Inventory items missing of over £6k and deposit is 2k

_Penny_Dreadful

propertyrental said:

_Penny_Dreadful said:

BFYZ said:

Hello,

I am a landlord and after about 13 months of tenancy, my tenants have left by just leaving the key under the door mat.

Property was let out through an agent on fully managed basis with inventory done on check in and check out on fully furnished basis.

I have few point that I would your input on:

a) Tenants have left and owed 2.5 months of rent which they didn’t pay although it’s covered via Goodlord Policy that my agent took out at the time of inception of the tenancy. Don’t know how long will that take to come and I’m having difficult paying mortgage for past 3 months. Any experiences..??

b) There is furniture missing namely, bed along with mattress(£1600), coffee table along with 3 side tables(£1200), wardrobe(£600), 5 seater sofa set(£900), another metal bed frame(£200) with mattress (£300), dining table(£800), large living room mirror (180) and left with few damaged walls and 2 doors. Who is liable for this if deposit was only 2k and the damage is in access of 6k

c) I had buildings insurance and another insurance though agent to cover legal expense and rent protection but none of these cover contents. I was never told to add this cover or did any research in the beginning to identify needs etc. Do I have any recourse?

d) Did my Lettings Agent fail at any point on which I can pursue them for the missing items.

Short story of the tenancy is that the couple who rented it out from us never actually lives there and illegally sub let it to someone they knew and there are about 600-1000 unopened letters which I recovered from property after taking possession that were mostly demanding debt from the tenants. I since sent them all back to the sender.

Any help would be much appreciated. 

b) That might be the cost of those items brand new but it’s not their current value and you’re not entitled to betterment. For example, say the mattress cost £1000, had a life expectancy of 10 years and is now 8 years old, you would only be entitled to claim £800 for the mattress. 

My maths is terrible but even I can see that looks wrong. An 8 year old mattress with a life expectancy of 10 years, has only 2 years life left.

Remaining value is 2/10ths  (1/5th) of £1000 = £200, not £800.

Apologies, when i was working it out I was trying to say the mattress was 2 years old, on the basis that most of the OP's furniture seems relatively new, and had 8 years of life left rather than the mattress being 8 years old.

SavingPennies_2

If they were short of money and the furniture was nice, I'd bet on them having sold them for a quick buck rather than moving them to a new place (they may well have moved to another furnished property with another unsuspecting landlord). If this was very recent is it worth a bit of investigative trawling of local Facebook groups etc to see if you can trace them that way..?

macman

If the stuff left in the property belongs to the sub-tenants, rather than the tenants, then I do not see that the LL has any duty of care to it, since he has no contract with them.

BFYZ

Thank you very much for everyone who contributed and shared their input. 

I have been liaising with EA for them to take this further but due to holidays season, everything has been delayed. I got the possession on 18th December which I was told by EA that tenants sent them email stating that they have left the keys under the door mat, nothing else.

Since then I have been in the property and had a thorough clean etc. I hope to take this up with redress but I had a detailed discussion with this Letting Agent (EA) with no prospects of recovering missing items unless I go through small claims court.

Buildings insurance doesn’t cover any contents whatsoever as few of you have asked me to check. 

Agent will assist in reporting theft to police by providing all the necessary documents.

They moved in and apparently started housing benefit claim through local council as even council is now chasing them up for about £4.3k worth of debt.

This happened recently and I have learnt a lesson hard way and decided to draw a line under it and move on. 

They are habitual thieves and I’ll dig out more info in coming days and might public all details after discussing with police to make sure they don’t go around fooling others the same way. 

Will update later. Thanks again

anselld

You need to understand what went wrong with the referencing system.  There should have been a previous landlord reference.  There should have been a credit reference (any CCJs?).  There should have been an employment reference confirming acceptable income to be able to afford rent.  If any or all of these have been ignored without your consent then that is a matter for redress against the agent.
To help future potential Landlords avoid these you should pursue a CCJ against the T even if there is no realistic prospect of recovery of funds.  It is minimal cost to apply via MCOL.

Robbo66

pinkshoes said:

BFYZ said:

Agents had an email that it was being left under the mat outside the main door. They have since gone inside and it’s pretty much empty apart from the garage where some of their stuff is still left behind. I presume that would now go to the skip. 

I’m appalled that only a minimal deposit was taken against the fully furnished property. I might have to take this matter to courts as a civil dispute with the help of police report. 

As the owner of the house, it was up to you to decide a deposit amount that you wanted and agree this with the agent. The agent works for you.  - Incorrect
You also needed to take out CONTENTS insurance for your own belongings in the house as you were renting it furnished e.g. if there was a fire, you would need to claim these on your own insurance along side the buildings insurance for anything fitted that buildings insurance covers.

In theory you could report the theft of the furniture to the police, and then take the TENANTS to court (the people listed on the tenancy) for the cost of replacing these. You would need to claim the second hand replacement cost (so 13 months of the tenancy plus the few months you had them) as you cannot claim their new value.

As for their belongings, then contact the original tenant and state that they need to collect their belongings otherwise you will dispose of them in 28 days time. If there is anything of value then perhaps sell it and put the money aside. If the tenants sublet it, they will then have to find the people they sublet it to.

deposits are capped at a maximum of 5 Weeks rent, when deciding to rent the property out the Op should have either replaced furniture with cheaper or taken landlords contents insurance

saajan_12

BFYZ said:

Hello,

I am a landlord and after about 13 months of tenancy, my tenants have left by just leaving the key under the door mat.- when did the fixed term end, and what did your contract say about notice (if anything?) If its an SPT then you could also argue rent for a further 1 tenancy period, treating their email as notice (though you may be better off treating it as a mutual termination and getting access to start reletting)

Property was let out through an agent on fully managed basis with inventory done on check in and check out on fully furnished basis.

I have few point that I would your input on:

a) Tenants have left and owed 2.5 months of rent which they didn’t pay although it’s covered via Goodlord Policy that my agent took out at the time of inception of the tenancy. Don’t know how long will that take to come and I’m having difficult paying mortgage for past 3 months. Any experiences..?? - depends on the terms of your policy.. eg whether they can go through some efforts to recover from the tenant first etc. Has the agent started the claim process? Do you need to do anything eg send a rent payments account? Check and chase the insurer to fulfill those terms. The mortgage would be your problem, and unrelated. 

b) There is furniture missing namely, bed along with mattress(£1600), coffee table along with 3 side tables(£1200), wardrobe(£600), 5 seater sofa set(£900), another metal bed frame(£200) with mattress (£300), dining table(£800), large living room mirror (180) and left with few damaged walls and 2 doors. Who is liable for this if deposit was only 2k and the damage is in access of 6k - are those the new purchase prices? You wouldn't be due those, but instead a % of the value accounting for the age and lost remaining lifespan as of the tenancy end date.
The tenant is liable - you'd have to send a LBA and then court claim, but tbh unlikely you'll recover much from them. 

c) I had buildings insurance and another insurance though agent to cover legal expense and rent protection but none of these cover contents. I was never told to add this cover or did any research in the beginning to identify needs etc. Do I have any recourse? - no monetary recourse unless you had a contract for advice too (which is unlikely) or they made incorrect statements that contents insurance was included. Otherwise this would just come down to poor service, so you might not recommend them, but it was up to you to check and ask for the right insurance. 

d) Did my Lettings Agent fail at any point on which I can pursue them for the missing items.- depends on what they did and what they were supposed to do per your contract with them. If the items were taken on the last day, then more inspections wouldn't have helped. Better references of the tenant's past would be an indicator but not a guarantee of their future actions. 

Short story of the tenancy is that the couple who rented it out from us never actually lives there and illegally sub let it to someone they knew and there are about 600-1000 unopened letters which I recovered from property after taking possession that were mostly demanding debt from the tenants. I since sent them all back to the sender.

Any help would be much appreciated. 

BFYZ said:

I know it’s my fault that I didn’t take out contents insurance but for some odd reason, I was of the view that the agent’s insurance would cover it as in Damage to the property cover was included but unfortunately it doesn’t. It only covers building and fixtures side of it. 

References were done and came fine for both husband and wife so not a red flag - what exactly does 'came fine' mean. There's no universal pass / fail, you could specify certain criteria eg min income, defaults, ask specific questions of the last LL etc. 
although they did mention 1-2 defaults before hand but none came on references hence insurance company allowed the insurance to stay in place. - well if they mentioned them, then were you not concerned by 2 defaults? That could mean they failed to pay 2 people they agreed to, yet you're expecting them to pay you rent. Also if they didn't show up on the references, did you check why? eg if certain addresses were missed off, there could be more you're missing. 
I literally bought everything in summer brand new and for a matter of fact, still paying for it on finance. Rented is out in October which was about 3-4 months on. 

I guess only route left if to go to small claims court and start a claim on tenants. This is what has been recommended to me by Lettings agent unless someone can show me another way of dealing with it. 

Comments in line.. your recourse is against the tenants via small claims court, but 
a) adjust the amounts to the actual damages at depreciated values
b) trace their forwarding address (presumablly they didn't leave one)
c) decide whether you'll actually recover anything and whether its worth throwing good money after bad on filing costs, bailiffs, etc