Regulated tenant-unheated flat.

ancientbuilding

For more than the last 30 years I have had a tenant who behaves pretty much in the same way, and from this I might be able to help you a little with understanding the situation.

I bought a very rough antique house with the intention of restoring it, and as fast as I restored it my work was dismantled. Tools and materials disappeared, newly mended bits were broken again, light switches were turned upside down, my car was vandalised if I parked it in the driveway, my trailer was steadily demolished over several years, my shed was wrecked, my bicycle stolen, my scaffolding stolen, pipework removed temporarily was stolen......

I could go on, but some people are just vindictive and will do all the damage they can with no apparent reason.

But wait. Here are some possible other explanations:

1. If the place is thoroughly shabby the rent officer keeps the rent down.

2. If the property is difficult to manage the landlord may be desperate to sell it and the tenant or a friend may fancy a quick buck from a purchase. Thus when things are going particularly badly certain property dealers contact me 'speculatively'. A bit transparent, don't you think?

3. The tenant may on principle not like landlords or this particular landlord.

4. After several years the tenant asked for more than £100k to leave and was refused. This wound her up a bit more.

5. My experience has been that most but not all judges are a bit prejudiced against landlords - and on one occasion many years ago I investigated why a particular property company contacted me during a case only to come to the conclusion that the judge had shares in the property company.

About 6 years after I had bought the house the tenant decided to complain to the environmental health department because work was not getting done (not actually true) and they served a notice and did some appallingly poor work on the building, and then billed me for £36K, but by this time I had become so poor that I was eligible for Legal Aid (you could get it in those days) and went to court over it. I discovered in court who was responsible for this fiddle (the intention I think was to share the swag with the tenant) and the council withdrew their claim and gave me a few thousand - but not anywhere near enough to make good the damage they had done. Probably that bent council officer was not sacked either.

Read between the lines in case there is something else there.

jamie11

Thanks for sharing that ancientbuilding, you didn't notice this thread was 18 months old.

My tenant died a couple of months after that last post here (sad), I had the place back to refurbish. The result now is that I am getting three times the rent (happy) and the value of the property has tripled (ecstatic).

I don't think he was conning me when he died, they really did bury him.

ancientbuilding

Well, that is at least one problem resolved!

DaftyDuck

Thread was spammed, ancient posted, spam was deleted.... embarrassed ancient....

Or/

Is ancient reminding jamie that his fee for 'services rendered' has yet to be paid, and better be, pdq :eek:

ancientbuilding

Not enough words to be published, so I'll say it again:

Blimey. How pathetic.