Landlady from hell

timewar

Hello everyone, I'm living in student halls(privately owned) and I owe them £120 for rent. I cannot afford to pay it until the end of this month when I get my loan, at which time I will pay for it no problem. However the landlady is insistent on me paying it before I get my loan. Why, I don't know. She is constantly sending letters to me and my guarantor, threatening to send my case to the solicitors and adding on fees which are both complete empty threats. She actually rang me up once asking for the money by the end of the week and when I told her she was being unreasonable she shouted "you wanna see unreasonable, I'll have your file to the solicitor by today" lol, however as my guarantor is my mother this is causing problems between us needlessly. When I ask her to stop sending all the threatening letters she claims they are company procedure and she has to send them(it's usually one every 2 or 3 days along with 2-3 phone-calls/emails a week).

So yeah basically she is an absolute nightmare. Do any of you guys know any cleverly worded phrases I can say to her or any tips at all to get her off my back until the end of the month? Baring in mind she bends the rules herself(Another story for another time).
Cheers everyone,

TimeWar

Toomuchdebt

Can your guarantor pay her and then you pay them back when you get your loan? What is the agreement with her as to when you're meant to pay?Are you very late with your rent?How much will you owe her when the loan comes in?I presume it'll be the £120 plus next terms fees?If so I can understand why she is getting upset that you haven't paid the £120 from last term.My daughter has to pay in the first week of term for accomodation-she wouldn't be allowed to carry it over to the next term.

FireWyrm

There is nothing of the sort you are looking for. Your landlady isnt being unreasonable at all. You acknowledge that you owe her the money, you are duty bound to find it for her by whatever means necessary. The fact that you dont have it is immaterial and her threats really are not empty at all, dont be surprised if she slaps you with an S21 at the end of your contract. Is there something you can cut back on or sell in order to meet your obligation to her?

Danni-R

Ummm. You could pay her rent? If a friend owed you money and had agreed to pay it wouldnt you be a little annoyed and ask for it back? She's within her rights to contact the guarantor (thats the reason she asked for one).

Maybe see if there's anything you can sell and try and get the money together.

Oh, and calling her unreasonable wont win you any favours with her....

timewar

Cheers everyone, I'm not selling my stuff and I can't pay before I get my loan, so if she did send my file off to the solicitor, then I went down to the office on the day of my loan and paid off everything, what would happen?

and Danni R looking at your profile you are in no position to be so patronizing

FireWyrm

timewar wrote: »

Cheers everyone, I'm not selling my stuff and I can't pay before I get my loan, so if she did send my file off to the solicitor, then I went down to the office on the day of my loan and paid off everything, what would happen?

and Danni R looking at your profile you are in no position to be so patronizing

Theoretically, nothing, but you will have mightily annoyed her. She'll more than likely serve you with a section 21 notice to quit at the very earliest opportunity if you dont do some serious grovelling.

timewar

Can she hit me with that as soon as I pay my final installment or will she have to wait until the end of the current contract?

FireWyrm

timewar wrote: »

Can she hit me with that as soon as I pay my final installment or will she have to wait until the end of the current contract?

She can hit you with it 2 months before you contract ends. She must give you two clear months warning and it must be correctly served (ie a real S21). It is just a notice to quit, she'll have to go to court to actually evict you, but dont be surprised to get it. I suggest a serious grovelling appology, a bunch of flowers and the payment and you might just get away with it. If it were me, I'd evict you just for being rude to me.

hohum

FireWyrm wrote: »

Theoretically, nothing, but you will have mightily annoyed her. She'll more than likely serve you with a section 21 notice to quit at the very earliest opportunity if you dont do some serious grovelling.

To be fair, 2 letters and two phonecalls a week does seem a bit over the top and I know I can dig my heels in when I feel harassed...And I don't know why she's talking solicitors.

On the other hand, she can chuck you out providing she has followed the correct procedure whenever she wants, using a section 21. You'll usually get 2 months notice, and she can go after your mum for any outstanding amounts, which would probably have an even worse effect on your relationship! If this happens it could mean you will find getting other accommodation difficult, plus all that bother of finding new accomm/ moving.

2 months rent arrears is the point when landlords start getting really twitchy (most will not allow things to go past one). I had a situation recently where I really did have a section 21 served on us. My own stupid fault for not communicating with the letting agency.

What I did was bring the arrears up to date, then phoned and explained our situation, why it wouldn't happen again etc etc. they were perfectly nice about it, retracted section 21 and we are back on rolling tenancy. If I had communicated in the first place, I would have not had the problem. It's when you ignore the letters they freak out, because how do they know the account will be brought up to date.

For a simple life I would swallow your irritation, write an apologetic letter/email and explain your plan to bring the arrears up to date.

timewar

When I told her she was unreasonable that was part of a weird unrelated argument we had over the phone that was sort of "off the records". It came about because she was caught looking through drawers in my room when I was home over Christmas. It was pretty strange but I'm not usually like that towards her and we spoke in person afterwords and acknowledged that we were both in the wrong and it was unprofessional of her. I have also been paying small parts of my rent off and my most recent payment was £60 3 weeks ago, does that change anything? Also my contract ends 2 months to the day and I have other accommodation from September already sorted so does that leave the S21 pretty much out of the question? Cheers everyone

runforlife

Thats probably why she's getting a bit 'twitchy'. Why not pay her something now and outline a repayment plan to include all rent due prior to the end of your contract?. Together with an apology hopefully that will do the trick.