How to provide enforcable costs for repir and clean

TIMBO

My Tenant has left, ( 1 month into thier 3 month notice period).
The tenant owes two months rent, has left the house in disrepair and not cleaned. Also has notified all services that I am now liable for costs despite being in contract for two more months.


I wish to submit a claim to the Deposit protection scheme , ( and then small claims court for the reminder).


I have four questions please;


1) How many quotes do I need as proof of work required ?
In order to be fair I was going to get three quotes, from local service providers, for each item requiring correction. BUT they want to charge £50.00 for a written quote, ( refundable on work being done but only 1 will get the work so £100.00 out of pocket on each item quoted )


2) Can I charge tenant the cost of the multiple quotes ?


3) Is the tenant Liable for any costs incurred for services including Council Tax, gas, electric, water until she is out of contract for the property?. The property is uninhabitable until rectification work is performed.


Further notes
The tenant will not provide a forwarding address but I have an email contact that they still access.
The tenant refuses to communicate about their actions , instead making inaccurate accusations against me.
Tenant has sent emails saying cant pay, wont pay and refusing to clean house after keeping cat against tenancy restriction.
I have provided tenant with a list of issues I hold them liable for and asking them to contact me to arrange a solution, they have refused to do so.
I wish to be sympathetic but I do need to resolve the problems and pass the debts onto the tenant as I consider them liable.
Any help gratefully received.
Thanks Tim

BitterAndTwisted

What proof do you have that the property was not left in precisely the same condition as it was at the the start of the tenancy?

Did you take a deposit and was it registered in one of the schemes?

What do you mean by the tenant being "1 month into their 3 month notice period"?

Guest101

You know by law they need give only 1 months notice?

You registered the deposit, but was it within 30 days of them paying it?

Do you have a dual signed inventory?

And is this England or Wales?

BitterAndTwisted

Guest101 wrote: »

You know by law they need give only 1 months notice?

Eh, the tenant could still be in their fixed-term. Or anything really.

Guest101

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Eh, the tenant could still be in their fixed-term. Or anything really.

You're right I made a presumption, silly of me. It sounded like it wasn't but I should've checked.

Op if they have a tenancy which has become periodic, they need to give just 1 full rental months notice. Please clarify if they are still in fixed term?

TIMBO

Thank you to all of you for your help.
In answer to the questions asked;
I performed a check out inspection once the tenant left ( within one day of keys being returned). The property was managed by an agent originally when the tenant moved in and a pre move in inventory was performed.
The tenant had a one year tenancy , they exercised their right to leave early giving three months notice. Unfortunately they then left one month into the three month notice period.
The tenant and I signed a rental agreement that stated three months notice was required for early termination of tenancy.
The deposit is in one of the DPS schemes.
I hope this helps
Thanks

TIMBO

The property is in England

BitterAndTwisted

TIMBO wrote: »

1) How many quotes do I need as proof of work required ?
In order to be fair I was going to get three quotes, from local service providers, for each item requiring correction. BUT they want to charge £50.00 for a written quote, ( refundable on work being done but only 1 will get the work so £100.00 out of pocket on each item quoted )

If they've left the property in a mess then I say that they're not entitled to expect that much fairness from you.

2) Can I charge tenant the cost of the multiple quotes ?

Doubtful.


3) Is the tenant Liable for any costs incurred for services including Council Tax, gas, electric, water until she is out of contract for the property?. The property is uninhabitable until rectification work is performed.

I'm not sure I understand you properly. If the tenant has informed the utility companies and the local authority that they have vacated then I think you and they are going to be hard-pressed to claim any ongoing costs. If the tenancy had ended in the usual way and you hadn't secured another tenant straight away you wouldn't be expecting the old tenant to cover those costs, would you?


Further notes
The tenant will not provide a forwarding address but I have an email contact that they still access.
The tenant refuses to communicate about their actions , instead making inaccurate accusations against me.
Tenant has sent emails saying cant pay, wont pay and refusing to clean house after keeping cat against tenancy restriction.
I have provided tenant with a list of issues I hold them liable for and asking them to contact me to arrange a solution, they have refused to do so.
I wish to be sympathetic but I do need to resolve the problems and pass the debts onto the tenant as I consider them liable.
Any help gratefully received.
Thanks Tim

Get the dual-signed check-in inventory in front of you and compare it line-by-line with the exit one. Quantify the value of everything that's dirty, damaged or missing from your quotes in an Excel document and email it to them with the attachments.

Get in touch with the deposit-protection scheme and lodge your claim, providing your document as evidence.

Next, you need to trace your tenant if their deposit won't cover the whole costs of the damage you are going to claim for. That's the easy part. Actually extricating the money from them if they do not have it will be the hard part.

TIMBO

Thanks very much for your help.
My thought process was that as I cannot re let the property, due to the state they left it in, and that they were contractually obligated for a further three months I assumed, (perhaps optimistically),that I could recover the costs incurred while it could not be rented up to the point they were liable for the notice period of their tenancy. Normally utility and Ctax costs would not be recovered, but the house has been abused and the tenant has made deliberate efforts to avoid paying rent, repairing the house and cleaning prior to vacating as well as absconding early in breach of contract. Therefore I am keen to recover my additional costs incurred as a direct result of their actions . Am I being unreasonable, or if not unreasonable just unable ?
Thanks
( PS great username)

BitterAndTwisted

I'm still not convinced that this alleged three months notice is enforceable. I've never heard of three months notice to exercise a break-clause.

To be frank, chasing your errant tenant and going to court could cost you a grand as an absolute minimum, and that's if you know where they have gone. If they don't have the money then you're looking at getting a quid a week from their benefit or an attachment of earnings. They only have to quit their job and you won't even see that.


I might be cheaper all round to concentrate your energies on getting the property ship-shape so you can get another tenant and their rent in pronto.



n.b. If you knew why I'd chosen this username I think you'd probably get a chuckle out of it......

Guest101

TIMBO wrote: »

Thank you to all of you for your help.
In answer to the questions asked;
I performed a check out inspection once the tenant left ( within one day of keys being returned). The property was managed by an agent originally when the tenant moved in and a pre move in inventory was performed.
The tenant had a one year tenancy , they exercised their right to leave early giving three months notice. Unfortunately they then left one month into the three month notice period.
The tenant and I signed a rental agreement that stated three months notice was required for early termination of tenancy.
The deposit is in one of the DPS schemes.
I hope this helps
Thanks

Can you quote the section about three months notice? And how far into the year were they? It's a strange addition to the contract, not sure if enforceable. If they are 11 months into the tenancy for example, then no chance.

Did the tenants sign the original inventory?

Did you protect within 30 days? Did they get the prescribed information?