Tenant died with rent arrears

welshbengali

my aging parents rent out two flats in a converted property ( 12 month AST- no guarantor) Last weekend it was brought to my attention that monthly rent payments for the previous 2 months (October and November) had not been received from the upstairs tenant. These were usually received by a standing order on the 18th of each month.

I made several attempts to contact the tenant and on Wednesday posted by first class post and hand delivered a formal demand in preparation for serving a section 8 notice.

Thursday evening I receive a call from downstairs tenant telling me that the police had entered the flat the previous evening , after being requested by concerned relatives, and had found her dead - apparently a suicide. I immediately went to the local police station - where all they did was confirm that there had been a death at the property- and that my details would be passed on to the next of kin. As of yet I have not been contacted by anybody - and do not have any contact details for next of kin. I have not been to the property as yet - frankly I am a bit freaked out - and do not want to enter while her belongings are still in there. I do not know whether the flat itself is unlocked, apparently the police did not have to break into the flat itself, and were let in through the main door by the downstairs tenant. I do not know whether keys to the flat and the property itself were taken by police to be passed on to next of kin.

I want to deal sympathetically - however I do have the following pressing concerns
1. Regaining possession of the flat asap, cleared of tenants belongings.
2. The rent arrears, as of today we are 3 months rent down, how would I go about recovering this- if there is any chance of recovering it -
3. Am I within my rights to have locks changed at this point, not knowing who has the keys.

Any advice would be appreciated.

specialboy

You can secure the property if its not secure at present but you cant just take the flat back.

System

Technically it is still rented by the deceased's estate although in arrears. Can you serve a S8 on somebody's estate?

PasturesNew

You have to act as if they were still alive. You need to be dealing with this through their relatives - find out who is dealing with the estate.

You need to inform them of the costs/AST and unpaid rent, so they know the debts of the tenant. The person who is executor will need to serve the notice to you and negotiate the flat clearance.

The debt will go into their estate administration and will be paid from their estate. If there are insufficient funds in their estate to pay the debt, there is nobody else for you to chase for the money, it's lost.

You cannot enter the flat.

Somebody will tell you which notice you need to serve and you need to serve that the the relatives/executors.

It is likely, therefore, that you will come out of this in 2-3 months' time with a bigger debt, but that's life.

Check your landlords' insurance policy to see if you're covered for any of this.

ging84

you need to tread very carefully

antrobus

welshbengali wrote: »

..... As of yet I have not been contacted by anybody - and do not have any contact details for next of kin......

Now you know why many landlords request details of next of kin from prospective tenants; just in case of an emergency you understand.

welshbengali wrote: »

....2. The rent arrears, as of today we are 3 months rent down, how do I go about recovering this- this is income my parents depend upon....

Let's be 100% blunt about this. You had a tenant that didn't pay their rent. I suspect the reason was that they didn't have the money to pay the rent. I doubt that their death has bought about any improvement to this state of affairs.

welshbengali

This was a mature, single, hardworking professional person, working as - ironically - an agency mental health nurse. My impression was that money wasn't a concern .

I do not know why we stopped receiving payments from her - the downstairs tenant who rarely saw her as she was constantly working - did say that she had mentioned being a bit down as some close friends had recently died.

Road_Hog

PasturesNew wrote: »

You cannot enter the flat.

Are you sure?


If the LL wanted to enter the flat to do a safety check after giving notice, are you saying that they would be unable to do this?

voucher

you need to get your priorities in order

Guest101

Road_Hog wrote: »

Are you sure?


If the LL wanted to enter the flat to do a safety check after giving notice, are you saying that they would be unable to do this?

He can enter with the tenants, in this case the estate's, permission. Knowingly bypassing the notice would be bad.

Guest101

Op.

The estate may have assets, which you could claim against.

If you expect to see any of this before the spring think again. These things take a long time to sort out.

Your best bet is to agree a surrender with the estate, and then rent the flat again. Do not change locks - it's not your business who has the keys, the tenant if Alice could have granted access to whoever she chose, same principle. You could secure the property if there is damage to the door, that's it.