Tenant forged AST.

BitterAndTwisted

He can "argue the deposit" all he likes but what is important is the documentary evidence of any dirt or damage there might be when comparing exit with the dual-signed check-in inventory.

The AST might state that the deposit can't be used for rent but in reality it can and has been.

It might be quicker, less painful and less costly to you if you offer the tenant the opportunity to offset the deposit against rent due on the condition that the surrender is signed and there's no dirt or damage to claim against it first.

Undercovercarrot

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

The difficulty for the landlord in this instance is that until and unless the property is formally surrendered by the tenant, the landlord cannot assume the property is vacant, so is not able to enter the property or re-let it. Doing so would risk the landlord being sued for illegal eviction and harassment. Going by what has been revealed to date about this tenant's behaviour, this could be a very real possibility, so it's absolutely vital the the LL does not play into their hands.

Oh I agree entirely - due process has to be followed and as I said, I hate the thought of the tenant getting away with murder. However, I think a good point was made above about the OP focusing on what he/she wants to get out of this - sanity is always a good start!

tumbledowngirl

jjlandlord wrote: »

Oh come on!
You're really making things as hard as possible for yourself, aren't you?

That wasn't the intention - the absolute opposite, actually.
The LA and ourselves were (are) trying to do things absolutely by the book.
The settlement was made, the tenant rejected the terms.
In light of what he has done, regarding forging an AST when he didn't get what he wanted and lying about emails and phone calls etc, we simply wanted to protect ourselves.
The rent was due 48 hours after the deadline for the settlement, so he would always have been due to pay a similar amount then.

The LA made it clear that the deposit would be dealt with properly following the formal check out, and that the tenant had the opportunity to deal with a cleaning issue in the kitchen which had been noted.
There was no intent to obstruct by us - simply to make sure that any settlement was dealt with properly to bring the tenancy to an immediate end.

tumbledowngirl

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

He can "argue the deposit" all he likes but what is important is the documentary evidence of any dirt or damage there might be when comparing exit with the dual-signed check-in inventory.

The AST might state that the deposit can't be used for rent but in reality it can and has been.

It might be quicker, less painful and less costly to you if you offer the tenant the opportunity to offset the deposit against rent due on the condition that the surrender is signed and there's no dirt or damage to claim against it first.

Sorry, I think you've misunderstood. It wasn't that he said he wouldn't argue dirt/damages etc - he said he wouldn't argue payment of the deposit towards the settlement. Since the case of a settlement isn't the norm in an AST, our concern was that the tenant would argue the deduction when it came to it and the TDS would struggle to arbitrate, thus drawing out the whole process - which is exactly what the settlement was intended to prevent.

As it stands, since the settlement has not been agreed by both parties, the AST continues under the 12 month agreement that the tenant signed - which I'm assuming is adequate proof in a small claims case.

tumbledowngirl

Just out of interest -

How many landlords would be happy to find themselves with a tenant with this sort of known behaviour, but who, through that very behaviour, has managed to get through the standard reference and credit checks?

Undercovercarrot

tumbledowngirl wrote: »

Just out of interest -

How many landlords would be happy to find themselves with a tenant with this sort of known behaviour, but who, through that very behaviour, has managed to get through the standard reference and credit checks?

Some less than scrupulous landlords will rent to whoever, providing they put extremely restrictive conditions on the rental. One thought might be that the tenant may be willing to pay all/part of his tenancy up front as well.

tumbledowngirl

Undercovercarrot wrote: »

Some less than scrupulous landlords will rent to whoever, providing they put extremely restrictive conditions on the rental. One thought might be that the tenant may be willing to pay all/part of his tenancy up front as well.

What I meant was - would anyone be happy to discover this about their tenant, AFTER they'd let to them, thinking they were an ok tenant?

Our tenant has already managed to get a new property by passing credit checks (I assume) and dodging the problem of being refused references by our LA by waving a forged tenancy agreement at the new LA.
If you were the LL of that property, or even the next property and you had no way of knowing that the tenant behaved like this (because the original LA/LL gave in to terminating the tenancy agreement on the tenant's terms, simply because of the threat of what might be a court case battle), would you be ok with it??

BitterAndTwisted

I don't really care about what your tenant may or may not have done to other landlords.

I'd be caring about the most effective way of getting this property surrendered even if it meant setting the deposit against your "settlement" figure or whatever other strings you want to attach to it.

You'll come to a point quite soon when your refusal to jump through the tenant's hoops about the deposit is going to start costing you money in lost rent from another more suitable tenant as you won't be getting any more from the current one. Chasing them through the court is going to cost you more than the rent owed.

tumbledowngirl

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I don't really care about what your tenant may or may not have done to other landlords.

I'd be caring about the most effective way of getting this property surrendered even if it meant setting the deposit against your "settlement" figure or whatever other strings you want to attach to it.

You'll come to a point quite soon when your refusal to jump through the tenant's hoops about the deposit is going to start costing you money in lost rent from another more suitable tenant as you won't be getting any more from the current one. Chasing them through the court is going to cost you more than the rent owed.

How do we know that the next tenant is "more suitable"? Clearly references and credit checks don't tell the whole sorry, insofar as an absence of a CCJ doesn't mean the tenant hasn't ducked out of their previous agreement and refused to pay rent owing.
Maybe the next tenant will be a mate of this tenant, who's been told that all you have to do is leave the property whenever you feel like it during the AST and there's nothing the LL will do about it?

By the way, I should have added that the tenant said that WE had to agree to meet his demands for the settlement payment by a fixed deadline, ie 12 noon that day.

You said we shouldn't give in to blackmail, another poster said we shouldn't give in to intimidation.

Our LA has said that a signed 12 month AST is enough evidence to win a rent arrears case, and when the forged AST is dealt with as part of a civil case, it can then be used in a criminal case (as another poster said).

RAS

Things you might want for the future

National Insurance number

Details of current employment and employer reference confirming whether this is permanent or not and how long previously employed.

Both useful for pursuing an attachment of earnings.

Reference for the landlord before last rather than the current one. Use 192 to confirm they were on the electoral roll there. use googlemaps to check "work addresses" that turn out to be domestic homes.

Try google; sometime bring up interesting reports.

Develop an eye for what is not quite said in references. " I was AB's LL for 2 years" When exactly?

"I have known AB for x years and they are lovely" signed CD Manager. Manager of what? The local chippie?