Rental property damaged

PasturesNew

There's a difference between "rogue landlord, repeatedly broke all the rules, often in many properties over a few years" and "clueless clump c0cked up with his one house" when it comes to the law. Both are in trouble, it's a question of how easy the landlord is to deal with to sort it all out... repeat offenders eventually get the full weight of the law thrown at them because they're repeat offenders. Clueless chumps just get a huge dressing down, some fines, embarrassment and told to "stop being an idiot".

Peter_Williams

PasturesNew wrote: »

No. They just lock it up and refuse to allow it to be rented to anybody else until the work's been done/inspected.

They expect the landlord to come crawling out of the woodwork and begrudgingly either give up being a landlord, or fixing the problems to legal specs.

Really?
So what's to stop the landlord just selling the property and keeping the money? (after the council have done the hard / expensive work of evicting the tenants).
Sounds like the council doing the landlord a favour.

In this case they have kids, so the council will need to rehouse them too.

PasturesNew

Peter_Williams wrote: »

Well they've obviously stopped burning things now, as it's been warm weather.
But yes, once it gets cold again no doubt they'll start again.

The house is originally had an open fire place (traditional terraced Victorian house).
That was bricked up, but obviously chimney stack was left in place. I don't know about the cowl etc. I'm guessing there was an updraft of sorts or they wouldn't have burnt so much.

Luckily they haven't knocked through to make fireplaces in the bedrooms.

Now you've visited and seen what they're done, the balance of responsibility is in the landlord's court because you've seen it .... even though they did it and it wasn't expected/normal.

It now exists.... and, with all fires/chimneys, you have to think "what if" - you can't guess at the state of the chimney when nobody's ever checked/cleaned it. There could easily be a chimney fire there this autumn, if it's not been swept and they're burning god knows what in the grate!

PasturesNew

Peter_Williams wrote: »

Really?
So what's to stop the landlord just selling the property and keeping the money? (after the council have done the hard / expensive work of evicting the tenants).
Sounds like the council doing the landlord a favour.

In this case they have kids, so the council will need to rehouse them too.

I don't know the nitty gritty of it, just what I've seen them do on the telly.

The council might need to rehouse them - but that can mean anything.... and, do they even have a right to live in the UK? That is the landlord's responsibility too.

edgex

Peter_Williams wrote: »

My relative is overseas and I have agreed to keep an eye on his house, that he lets out.
Just went around to check and the occupiers have trashed it.

Peter_Williams wrote: »

No letting agent.
The landlord's been doing it all cash.

From what I can gather, the rent has only recently stopped being paid, because the tenants went to my cousin's workplace to pay him cash. But he hasn't visited the house. So the damage was done when the rent was being paid.

But now it seems the lack of electricity has prompted the tenants to stop paying the cash and let me visit.

hmmmmm
none of that makes sense, does it?

Peter_Williams

Well that's interesting news about the council doing the eviction.
The fireplace won't be a big issue to sort. Just a few bricks and cement. The doors were cheap anyway. He won't be bothered about the doors.

I think the initial shock at the situation made me panic a bit. Plus the legal side.
But actually, there's no structural damage. We could tidy the house up in a day or two really.

Maybe I'll the tenants can keep the rent safe and then pay the landlord what's owed (in cash) when he gets back. That keeps me out of it.

lookstraightahead

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's a difference between "rogue landlord, repeatedly broke all the rules, often in many properties over a few years" and "clueless clump c0cked up with his one house" when it comes to the law. Both are in trouble, it's a question of how easy the landlord is to deal with to sort it all out... repeat offenders eventually get the full weight of the law thrown at them because they're repeat offenders. Clueless chumps just get a huge dressing down, some fines, embarrassment and told to "stop being an idiot".

Sounds to me he knew exactly what he was doing - not clueless at all.

Peter_Williams

edgex wrote: »

hmmmmm
none of that makes sense, does it?

The landlord is related to me and my cousin.
The tenant's have been giving my cousin the cash, when the landlord is away.
Until the electricity issue.

Grenage

This has to be a windup.

davidmcn

Peter_Williams wrote: »

So what's to stop the landlord just selling the property and keeping the money?

Who would buy it? The property is (officially) uninhabitable, the closure notice appears on the local searches, so whoever buys it also won't be able to do anything with the property until they've fixed the problems.