Renting a property - owner has done a runner!

Place_of_Design

dont get it

owner says "rent my flat for me"

you presumably get a new tennant

then.. you look at the electorol roll, and the person in the flat now has been there for years

perhaps a annual "credit check" is in order, allong with a letter terminating the tennancy

LittleMissAspie

Private investigator?

bondijupiter

our mystery owner asked us to rent the flat in 2005. we rented the flat in 2005 and the same tenant is still there.
prior to 2005, there are no records of anyone living living at the property...not our tenant, not another occupier, not our mystery owner. i've gone back as far as 1995.
if i cannot find an owner to the property, how will i find a freeholder, assuming mystery owner did the original conversion then sold the first floor flat on?
the current owner of the first floor flat did not buy it from the name we have on file...
i'm thinking along the lines of a ronnie biggs getaway, false names etc!

Fire_Fox

Do you have no other information than the owner's surname? No date of birth or national insurance number or contact details?? National indexes of deaths are a matter of public record, these could be searched for the name you have on file: apparently indexes exist up to at least 2008, overseas deaths are indexed and registered separately but are not complete.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_176534.pdf

magpiecottage

Is the other flat registered - if so you may be able to find details of the Freeholder that way you can just buy it online and download it as a pdf.

Alternatively, the leaseholder might be willing to get it from their mortgage lender. There would be a cost involved and you would need to reimburse them but could charge that to your mysterious client as a disbursement.

zzzLazyDaisy

I am completely confused. I presume you are in business as an agent, so you rent out other properties for other landlords.

Yet you didn't do a check with the land registry at the time, you didn't check the electoral roll, and presumably didn't do a credit check on him.or obtain any form of proof that this person actually owns the house and has the right to rent it out?

You didn't ask for a contact address within the UK, even though you knew he was about to go to Spain and hadn't given you a forwarding address there?

You didn't take his bank account details, to pay the rent into?

And then you leave it several years before you do anything about it.

I don't know much about running a lettings agency, but is this normal business practice?