Advice - taking ex tenant to court

drazzin66

Interested to hear if anyone else has had similar experience, or can give advice.

Our ex-tenant handed in keys to our Letting Agents, without giving the required month's notice. When the Agency went in to do the final inspection/inventory it was disgusting. To cut a long story short, the smell was so bad that the lady from agency had to return to her car before entering properly and put on two face masks, we have ended up having to have all new carpets put in, flea treatment carried out, total redecoration and repairs to doors, radiator covers, deep clean to whole house, rubbish removed (tenant had left so much stuff in cellar, and other parts of house, including table/chairs, dressing gown, papers, photos, CDs etc). Garden has had to be sorted out too.

The agency have written to tenant asking to pay the final month's rent and given her a time limit. Nothing heard back. We have now written and given her 10 days and also listed the damage and costs we've had to pay out (currently over £4k). We haven't heard back yet and she has one day left!!!

We have told tenant that unless we hear we will take legal action.

So, where now? Small claims court? I've read about a mediator service as an alternative.

We are incidentally also taking the Letting Agency to Ombudsman as we were paying management fees, they were supposed to carry out 4 monthly inspections. After an inspection they would send me an email saying 'all being kept to inventory standard', on two occasions I was told they had dogs and cats there, and I called immediately to say that this is not allowed as it is in the tenancy agreement. On a number of occasions even though it was supposedly all being kept to inventory standard they asked to get the carpets deodorised and cleaned - this seemed to be happening at each check, so I did email and question this. After the tenant left I asked to see their actual written inspection reports and noted that on a number of occasions we weren't even told about pets in the property - in fact the final one, just 2 months before tenant left, they had pets and we weren't advised of this and also it ahd been 6 months since last inspection - when they had asked her to clean and deodorise carpets. I am surprised that they never actually followed any of these requests up to check she was doing this, especially as it seemed to be an ongoing problem!

Do you think we are right to question why we were paying them these management fees? I feel as though it was a complete waste of money and should have asked a family member to do this for us, I'm sure they'd have noticed that all teh paint work had been scratched off the doors, skirting boards plus etc. We live about 120 miles away which is why we paid extra for the agency to check the property.

So, I'm interested to know if anyone has experienced similar, what the outcome was, and advice on which direction to take. We are also looking at our rent insurance but we've already had all the work done to get it back to normal. Incidentally, we had before and after photos and they have to be seen to be believed!!

Sorry, a rather long rant and post....thanks.

G_M

1) identify andlist your costs. Rent arrears, rent for no notice, cleaning, damage etc. get quotes for repairs/cleaning etc.

2) send all claim to tenant, with time limit

3) claim from deposit

4) wait for tenant to fail to pay balance, then sue in Small Claims Court

Of course, this assumes:

a) you know where the tenant has gone and
b) the tenant has some money to pay you. If not, winning in court is just the 1st of many slew steps to getting paid.

As for the agent: I'm afraid this is all too common. My advice to landlords here states :

Be very cautious appointing a letting agent. The right agent is as important as the right tenant.

Additional to that is that you have tomonitor them eg by getting a copy of the inspection report each time. Then you know
a) the inspections are being done and
b) the outcome.

Of sourse, there was little you or the agent could have done; the tenant has the right to live how they like, provided they return the property at the end in the condition at thebeginning. You cannot force them to 'deoderise'. Even a no-pets clause is subject to possible (legal challange (unfair tems).

drazzin66

Thanks for this.

We luckily do know where she has moved to, we've already sent her a letter giving her a time limit of 10 days (tomorrow is the deadline), plus back in November she was sent a letter by the Letting Agency with a 7 day time limit - no reply to either!

We actually do know that she has a huge stash of money - as amongst the paperwork left (and there was so much!) we found a statement from her ISA - she has almost £30k in her ISA!!! But, she was also claiming Housing Benefit - interesting!!!

We had the deposit back, in the form of a Bond from the Council, but since we've now spent over £4,000 on painting, repair, new carpets, cleaning, flea infestation treatment etc, her deposit is only a fraction - this could be the month's rent she owes or taken off the amount of damage!!

However, we are seriously out of pocket - and I do believe that the agency should also be taking responsibility.

I think it's going to be a long drawn out process - plus we couldn't re-let until the place was back to normal, so we've had three months' of mortgage to pay!!! All this happened in Nov. just before Christmas, so you can imagine how low-key Christmas was for my children.

We're now selling, I don't want to have to go through all this again.

ILW

Not the easy money you thought then?

drazzin66

Interesting about issue with Agency - I do feel that there is no point in them, aside from finding the tenant and maybe using them to collect rent.

The fact that they emailed me after each inspection suggested to me that they were just saying what was on the written report. I can't believe tha tthe property got into such a state in just under two months and that they didn't notice the smell and state of the house. The agency is part of ARLA. Interestingly, that at the time of all this, one of their offices had published a piece in the local paper about how it is down to the incompetency of the letting agents when there are issues about deposits and the state that houses are left when a tenant vacates.
I woudl still like to take further - Ombudsman, as I don't want them to think they can get away with this. Their MD has been very arrogant and using the 'I've been in the business 25 years and I can assure you that you do not have a claim" approach, which hasn't been much help, would have been nice for them to at least have said they are sorry to hear about the situation.

drazzin66

Not sure what you mean by 'easy money', certainly not the reason we are renting, more an investment for our future, which I'd say is being sensible.

BigAunty

drazzin66 wrote: »

...

We actually do know that she has a huge stash of money - as amongst the paperwork left (and there was so much!) we found a statement from her ISA - she has almost £30k in her ISA!!! But, she was also claiming Housing Benefit - interesting!!!



...

Then it would be a fraudulent claim and you can dob her into the local council for HB and perhaps also council tax fraud.

Capital over 6k reduces the sum of means tested benefit entitlement while capital over 16k completely rules them out. Capital isn't just savings but also covers investments like ISAs, premium bonds, etc.

She would have signed forms for HB saying that she didn't have this amount of capital and that she could be committing fraud if she provided false information. At the very least, she will be required to pay back her HB, at the very most, she will end up in prison.

budgetdiyer

What kind of letting agent carries face masks around in their car?!

Blackpool_Saver

budgetdiyer wrote: »

What kind of letting agent carries face masks around in their car?!

I certainly would, and hand sanitizer too, in fact I would probably wear disposable gloves going by some of the flea pits I have been shown as a prospective tenant....

drazzin66

I would imagine that they get to see a lot of properties that have been left in different states!!

My husband visited the property after we heard about the way it had been left - he felt sick whenever he thought about the smell, he said it was like animal urine and was just glad I didn't go and look. Just looking at the photos was upsetting enough.

We arranged for my father who lives more locally to the property to meet one of the letting staff there - and she walked around with olbas oil on a tissue under her nose the whole time.

yet the agency still seem to think that they were not negligent in their property inspections.

We have nothing to lose by taking on the agency, even if they jump through the many loopholes that I anticipate are there to protect the agency (and never the landlord) at least we will have tried. Bearing in mind the property had only been decorated and recarpeted about 6 months before this tenant moved in, I think we have to put up some kind of a fight, if not just to protect other landlords.

budgetdiyer

drazzin66 wrote: »

I would imagine that they get to see a lot of properties that have been left in different states!!

I'd say if they carry them round they obviously aren't very good at their job of selecting the right calibre of tenant.

Before you 'go after' the agent you must read the terms of business / contract you signed with them, otherwise you'll just be wasting more time and money pursuing them.

When the letting agent advised you that the tenant was breaching the agreement and had pets, and they had suggested the carpets needed cleaning / deodrising - Did you immediately serve the tenant with notice?

If i were you, and you know where the tenant is or how to contact them, i'd be tempted to confront them with the evidence of their ISA and politely suggest they either settle up what they owe you or the ISA details will be passed to the council fraud team. If they pay you, i'd still send a copy to the council!