Tenant hasn't paid bills. Advice please.

niadoz

My father in law has been renting out a property for the last 10 months. A month ago the tenants gave notice and are leaving today. However, he has just found out that the tenants have not registered for council tax and not paid any utility bills. Will the property become "black listed"? What happens if the tenants have bought things on higher purchase (they bought a new sofa a few months ago) and used the property address. Will this have any adverse affect on the property?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks x

Daisies

Presumably their tenancy agreement did clearly state that they would be responsible for ALL utility bills and council tax?

My parents used to rent out the old granny flat and we'd read the meters on the day the tenants moved out and ring up the utility companies with the figures and to put the bills into my Dad's name until new tenants moved in. Ensure you have a forwarding/new address for the old tenants and send any bills that arrive for them on to them.

Have you tried ringing the council about the council tax question?

niadoz

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, it was in the agreement that they would pay all utility bills. The council have not been very helpful regarding advice on the situation.:rolleyes: The tenant will not give my father in law a forwarding address.
I suppose what he is most worried about is the council tax situation and the hp.

Rick62

Did your father take a deposit from them? If so i would hold this (when they demand it just say 'sure I'll put it in the post, whats your adress').

thesaint

My council have simply asked for a copy of the tenancy agreement when previous tenants have neglected to pay the Concil tax. I guess they write it off.

prudryden

Get their license plate number if they have a car.

prudryden

When they moved in, the letting agent would have notified the council. If your father rented it out himself, he should have notified the council himself. Hopefully, by showing them the tenancy agreement, they may pursue the tenants. Let us know what they say.

HelpWhereIcan

adverse credit is not registered against an address, it is registered against an individual. So if they took the HP out in their names, it should not affect your FIL or any future tenants.

My parents had a number of tenants who would run off with bills owing and they would just ensure that the creditor knew the person had moved and no more chases would be sent to the property (I think it comes under the Administration of Justice Act). Most he had to do once was (as thesaint says) provide a copy of the tenancy agreement and his own ID to prove that he was who he said he was.

The worst one though was a pair of tenants who got a large amount of credit out in my parents' names - a very long story, albeit one that shows how clever some scum can be.

It was only the job I did at the time that meant we found out early enough to stop any real damage being done. It took months to fix correctly and the police were, ultimately, not interested or powerless to act no matter how much evidence they were presented with.

The only other danger could be if your FIL had the utility bills, council tax etc in his name before they moved in and did not change them over to the tenants when they moved in - in that case, I suspect he will have to pay them and learn the lesson for next time unless the council/utility provider agree to write it off.

niadoz

All the bills would have been in the tenants name, so that's a good thing. He lets out the property without a letting agency. Great to know that adverse credit is not registered against a property. Thanks for that bit of info. Hope they haven't used his name for hp. Who would we get in touch with if that is the case?
Thanks again guys x

prudryden

Using your FIL'S name for HP would be a serious criminal offense. Did your FIL take up any references before letting to them? Did they show him any identification that they were who they said they were?

HelpWhereIcan

niadoz wrote:

Hope they haven't used his name for hp. Who would we get in touch with if that is the case?
Thanks again guys x

Unlikely to have happened. My parents let property out for 30 ish years and only came across this once.

Easiest way is to subscribe to a credit monitoring service like credit expert (that has a 30 day free trial). They could use the free trial to check that their credit file has not been damaged by anything the tenants have done while assessing it's usefulness for future. It also gives contact details for any changes that need making/disputes that need settling.