Sell house or become a weekend Dad ?? What would you do??

Willow101

I would do the one thing you've said you don't want to do and that's find another tenant - maybe try different estate agent / go for a fully managed service.

Failing that I'd sell. This is a personal decision to do with the heart and feeing and therefore not a brain decision. You can never get the time back with your family and four years is a longtime. You will always be able to find a home somewhere but you can't watch your kids grow up again

Good luck

bikingbarney

Thanks all, we have 3 estate agents coming round to value it for renting or selling.

Arthritic_Toe

Sounds to me that by far the lesser evil is sticking with your existing tenant, pets n all....

Niv

I would do option 4 : Let the current tenant have her pet but take an additional deposit to cover potential additional damage / increase rent s bit.

bikingbarney

The isnt the first time that the tenant has threatened to leave so we are pretty fed up with her holding all the cards.

We also didnt take a deposit from her as she is family and couldnt get one together as she owed her previous landlord money for damage to that property.

She is now asking for a letter from us to say we are evicting her so she can approach the council to get a council house.

Pixie5740

Relative or not, this current tenant sounds like a PITA. You could issue her with a Section 21 notice but as there is a shortage of council housing the council will probably gatekeep and make her wait until you employ bailiffs to physically remove her from the property which will cost a fair bit of money especially if you use High Court Enforcement Officers to speed things up. Yes, the tenant is liable for these costs but you don't have a deposit to reclaim the money from so unless the tenant coughs up willingly you'll need to go to small claims court to get a judgement and then you'll need to enforce the judgement.

You could maybe try and evict using a Section 8 notice on grounds 12, 13, 14 or 15 but they are discretionary grounds so you might not be granted an eviction order. The council are also unlikely to re-house the tenant if you go down the Section 8 rather than Section 21 route.

dotchas

bikingbarney wrote: »

The isnt the first time that the tenant has threatened to leave so we are pretty fed up with her holding all the cards.

We also didnt take a deposit from her as she is family and couldnt get one together as she owed her previous landlord money for damage to that property.

She is now asking for a letter from us to say we are evicting her so she can approach the council to get a council house.

Doesn't sound like an ideal tenant to me, that should have rung alarm bells

tlc678910

If you hoped to settle in the area where you own your house (e.g. your family and friends are there) commuting at weekends would allow your children to settle into schools (hopefully work allowing) without having to move after four years of settling in and making friends. That would be a big plus factor for me.
Tlc

bikingbarney

tlc678910 wrote: »

If you hoped to settle in the area where you own your house (e.g. your family and friends are there) commuting at weekends would allow your children to settle into schools (hopefully work allowing) without having to move after four years of settling in and making friends. That would be a big plus factor for me.
Tlc

But not seeing them much for the next 4 years is a big negative for me !!!

Mojisola

bikingbarney wrote: »

But not seeing them much for the next 4 years is a big negative for me !!!

We had to do this for some months and managed but I wouldn't have let it go on much longer.