Rent Cash In Hand Monthly or Through Bank?

Mylo_The_Moggy

Just a question I have pondered for a fair while & have always been curious:
When renting, are there any tenants who pay the LL cash in hand rather than through bank payments?

Before we bought our house in January as FTB, we rented for 13 years & our LL always dealt with cash for monthly rent. She always provided a hand written receipt & I kept every single one over the 13 years.
She had around 5 houses in total & always used to go collect cash in hand every 4 Sundays.

I used to always wonder though if she was legit & declared her taxes etc.
She never kept up with Gas Safety checks either......I think we had 2 done in those 13 years. :eek:

If you are a LL, do you actually prefer cash in hand rent, or would you rather have it through the bank?

We had a bad ending with our LL when we left, as she was rather naffed to loose us as model tenants after all those years lol.

harrys_dad

From the tenant's point of view as long as they can prove they have paid their rent and have receipts etc then i do not see a problem. There are of course other issues such as tenancy agreement, deposit protection, safety certificates etc etc....From the Landlord's point of view the possibilities for fraud and/or running foul of the law are endless.

ging84

i personally would refuse to pay cash for rent, there needs to be a very good reason for me to have more than a couple hundred £ cash in my house, helping someone commit tax fraud or indulging their crackpot fear of using banks are not good reasons

jamie11

Mylo_The_Moggy wrote: »

If you are a LL, do you actually prefer cash in hand rent, or would you rather have it through the bank?

As a landlord with several properties I have ALL my rents paid into the bank. This makes it simple for me to see if anything has not been paid on a monthly basis and also makes it simple for my accountant to sort out tax at the financial year's end.

Reason for this is that, just before I retired from my career, I was picked out for an audit by HMRC., after that I resolved that they would never have reason to look at me again.

That cost me £9K and I was NOT consciously cheating the system.

gazter

Mylo_The_Moggy wrote: »

Just a question I have pondered for a fair while & have always been curious:
When renting, are there any tenants who pay the LL cash in hand rather than through bank payments?

Before we bought our house in January as FTB, we rented for 13 years & our LL always dealt with cash for monthly rent. She always provided a hand written receipt & I kept every single one over the 13 years.
She had around 5 houses in total & always used to go collect cash in hand every 4 Sundays.

I used to always wonder though if she was legit & declared her taxes etc.
She never kept up with Gas Safety checks either......I think we had 2 done in those 13 years. :eek:

If you are a LL, do you actually prefer cash in hand rent, or would you rather have it through the bank?

We had a bad ending with our LL when we left, as she was rather naffed to loose us as model tenants after all those years lol.

Anyone who deals in cash in this way is not legit. Not in any single circumstance. If they say they are, they're lying.

theartfullodger

Grass her up to HMRC.

We don't want tax cheats in our fair country any more than we want benefit cheats or any other crooks.

G_M

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/reportingfraud/

Mylo_The_Moggy

Cheers for the responses guys. I always thought in the back of my mind that something might not be right.
She may be legit & just prefers cash in hand rent, but the way she went about things always made me more cautious.

Especially with the Gas checks she supposedly 'forgot' about. When we handed the keys back in January I gave her the 2 certificates we had from the whole of the 13 years. Her response?
"Oh dear, the guy didn't come last year did he?"
Erm, he'd not been for the last few years love, you're the one who has to arrange it every year!!!!!

Since we left in January, the house was stood empty until just recently. New tenants now moved in. Bet she's still pulling a fast one.......

I'm guessing she will still be just the same with her other houses & tenants: Cash in hand rent, no safety checks, bet she doesn't even secure the deposits.
Thank goodness we are now homeowners lol.