had done.

Trollfever

Win your case in The Small Claims Court.
Enforce the judgement by sending the bailiffs to the parents house.
Should get it sorted.

iolanthe07

Similar thing happened to me some years ago. I was not then really in a position to bear the loss, but my solicitor said that I would be throwing good money after bad if I tried to chase them. I put it down to experience and moved on, but it is bloody infuriating, especially when you've gone out of your way to be a good landlord.