Tenants have rent arrears-one month notice does not stand

confusedlittlebunny

ok, some of you have been abit harsh before knowing my full picture but as you say im not looking for sympathy. I had two consecutive deaths in my family one being a child and has taken its toll on me the last 8 months, hence everything falling apart, trying to keep a roof over my head,paying my taxes, too dognified to ask for goverment assistance for my own home and i was paying the mortgage when my tenants could not pay the rent and let the rent slide the last 6 months, if that makes me a bad person then im sorry. i need advice not percecuting!! I have given them a s21 notice today but realised that their fixed term does not expire until aug 2011, does this mean this notice does not mean a thing? they will be 2 months behind next week, am i in a legal position to go to court and get a s8 issued to them with 2 weeks to leave??? ( i am on good terms with them and they are happy to leave after the two month period but you never know.....

confusedlittlebunny

ILW wrote: »

It does appear that becoming a property tycoon is not as simple as many thought.

thats harsh!! my second home was an investment as i chose not to have a pension yet or ISA's, so does that decision make me a criminal and the word "tycoon", is it a crime to have a mortgage on the home i live in, pay my taxes and work hard????????????........I have never claimed off the state and worked since i left school so please dont judge me!!..........

lazer

birduk wrote: »

If I were your tenants and I had recieved any mail to the house that might suggest the dire financial mess you are in (such as letters to 'the occupier' which will come from the mortgage company to assess who lives at the house in times of repossesion) I wouldn't be paying you rent either.

In fact, I have been that tenant with their house repossessed. I am not allowed to type the words I want to about people like you.....

They are currently living in their home- yes it is their home and your house, not sure when the baliffs are going to come knocking on the door for you, not sure when the house will be repossessed. If they do wait until they are kicked out, they will have a much better chance of getting housed by the council.

Sorry you do not have my sympathies, they do. Go and get proper financial advice and sort your life out.

Don't judge a situation you don't know enough about, as the
OP has stated below, he has had a lot to deal with lately, probably not helped by hassling the tenents for rent.
The OP was (possibly) in a good financial position when he originally rented the house out and bought a new one.
In my opionion, tenents actually have too many rights sometimes, and not enough other times

If a tenent if behind in paying his rent, a landlord should have the right to go into the house and move their stuff out and evict them, it is the tenents home, and they have a right to quiet enjoyment of it, as long as they pay their rent and fulfil other obligations.

Just because your house got repossed does not give you the right to judge any landlord who's rental house is about to be repossessed, in each case circumstances will be different.

OP - it is not undignified to ask for state help, you are entitled to it, you have been working hard and paying your taxes, so if you are entitled to any benefits/help with housing etc, you should apply for them straight away.

Is it not the MSE way to be nice to everyone?

scottishblondie

As they are on a fixed term they do not have to leave until then. So the S21 still means nothing legally speaking as you cannot issue them 2 months notice at this point. AFAIK a S8 cannot be issued until the tenants fall 2 full months into arrears, so they need to owe you £2200 before you can use this method to give notice.

confusedlittlebunny

lazer wrote: »

Don't judge a situation you don't know enough about, as the
OP has stated below, he has had a lot to deal with lately, probably not helped by hassling the tenents for rent.
The OP was (possibly) in a good financial position when he originally rented the house out and bought a new one.
In my opionion, tenents actually have too many rights sometimes, and not enough other times

If a tenent if behind in paying his rent, a landlord should have the right to go into the house and move their stuff out and evict them, it is the tenents home, and they have a right to quiet enjoyment of it, as long as they pay their rent and fulfil other obligations.

Just because your house got repossed does not give you the right to judge any landlord who's rental house is about to be repossessed, in each case circumstances will be different.

OP - it is not undignified to ask for state help, you are entitled to it, you have been working hard and paying your taxes, so if you are entitled to any benefits/help with housing etc, you should apply for them straight away.

Is it not the MSE way to be nice to everyone?

Thank you for that comment. Yes, i was in a much better financial position before and then life deals you cruel blows and you finances become secondary......i have been very sympathetic with them, please dont think i havent people, from august 2010 they told me their housing benefit had been cut from £1000 to £100 (they have been investigated ny the fraud dept and have been overpaid, housing benefit wil not disclose to me the reason) and they have no means of meeting the rent and can only pay as and when. I have tried my best and can help for as long as i can, we are all human. Its all red tape with tenants, they have rights and yes its their home but what can i do if they say they cant pay, just leave them to stay there, pay as they please and im not to say anything??? I just need to know where i stand, im not being horrible to them.........

BitterAndTwisted

As soon as the equivalent of two month's rent is outstanding get a Section 8 issued asap

confusedlittlebunny

scottishblondie wrote: »

As they are on a fixed term they do not have to leave until then. So the S21 still means nothing legally speaking as you cannot issue them 2 months notice at this point. AFAIK a S8 cannot be issued until the tenants fall 2 full months into arrears, so they need to owe you £2200 before you can use this method to give notice.

oh i see, thanks for that. there rent is due on the 12th of every month, they failed today to pay, they owe an additional £800 from past shortfalls (meaning aug £200, Oct £100 and dec £600 short). so does that mean

1.i have to wait till they miss feb 12th rent (assuming they have not cleared jan 12th rent either) and then issue a s8 on the 13th feb??? is an s8 have to be done through the courts?(even if they have paid all or some of the £800?? I have their deposit, does that give them rights to wait till the 3rd month?

2.is it in my best interest to refuse jan rent if i feel they will fail on feb rent?? i feel that would be unfair to them and as i said to them, the council have said they are not re-housing them, that means they will have to find alternative accomodation incurring moving,deposit, rent in advance, wouldnt it be better to just get up to date with me and be happy ( i have told them this)??

evicting them is the last thing i want (I will get back on my feet and pay the arrears off, thats not their fault at all, its mine) I feel abit of cat and mouse at the mo that if they pay any amount towards either part of two months rent that just puts me in delayed mode again, no??

confusedlittlebunny

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

As soon as the equivalent of two month's rent is outstanding get a Section 8 issued asap

Is a s8 take upto 8 weeks to be heard in the court giving tenant 2 weeks from hearing to leave, costing £150, is that correct?

scottishblondie

Try reading this and this. You holding their deposit has no bearing on the arrears, but I seriously hope that you have it in a deposit protection scheme.

You can issue notice of court proceedings once they owe you £2200 in total, but be aware that if they pay this down before court proceedings then possession may not be granted. You can't "refuse" to take rent payments to make them fall further into arrears, if that is what you meant. Apologies if that's not what you were meaning.

This is not meant in a harsh way - but you really need to do some reading on the legalities of all this and make sure you understand it before you proceed any further, or you're just going to end up in a mess and even further out of pocket. Go and join landlordzone or some other proper landlord forum, borrow a book from the library, or seek legal advice.

birduk

lazer wrote: »

Don't judge a situation you don't know enough about, as the
OP has stated below, he has had a lot to deal with lately, probably not helped by hassling the tenents for rent.
The OP was (possibly) in a good financial position when he originally rented the house out and bought a new one.

Firstly, the OP didn't give us any information about deaths at the beginning (which might I say you have my deepest sympathies for, but they are not directly relevant to this financial mess), so don't have a go at me for that one.

I think it is yet another sad case of someone thinking they can make money renting property out without thinking of the consequences. How many times a week are there threads here from landlords that don't know what they are doing- asking questions about S21 and evicting tenants? A sad state of affairs. You wouldn't just decide to build a car just because you had driven one before. You would take lessons! It is the same with housing! OP join a proper landlords association and get reading (there is some good advice above from Scottishblonde).

You also need to look at this from the tenants point of view though! If you were renting a house and (possibly) recieved notice from the mortgage company that the house was on the verge of repossession, then you wouldn't be giving any money to the landlord!

Quote from OP on the other thread (have you read it?) 'my house is about to be repossessed (the one I rent out)'. Are these rent arrears going to stop that happening OP? If they aren't, then let the mortgage company repossess and they can sort out this mess you have left. Otherwise PLEASE get yourself some proper financial advice and get some help. This might not be the best place to do that as you have multiple issues clearly going on at the moment and each thread you start is about each seperate issue.

Good luck to you and your tenants.