Tenant from Hell= penniless and destroyed house

bupe

Ok, I am in a state of desperation and not knowing what to do, hopefully you or someone out there can help!

My partner owns a house in Dover, the tenant who was there destroyed the place and it now needs a lot of work doing to it. To add to the situation the tenant was evicted owing approx £12,000.00 in rent, with the extent of work required my partner would need £15,000.00 to bring it to lettable standard. My partner is sick of the house and wants to move on from it. Essentially the house needs to sell, it has been on the market for about 6 months now as both open tender and the normal route for sales. It is not getting a look in as the amount of work is too extensive, but the sale of the property needs to clear the mortgage so minimum £95,000.00. As selling it is not happening and he is unlikely to get the return to repay the mortgage, we need to get the property back up to a standard where it can be re-let and then potentially sold on later down the line.
The house has been identified as needing: new damp course, new bathroom (floor, walls, suite), kitchen (floor, walls, units, ceiling), flooring (boards need replacing) and decorating throughout, windows (all in different states of repair and some only single glaze), new external stair case to front of property to access basement level entrance, boiler repairs (probably new boiler as this is an ancient back boiler), and this is probably not everything. We had two quotes about 9 months ago in the region of £15,000.00 for all work. This is simply out of range for us to afford.

We have looked at loans to cover the costs and to then rent out to recoup the money but both of us have cars on finance, and credit cards owing approx £12,000 - mainly due to money lost on keeping the house current.
As it is we have to rent as we cannot afford to buy a house and the one we have wont sell.



I don't know what to do anymore, can anyone offer some advice, are there any grants we can apply for?

ruggedtoast

You may be able to get a housing association to take it on. Essentially they do all the repairs but then get to use it for a number of years during which you get nothing, or a nominal amount. You do eventually get it back sorted out though. It depends on the local area.

Other than that its up to you to look after your own property.

bupe

thank you ruggedtoast, yes we have looked at this and on calling all the local HAs none of them do it. There is the empty house loan, but there is not enough equity in the house to release any money.

tea-bag

I take it there was no insurance? Could you get it to a basic rentable state?

ognum

bupe wrote: »

Ok, I am in a state of desperation and not knowing what to do, hopefully you or someone out there can help!

My partner owns a house in Dover, the tenant who was there destroyed the place and it now needs a lot of work doing to it. To add to the situation the tenant was evicted owing approx £12,000.00 in rent, with the extent of work required my partner would need £15,000.00 to bring it to lettable standard. My partner is sick of the house and wants to move on from it. Essentially the house needs to sell, it has been on the market for about 6 months now as both open tender and the normal route for sales. It is not getting a look in as the amount of work is too extensive, but the sale of the property needs to clear the mortgage so minimum £95,000.00. As selling it is not happening and he is unlikely to get the return to repay the mortgage, we need to get the property back up to a standard where it can be re-let and then potentially sold on later down the line.
The house has been identified as needing: new damp course, new bathroom (floor, walls, suite), kitchen (floor, walls, units, ceiling), flooring (boards need replacing) and decorating throughout, windows (all in different states of repair and some only single glaze), new external stair case to front of property to access basement level entrance, boiler repairs (probably new boiler as this is an ancient back boiler), and this is probably not everything. We had two quotes about 9 months ago in the region of £15,000.00 for all work. This is simply out of range for us to afford.

We have looked at loans to cover the costs and to then rent out to recoup the money but both of us have cars on finance, and credit cards owing approx £12,000 - mainly due to money lost on keeping the house current.
As it is we have to rent as we cannot afford to buy a house and the one we have wont sell.



I don't know what to do anymore, can anyone offer some advice, are there any grants we can apply for?

You post creates more questions for me than answers. You tenat from hell has not created all the issues in the house, damp, new boiler, new floor boards cannot be due to the tenant can they.

Moving on though, I guess the choices are,

Sell at a loss,
Hand the keys back to the mortgage company which may mean you retain a debt.
Move in yourself and gradually work through the list of jobs as and when you can.
GO to Citizens Advice for help on grants for boiler replacement
Let very cheaply to someone who will do the work as they live there, maybe find someone on Gumtree.
Let as is at low rent

Sorry I can't think of anything more useful.

bupe

hi tea-bag, yes there was insurance but it is only valid whilst there is a tenant in occupancy and the basics required to get it to lettable standard is around £10,000. The tenant literally destroyed it. needs new bathroom and kitchen, and new heating system - radiators ripped off walls and ancient boiler needs updating now anyway.
I thought this would have been claimable on the insurance but they said not due to no more tenant in the house, do you think they were fobbing us of?

bupe

ognum, yes the bits you quoted are from the outside looking in part of wear n tear of the property, but when you have a tenant in situ that doesnt pay rent, doesn't allow access to the property, punched holes in walls, doors and floors, ripped up carpets, ripped off the rads, removed any insulation and broke windows it did instigate the damp as the property was not weather proof or insulated. the fact that she left a hole in the kitchen sealing where she let the water from the bathroom run through the floors and didnt say anything leads me to suggest that yes it is quite significantly the tenant, but not wholly as had we had access we may have been able to intervene and prevent much of it. We sought legal action and were screwed over with them as they took money and didnt act, we did at least get that refunded.
boiler grants yes we are waiting for some information currently, and CAB we will try next week when they open in our village after xmas as not much on their advice guide. thank you re gumtree, hadnt thought of that!

stator

Can't you live in it?

mrsmumbles

Hi there...so sorry to hear of all this. I rent out and am currently having to evict my tenant..served her a section 21 which says that I just want the flat back but everyone knows it's the least confrontational form of eviction. if she refuses to go I too will be faced with massive charges, as I'll call in the high court sheriffs to get her out. It costs more but you save on time which if course equals as rent. First, well done for getting this evil tenant out! tell yourselves that this worst bit is out if the way now and you are both getting the control back.
I had a long hard think about your own situation. First...did you retain all their deposit? Hope you did!
One scam that evil tenants do is try to demand three times their former rent, IF the landlord did not protect their deposit with a recognised agency such as mydeposits within 30 days of getting it. I had to return one tenants full deposit because although I had protected it both times, on the first time, I had not given her a copy of the protection certificate which they email you. I'm just letting you know this so you are forewarned...if you ever rent out again you must protect the deposit and give these awful tenants the paperwork up front. You can also give them a set six month AST to avoid a long contract and assure them that it will lapse onto periodic, so if they are appalling, it's faster to get them out.
I'd also urge you to chase the evil tenant through the small claims court, claim as much as you can. go for it. It's not as big a faff these days and you may not even need to attend court...check your deposit and AST paperwork is all I order, do email back if you have any more questions. That could help you recover the lost income.
Read the repairs: your priority is the structural stuff and the boiler, trust me, A LOT of what you worry over can be done yourselves. I recently sold a great combi boiler on ebay for 180 quid, it had all the paperwork and was a year old, very good quality glow worm, but we extended so it had to come out. You can get a heck of lot of good materials and parts online. For bathroom stuff I would vouch for comparethebathroom, they are an ebay shop and their stuff can even undercut places such as b and q. the latter are the best for laminate flooring,which you can do yourself. It looks very difficult but it isn't really and doing all the red lording. With a good oak effect laminate makes a place look great for around 350 all in for atypical two bed flat. Insulation board should go on underneath to keep the place nice and warm. For bathrooms I would recommend the WickesCrema Marfill tiles, always I. Stock and probs reduced at the moment, they are so reasonably priced and make a place look so nice, under half what you would pay elsewhere. The staircase sounds a big cost but, again, even if you cost in a van hire,these things turn up on ebay. That quotation is quite high, and I suspect that a lot is the labour.
best of luck with it. What this tenant has done to you sucks, but stick with the property, get the boiler sorted and the gas safety certificate done, then it should be relatable o a lower short term rent.
Consider an electric oven as a gas job can cause you to fail the gas safety check when the boiler is fine. obviously a second hand boiler must be fitted by a trained expert!
Consider using upad onljne web portal to let the place again. They vet tenants initially, then you get to meet them all, and they cost loads less than the frankly crap letting agencies out there, who often don't seem to screen for obvious psychos! I'll use upad next time, for sure...when you meet a prospective tenant, you get a feeling, don't you, if they are dodgy or not? I wish you best of luck...it will be hard, but hang on to that place as best you can xxxx:)

bupe

sadly no, the house is in Dover and we both work in Watford and Milton Keynes. even if we did live there the house isn't actually liveable!

chucknorris

Could you both move into the house, let out your current home and rough it for a while when doing the repairs? Or have I missed something like you both live in a different town etc.