Some issues with ex-landlord, any advice?

terryw

darren. wrote: »

hi. i'm a landlord myself and would like to apologise on behalf of every decent landlord out there for the greed of some people that rent out houses. if you'd rented from me for 10 years and always paid on time i'd probably have given you your deposit back and let you live there the last month free anyway. good tenants are hard to come by and i reckon thy should be treated well when you find them....
anyway... a couple of thought that may interest you 1. There are tax implications here, when your landlord submits his/her tax returns each year he will be declaring a certain % of his expences for wear and tear of the property and general maintainance. if he has never maintained anything and expected you to maintain things then he will have been claiming tax relief falsely...the last thing anyone wants is tho be investigated by the inland revenue so it may be worth threatening him with reporting this to the revenue. 2. if you just ignore all his letters asking for money then the worst thing he can do is take you to a small claims court.... i think most judges would probably have sympathy with your situation and judge in your favour and even if they dont, if you are truely skint they would probably askk you to pay him some tiny sum a week for the next few years. He will be aware of this and so will probably not go down the legal route. I think i would be tempted to just shove 2 fingers up to him and ignore all his letters and demands, make a few threats of your own (eg report to inland revenue, report to environmental health etc) and see what happens.

good luck, it sounds like you are a decent person who has been walked all over a bit. hope this all works out for you. try not to worry about it, if you havn't got the money no court in the world can make you pay...just get on with trying to make a new start.

Your point 1 above is incorrect. This 10 per cent is not for wear and tear of the property and general maintainance. Here's a link :
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/pimmanual/pim3200.htm

jtr2803

Thanks for all the replies.

I'll try and expand a little on some of the points raised;

Tenant did call the council for some advice in regards to the damp issue, she doesn't know whether it was EH she spoke to but whoever answered said that they could send someone round to investigate but that any remedial action would be difficult to enforce as the landlord is not a UK resident? Doesn't sound quite right to me but there you go.

watsinaname - sorry to hear that you are in a similar situation, it's such a horrible place to be in. I know that my family member really wanted some basic improvements done but was too scared to 'rock the boat' in case the rent was pushed up. She also approached the council but was simply told she would be at the bottom of the housing list, not enough points

darren - thank you for your comments, it certainly seems that the people who try and lead a quiet life seem to get the worst grief (this person is really going through it at the moment in a number of ways and I have to say it just doesn't seem fair!). I think the way he has communicated to her is what has upset her the most, no thank you for leaving the house clean, no thank you for all of the decorating that took place in the bathroom etc. We are also aware that the previous tenants left the place in such a state that you thought he might have been a little more grateful for a long term rental relationship.

I spoke to the ex tenant at length yesterday and we are formulating a plan. I have advised them to ignore any correspondance for now and we are going to go through the original inventory and check off all items that did remain, which had been upgraded and remain in the house and also any items that were not on the inventory but have been left....for example, there were no kitchen work tops when the house was taken on, work tops were left there, there were no carpets upstairs when the house was taken on, carpets were left there. Some curtains and rails (little things like that) were left there also and none of these were in the property when it was taken on. I will also study the contract in depth to see what the exact terms were. I think the ex tenant will also make an appointment at CAB just to see what advice they can offer. I also believe that the ex tenant has a number of invoices for maintenance to the property that they paid so these would be useful as well.

The carpet that the landlord seems to think he replaced at the ex tennants wishes has lasted 11 years! I don't think that's bad going for a carpet but that gives you an idea of the sort of person he is.

lynzpower

Tenant did call the council for some advice in regards to the damp issue, she doesn't know whether it was EH she spoke to but whoever answered said that they could send someone round to investigate but that any remedial action would be difficult to enforce as the landlord is not a UK resident? Doesn't sound quite right to me but there you go.

there are issues under the housing act. If the landlord lives away. that is unless the Landlord identifies an agent in the UK - either a l;ettng agent or a family member etc. then the contract is not binding, there are a number of discussions on this, but one thrust seems to be that the landlord cannot ask for rent if they live abroad with no UK based manager. Another argument is that the LL cannot issue evictions if they live abroad.

By law the landlord must provide a UK address that notices are to be served at.


Additionally the council can do the works in default and put a charge on the house so that when it is sold the council get their money back!

Sorry but this sounds like a major health hazard, no kitchen work tops alone would contribute to a cat 1 hazard in a kitchen under food safety and probably burns.

jtr2803

Thanks very much for the info and reply Lynz, I know 100% that a UK based agent was never identified, all correspondance was done electronically and there was a European forwarding address for any post, that was it.

Without wanting to say too much I also lived at the property when it was first taken on and it was in such a state that I cried for hours because I didn't want to live there. Unfortunately, at the time there was no choice due to a relationship break down. Whilst the house remains in a state of strutural disrepair, when it was left, it was much more of a 'home'.

I can't begin to get across how happy I am that this person was able to move and now hopefully they can start to move on, the old house holds many unhappy memories for a number of reasons and the fresh start was desperately needed. I just hope that the ex-landlord soon discountinues his threats and they can all get on with their lives.

lynzpower

I think the fact that the LL lives abroad is better for you. I would block his number if you can do so (I know on some mob networks its not easy)