Tenant died with rent arrears

00ec25

newbutold wrote: »

The council would still insist on the property being emptied and keys handed back within a week or 2 regardless of the deceased age. Also local council here gives 2 weeks rent free but if you go over this, rent is payable by the estate.

and your point is what?
the council has a set of rigid rules which (presumably) anyone can look up for themselves and see they are all being treated fairly, ie there is no discrimination between "cases"

the OP is not a council, he is (in some peoples eyes) a money grabbing private sector Rigsby, so the LL needs to show some sympathy to the bereaved parents, especially given he knows it is a suicide which has to be even more stressful for parents than an accidental/ "natural causes" death of their child. there are 7 stages to reacting to bereavement and the OP has no idea which one the parents are at yet. one of those is dealing with admin issues as part of a distraction reaction so it could be that the parents will want to do admin but the Op should not ram it down their throats in an aggressive manner

There is a huge difference between chasing down the next of kin and demanding payment of rent arrears compared to subtly establishing who are the next of kin and sending them a condolence letter and a statement of rental paid (without demanding "immediate" arrears payment) and offer to terminate the lease and wrap up affairs "as soon as possible"

Shelldean

newbutold wrote: »

The council would still insist on the property being emptied and keys handed back within a week or 2 regardless of the deceased age. Also local council here gives 2 weeks rent free but if you go over this, rent is payable by the estate.

Nan died on a Sat, the following Mon was a bank hol, so we contacted council on the Tues. They fully expected us to hand the keys back there and then!!!!.
They didn't get them, and we negotiated almost 3 weeks. Yes they billed the estate but as the estate was nil, they didn't get paid.

V_Chic_Chick

joshw86 wrote: »

You seem fixated on the possibility that the tenant was dead in her flat for a couple of months before being found.

This doesn't seem at all likely to me. From what the OP has said, this woman was in work and did not lead a particularly reclusive life. The chances of someone in this position being able to go AWOL without something spurring the police to pay the residence a visit within weeks if not days are pretty remote.

Recently a very elderly woman in the flat above mine died. She had no next of kin, no regular visitors and lived an essentially hermetic life. Even so only four or five days passed between her death and both we and another resident of the building contacting the police to check up on her.

I may be wrong, but it seems wildly implausible that this woman could go missing from her work and social circles for such a long time and for a landlord dealing with arrears to be the first person to suspect something was up.

She was an agency worker though, so unless she was on long-ish term contracts
- the hospitals wouldn't have noticed her coming or going - very often you only work in one place for one shift
- the agency (or agencies - people often work for several simultaneously) would probably have written it off as her just not having been in touch / probably working elsewhere and not told us

Then it's just down to issues such as her not having close friends / family, and you start to see how it could happen.

There are cases like that of Joyce Vincent http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/09/joyce-vincent-death-mystery-documentary

Frankly I could see this happening to one of my close relatives - agency worker, live alone, no friends that they see on a very frequent basis, and crap at keeping in contact with even their nearest and dearest. It could easily be a fortnight before anyone noticed anything was amiss.

Personally I'd be budgeting for a new carpet if I were the OP.