1 day late paying overdue rent/rent arrears, now had a letter promising taking action to repossess

[Deleted User]

gemmajenkins0208 wrote: »

I do apologise if I'm coming off as anything other than appreciative of all of your help.

I'll be honest, I wasn't prepared for this, but I know I needed to hear the cold, hard truth.

But I thank you all for all of your input on this.

Best start packing up to move back to me mums I guess...

Why would you start packing up and move to your mum's? You haven't even been served notice yet and even then the notice on its own doesn't end your tenancy. Read the sticky at the top of the board called Tenancies in Eng/Wales before you go making a bad situation worse.

princeofpounds

Where do I stand re: the letter and any potential action? Can I stop/reverse any potential action provided I always pay in full and on time from now onwards?

Whilst I agree with the others that your payment history is poor, I'd like to answer some of your questions.

The first point is a reiteration of a point above - this is the agent's advice to the landlord. The landlord will make the final decision (although if they are amateurs they may just do what the agent says) on an eviction. It is not a straightforward choice - evicting you will cost them money and lost rent. The agent is always likely to be slightly more keen than the landlord as it normally means an extra tenant find fee. If they can guarantee that you pay in full and on time from now on, it wouldn't make sense - but they tried that already and you failed! Now they may take the view that with such an unreliable payer they are bound to lose serious money eventually anyway. Or your late payments might cause them onward problems paying their mortgage, which is really serious. Personally I wouldn't yet evict you if I had surplus liquidity to manage the late payments, but I'd be tempted.

Second point - the letter doesn't mean anything legally. The process doesn't start until you receive a formal notice to quit, either a Section 21 or Section 8.

Section 21 is basically a notice to end the tenancy after the end of the fixed period. So if you get one of these, you will stay in the property until the fixed period is over (if it is already over and you are on a statutory periodic 'rolling' tenancy then that can be a short time). The advantage to the landlord is that there is no defence against this notice IF it is correctly served (that's a big if - details matter!); a court will enforce it eventually if you don't leave voluntarily.

Section 8 is different. It potentially allows you to be evicted earlier, due to breaching the tenancy agreement. The critical difference is that it requires grounds for eviction to be specified. One of those grounds is regular late payment of rent (Ground 11), and potentially others may apply. Some of these grounds are 'discretionary', meaning that you can mount a defence and a judge will have to decide if it is reasonable or not. That's subjective decision to some extent, and hard to call in your case - your late payments have not been large in magnitude but have been exceptionally regular.

Lots of landlords do not like to use Section 8 for cases like yours because they are not assured of success and the property/rent is not being damaged too much in the meantime. So my guess is that a Section 21 is more likely - you both go your separate ways at the end of the current contractual fixed term. How far away is that?

You do not need to do anything in a legal sense until you receive one of those notices, so no panic. If/when you do, you can post here to decide how to move forward - you have a few options, although ultimately you will have to move on.

It's quite possible this is just to apply further pressure to get you paying regularly again, but hard to tell now as you are quite far down the road before you get to legal stuff. If you are really keen to stay, then your best bet to resolve the situation would be to apologise, go light on the excuses, and offer to pay rent early to get meaningfully ahead of the schedule rather than behind.

princeofpounds

Lover_of_Lycra wrote: »

Why would you start packing up and move to your mum's? You haven't even been served notice yet and even then the notice on its own doesn't end your tenancy. Read the sticky at the top of the board called Tenancies in Eng/Wales before you go making a bad situation worse.

This +1!!!

It doesn't work like that!

Stay, carry on with your life, pay your rent, and take the time to educate yourself. I think people have given you a hard enough time on here that we'll be helpful if you have any more questions.

NewShadow

gemmajenkins0208 wrote: »

I didn't realise less than half the time I've been here and being maybe 2 weeks late at most counted as a consistent poor payment history...

Great...

:rotfl::rotfl:

I've been in my current house for 7 years - thereabouts - I've been late twice.

Both times I knew it was going to happen and contacted the landlord in advance to apologise/let him know and come to an arrangement to pay what I owed.

You signed a legal contract... it's not like borrowing a fiver from a mate then forgetting to go to the cashpoint!

gemmajenkins0208

princeofpounds - we are on an assured shorthold tenancy I believe, moved in Aug 2017 and had a 6 month thing to begin with so now it's just rolling month to month I believe.

AdrianC

gemmajenkins0208 wrote: »

princeofpounds - we are on an assured shorthold tenancy I believe, moved in Aug 2017 and had a 6 month thing to begin with so now it's just rolling month to month I believe.

So the landlord would need to give you two months written s21 notice - from the start of a rental period. And they'd have to have all their ducks firmly in a row for it to be valid - gas safety cert, deposit protected, dps paperwork provided in time.

Then, when that expires, they can start on the several-month road towards getting a court to grant them possession.
Then they can actually hire somebody to physically make you move out.

Of course, any court and enforcement costs incurred in that process would be reclaimable from you...

Yes, you need to change your attitude towards paying what you owe.
No, it's not "Hello, Mum, make my bed up today!".

But if your finances are so hand-to-mouth, then perhaps it's worth you taking a bigger look at your financial life, and taking this as the nudge to sort yourself out before it's too late?

SneaksyWhippet

If you want to stay, you can always try your best to convince the landlord/agent that late payments won't be an issue again in future as your circumstances have changed, etc etc. Even if they do start proceedings to evict, you'll have a while before you actually need to go.


However the bottom line is that the landlord can currently issue an eviction notice for no reason whatsoever, if they want to. By having a poor payment record you've given them reason to want to, regardless of whether you think it is justified/fair/proportional, and perhaps this last time was simply the final straw for them.


Your best hope is to beg/plead/explain that circumstances have changed and ensure you stick to paying on time from now on. If they do give you another chance, I wouldn't expect them to extend that if you're late again.

pmlindyloo

Reading your previous thread about when you first moved out of your mum's house you were only working part time and your partner was looking for a job.

What is your current situation work wise? I note you are getting some help with UC which suggests that you are on a low income?

Rent is a priority debt (as is council tax) which means that there may be consequences if you do not pay. Payments for these should really be done through a direct debit so that you do not get into debt in the future.

Setting up a direct debit for your rent may be enough to convince/persuade the landlord that you do recognise that rent is a priority.

Perhaps you need some help with budgeting? Could you post on the Debtfree Wannabe forum?

It is always difficult when you are first living away from home and it may be that you are financially unable to do that for the moment.

Apologies if this is not your situation.

yksi

I don't think you've really understood what your late payments actually meant to someone else. Has it occurred to you that maybe they struggled to pay their mortgage because your rent was late? Not every landlord is a big moneybags rich person and the banks still expect to be paid on time. I have personally seen people who could not afford their groceries because they'd been laid off and then the tenant didn't pay, they definitely weren't well off, and here's you moaning that the agent is being unfair to you for finally losing patience with your broken promises. I know that people don't have a lot of sympathy for landlords, but it's not like they can just sell the property instantly if the rent doesn't turn up. In the meantime they can be stuck without any money to feed their own families.

Rent is supposed to be paid on time. Every time. Not "most months" or more than half the time, and not on whatever day suits you to afford it. But I guess now you're now learning how important it is to keep a good relationship with the people who control the roof over your head.

Rent needs to come first in your priority list. I think it would help to get some help with budgeting so that you get into the habit of ringfencing that rent money so that it can't be used elsewhere and always gets paid on time. You'll feel more in control with things once you have some structure to your finances.

markin2

It may be best just to move back home and save up for 6 months so you will always have a buffer, So you wont ever have to be late on the next rental.