Benefits agency told me tenant they will only help her if the landlord evicts them

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caprikid1 said:

"get an agent to manage it (so the tenant has to deal with the agent) but of course there will be costs for that."

Pointless getting an agent in this situation to manage it, they have your contact details they will ignore the correct route, even if they do they will still text you.

Getting an agent does not remove you of your responsibilities. As many know the way to avoid this situation for most landlords is not get into it in the first place.

Selling a property with a problem tenant is likely to restrict your market and you will not get the best price.

Not really pointless - you block the tenants number and ignore any contact/tell them to speak to the agent.

Selling at auction, it's up to a buyer to make their enquiries - most likely a professional landlord would only buy a tenanted property this way.

Both are valid options for the OP to consider.

lookstraightahead

Actually you are getting her benefits money, which you are so against.

best thing to do is sell up or move in yourself. Just start the ball rolling.

why does she contact you once a month? I don't think that is a lot but I suppose it depends what it is about.

ftsos

IMPORTANT UPDATE - I have not read everyones replies. So apologies if this contradicts any advice. I just back from visiting the tenant and the reported issue. I took an electrician with me. The reported issue was a faulty cooker. I was lucky, the tenant had a friend around who lives at the neighboring property. And guess what we found? No problem, the cooker works perfectly fine, and so does everything else. I was lucky there were four witnesses including myself.

I am normally time poor, so I just send the electrician/plumber/work-person around if she tells me XYZ is wrong. I insisted on being present this time, and calling an electrician I know or have used before. We were truly shocked.

Had I done as she had wanted, which was for her to call her own electrician, she would have told me it was a problem even if none existed and passed the cost on to me. So, I have lost trust in this person after today's incident. 

When she first moved in, she used to make requests that you wouldn't normally make to a landlord. If its a friend or husband or something then yes. From things like helping her change the curtains to other small things. I turned it down flat, which she didn't like. 

I am no expert, but I am beginning to think that she may have a condition. I have heard of things like munchausen syndrome and Stockholm syndrome, and I am wondering if this is a strange form of seeking attention. I know I am probably clutching at straws and I will never be able to prove it. But so much about her doesn't feel right. Call it gut instinct or intuition. Anyway, whatever it is, it's too late, I am stuck with her until she leaves or eviction. 

Lastly, the last time she accepted responsibility, where he kid stuck a toy in the heater and broke it. But when she called me she never said that. But even after that, I never passed the cost on to her. But I cannot do that anymore. I have asked her to pay the call out fee for the electrician. I can't see why I should be paying for her mistakes. Maybe it make her think and double check before asking for a work-person to come around. 

elsien

Trying it on doesn’t mean that someone has a medical condition.  All it means is that they are pushing their luck, more so when able to get away with it. No need to get carried away. 

canaldumidi

So now you send her your electrician's bill for a needless call out.

Chandler85

I'm sure there are loads of great tenants out there who don't cause landlords problems, but frankly there are so many that are PITA with demands, being a landlord must be a nightmare for some.

Someone at my work was demanding an emergency plumber come to unblock their kitchen sink where I work today!  They refused to even consider using a bathroom sink, a bath etc to wash anything or even do anything about it themselves.  I've heard the same with fencing that a tenant's own kids have damaged, needs fixing immediately as it isn't safe for their kids to play outside in their garden now.  It's to easy to ring and get someone else to fix their problem and blame the world sometimes.

ftsos

Guys, when I was younger, I made some foolish mistakes and I suffered. It was my own doing. I was proper homeless. But luckily I was relatively young and single and didn't have dependents then. The only reason I am telling you all this is because I try to be human and sympathetic if I can. 

When I met her, she came to view, she came across as helpless, I felt bad for her. She had never rented (according to her), and she recently found her self in this situation of divorce and young child. I may be a mug, but I believe in helping if I can. And I am not pretending to be saint, she was going to pay me as tenant. But within 2 months, not even that, the way she was, you know the way someone carries themselves, for her it changed. It was more demanding. 

Someone above wrote, one call a month is bad, but it's not that bad! Really? If think of a very bad property, I have lived in the UK and lived in various places outside the UK, and if even if the property was bad, I would not expect to call the landlord once a month. Imo once a month is a disaster. To give you perspective, I have another property (btw only have two before someone paints a picture of me), which has had a tenant for almost 5 years now, with 3 children, and I don't get a call once a year. The house she is living in has had tenants for 15 years. Before I moved abroad for a while, I lived there for almost 18 months myself, so I have an idea of the good and bad. If I was to average it out, we did not get a call once a year from that same property. 

I have tried to think of it every way I can. Even when I factor in age, wear and tear, you know the usual stuff, it still doesn't mean we should get that many calls. She caused two floods to the tenants downstairs who don't belong to me! The tenants downstairs don't speak to her. 

Lastly, I mentioned I was onemployed, so someone said I must have enough free time. I wish it was so simple. When I say I am unemployed, I mean income less from a traditional job or business. But because I work for my self I work 70 or so hours most week from home because I am developing a tech product. So, I am actually time poor. So, that's what unemployed to me means.

One other thing. I am not against benefits tenants. I saw a comment along those lines. I was until recently very sympathetic, because almost every property ad I used to see used to say no DSS. So, I am no saint, but I am also not a monster. I have probably made mistakes with her. But it still should not equate to this many calls and this amount of issues.

I do not understand the benefits system. Which department is responsible for what and how it all works. But talking to others, I know, if she finds any private property, the benefits office will cover most of her rent to a limit. BUT, I think she "may" be trying for what we use call council houses/flats. As far as I know, those are almost non existent these days.

She once said she was "under their care" and that they have responsibility to her. I didn't make much of it at the time. Later I thought about it, I thought maybe she has a special situation you hear about. I suppose none of that really matters.

If she wants a flat, I told her tell me, and I will try and work with her so we both get what we want. I just need her to upfront about it. I will put my morals/ethics on the side for a moment, and if we can both get closure - then I am willing to see if I can help in some way, so long as the constant issues stop.

Anyway, I am done. Thank you to all for listening. It's almost like seeing a priest/shrink. My therapy  couch

 

Slithery

ftsos said:

If she wants a flat, I told her tell me, and I will try and work with her so we both get what we want. I just need her to upfront about it. I will put my morals/ethics on the side for a moment, and if we can both get closure - then I am willing to see if I can help in some way, so long as the constant issues stop.

Your only option going forward is to start the eviction process. First because it's the only way of helping her get what she wants (a council huose/flat). And second because if she decides not to work with you then you'll want her out anyway.
As I mentioned earlier though, a legal eviction is likely to take at least  a couple of years. At least you will be getting rent payments though, if she doesn't pay then you can use a S8 instead of a S21 meaning she will have made herself 'intentionally homeless' and the council won't help.

deannagone

This may be unhelpful, but.., if you can't go round there yourself, do you have a fairly knowledgeable friend you can give a tenner a time to do an initial visit to find out if there is an actual problem.  She may have a mental health condition that makes her a bit more needy, she may just be lonely and isolated, she may have no real ability to see the consequences for others, I have known people with mental health conditions like this.  Who knows? But why isn't what you need to know really, what you need is a solution!

So, agreed, you need to cut down on needless costs.  Write a letter explaining that if a repair need is reported by her, but it is found no repair need exists or its caused by the tenant the tenant must pay the cost.  As said, you could back this up by having a mate call round initially to make sure there is a genuine problem that needs fixing.  

You could possibly ask her if she has a support worker of any kind, and ask for their contact details and see if they will help with this situation (if she has one).

AlexMac

Returning to your original posts... your tenant is  correct in that, bizarrely, the Local Council do require a person who presents as homeless to be just that- not merely threatened with Notice to Quit, but in receipt of a Court Order and Baliff eviction.  

I too found this hard to believe, but when one past tenant explained this to me, as she had the prospect of a Council house for her and her child, I helped her out- in this case easier as she'd been a model tenant. 

I took Court Action, secured a Baliff order (then told them to hold off) and she got a house.  10-15 years later she is in secure housing with reliable new partner and, I think, her child has prospered.

Your tenant is clearly needy, although you too seem to find the stresses of being a landlord difficult. 

So you need to consider what to do; punish her for irritating you, or facilitate her and her child moving on to a new life?

Everyone deserves a break- especially her child is the innocent in this scenario.

I know from past experience what secure housing can do for a family; in the 1940's and 50's my mum was homeless, my father a bit unreliable, and we probably had 30-40 precarious temporary accommodations up to when I was 4 years old.  We then entered into a round of hostels, Homeless Persons' Units and the like until, when I was aged six, we got a Council flat.

It transformed my life; only a walk-up tenement block in Brixton, but it meant I got stability, an education, a decent job and eventually, relative prosperity.  In fact we're now really comfortable.

Maybe you have the power to help the child on to a similar trajectory?