Evicting Tenant

G_M

Tonyhague wrote: »

.....
Tenant expects her bond back, apparently other people are responsible for the several tons of old clothes toys and god knows what rubbish in the house, garden and locked shed and as her boyfriend put the windows through (witnessed by the neighbour) that's not her responsibility either.

Tenant is responsibe for the condition she leaves it in when the tenancy ends. Cannot claim "somene else's fault".

Do you have forwarding address so you can sue if the damage costs exceed the deposit?

Do you have a proper check-in inventory, with photos?

Have you completed a proper check-out report, with photos?

Gwendo40

Not sure what all the whining is about. hardly the worst ''nightmare tenant'' tale I've ever heard.

Being the competent and professional landlord that I'm sure you are these issues ought to be like water off a ducks back.

As for the pipes freezing then leaking, it sounds like your responsibility, the property has obviously been vacated and empty during the freeze/thaw period and you've not took sufficient measures to foresee or deal with it.

FBaby

What makes you (& similar thinking private landlords) so privileged that you deserve that sort of favour from councils & taxpayers?

Here comes Artfullodger on his high horse again with his clear political/social views!

Love it how you see the intervention of the council, that is sought by the TENANT himself as a favour to OP rather than the tenant. OP is not asking for anything from the council, he is asking the tenant to go as per the terms of the contract. The terms of tenancy sought by the tenant has nothing to do with him.

Such a bee in your bonnet you have Artfullodger

Norman_Castle

Gwendo40 wrote: »

As for the pipes freezing then leaking, it sounds like your responsibility, the property has obviously been vacated and empty during the freeze/thaw period and you've not took sufficient measures to foresee or deal with it.

That assumes the op was aware the tenant had left.

martindow

Norman_Castle wrote: »

That assumes the op was aware the tenant had left.

I think if I were LL in these circumstances I would be going round occasionally to look through the windows to check whether the tenants were still there, particularly if the weather was below freezing.

pinklady21

Why did the agents not pick up all the issues during their periodic inspections? It seems that the first problem was a water leak, that caused an issue with dampness in the kitchen. The issue became worse due to the length of time that elapsed.
Had this been picked up sooner, then issues may have been avoided getting so bad that the landlord had to evict the tenant.
That said it sounds like the tenant was a bit of a nightmare anyway, and the o/p is well rid.
Sorry about the mess they left behind, as others have said, take lots of photos of damage as evidence, and claim off the deposit via the protection scheme. Given the extent of the damage, and probably unpaid rent etc, I would think the deposit may not be enough to cover the losses. Sorry about that.

G_M

Folks jumping to conclusions and being a bit unfair.

We don't know the full facts:

* Tenant might have left the property vacant without telling the LL
* Tenant might have breached tenancy agreement by not leaving heating on in winter
* LL might have been denied entry for inspections
* LL might have been wary of accusation of harrassment (even "look through windows"!) given the history

Tenants have a duty to act in a 'tenant-like manner', and that includes protecting against freezing pipes, so this is (probably) tenant liability (depending on precise circumstances eg tenancy end date)

Smodlet

FBaby wrote: »

Here comes Artfullodger on his high horse again with his clear political/social views!

Love it how you see the intervention of the council, that is sought by the TENANT himself as a favour to OP rather than the tenant. OP is not asking for anything from the council, he is asking the tenant to go as per the terms of the contract. The terms of tenancy sought by the tenant has nothing to do with him.

Such a bee in your bonnet you have Artfullodger

Tonyhague wrote: »

The Section 21 has expired, the tenant is still in and reading the forum here it seems my hope that the notice could be taken to the council to help them get rehoused was very naive of me, apparently the council will have advised them to await the bailiffs

He was hoping the council would just wave a magic wand and make all his problems go away until he read this forum/other sources. The tenant did inform the LA about mushrooms growing on the wall. If that does not denote a serious damp problem to the LA, perhaps the OP would do better to take responsibility for his property rather than leaving it all to people who clearly don't give a damn.

FBaby

Hoping and expecting are two different things. Hoping so that it is a successful outcome for both himself and the tenant seems a reasonable wish. In the end, the Council will have to rehouse the tenant, as their duty, not as a favour to OP.

If the tenant waited for the mushrooms to have appeared, then it was clearly too late, the damage would have been done. Who would wait until it got that bad anyway?

anselld

Gwendo40 wrote: »

Not sure what all the whining is about. hardly the worst ''nightmare tenant'' tale I've ever heard.

What whining? The OP was asked to give an update and has given the facts.

Gwendo40 wrote: »

Being the competent and professional landlord that I'm sure you are these issues ought to be like water off a ducks back.

Being competent/professional (or not) doesn't change the cost of the damages and doesn't excuse the Tenant's behaviour.