Any way of telling if my tenant has left?

littletinygem

Thanks for the tips all- hubby was planning on going to chat to our old next door neighbour yesterday, to see if he might have seen her moving out, but when he walked past the kitchen window he could see she was definitely still there, so we shall be kicking our heels for a bit, until the official processes come to fruition,

I know there are loads of lovely tenants out there- most of our friends rent and they've always kept places clean, in good order and paid the rent on time- We've just got hit with a very unfortunate situation on our first venture into the rental market and are ultimately think we've decided to remove the possibility of coming a cropper again, by selling up. Oh well!

tbs624

jjlandlord wrote: »

To be honest, if you go round, and go in to inspect if you see the property is vacant there won't be any issue.

No LL should simply let themselves in to the property in the OP's circumstances or similar .

Someone on a forum telling you "there won't be an issue" won't help the hapless LL when it turns out that the T has not in fact abandoned the property. When a T is in arrears, LLs need to keep their own behaviour above board.

A T could be in hospital, in custody, whatever...

See G_M's post above.

tbs624

littletinygem wrote: »

I don't think she'll be the easiest person to track down, unfortunately for us-!

You'd be surprised. Social networking sites, debtor tracing services and so on. Some experienced LLs leave it a couple of months or so after T leaves the property - T thinks all is clear but then info pops up somewhere;)

jjlandlord

tbs624 wrote: »

No LL should simply let themselves in to the property in the OP's circumstances or similar .

Someone on a forum telling you "there won't be an issue" won't help the hapless LL when it turns out that the T has not in fact abandoned the property.

Again, there's nothing below board if a landlord, seeing that the property has unexpectedly been left vacant, uses his key to enter and check that the property is secure (doors and windows OK and locked, water, gas and heater set appropriately, etc.).
LL should have his T's mobile phone no. so he might try to give him a call first, but otherwise nothing wrong: this is not eviction, and this is not harassment.

jen_br

Facebook them... see if they have an open profile check them out on social networking...

littletinygem

just as a little update to the interested, have had a very surprising phonecall from my letting agent to say the tenant has been in and paid all of the rent she owes- A nice little happy ending showing that even difficult tenants sometimes come good in the end! (that said, she's not left yet, but still, one step at a time!)

martinsurrey

jjlandlord wrote: »

Again, there's nothing below board if a landlord, seeing that the property has unexpectedly been left vacant, uses his key to enter and check that the property is secure (doors and windows OK and locked, water, gas and heater set appropriately, etc.).
LL should have his T's mobile phone no. so he might try to give him a call first, but otherwise nothing wrong: this is not eviction, and this is not harassment.

you have to give 24 hours notice in writting before the landlord or his contractors can enter the property, EXCEPT in case of an emergency, so letting your self in without proper notice would be harassment.


even if yuo think she has left you still have to write a letter to the address (getting proof of postage), giving notice of an inspection, and then you can go and do a legal inspection.

jjlandlord

martinsurrey wrote: »

you have to give 24 hours notice in writting before the landlord or his contractors can enter the property, EXCEPT in case of an emergency, so letting your self in without proper notice would be harassment.

That's still incorrect.
24 notice in writing in principle entitles the landlord to enter, and harassment suggests a repetitive aggressive behaviour.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with my previous scenario: "seeing that the property has unexpectedly been left vacant, uses his key to enter and check that the property is secure (doors and windows OK and locked, water, gas and heater set appropriately, etc.)."

littletinygem

sorry- wasn't trying to restart the thread or anything- just thought everyone might be interested to know that sometimes you end up with some surprising light at the end of an otherwise irritating situation of a tunnel!