Tenants not paid the rent in three months

MultiFuelBurner

How does what they owe you compare to the £2100 you owe them for not lodging their deposit correctly?

If it's anywhere near even and they intend to leave perhaps count yourself lucky and chalk this one up to experience? 

saajan_12

Jezzb123 said:

Thanks everyone. I've read at length re deposit, it was £700 , which we have now given back before the section 21 notice was served. So I do understand that they can take me to court for three times that amount. 
However, main question is do I  agree to their offer of a payment plan over 8 months, or seek a possession order now rather than wait until 26th July ? I've read that the court process is at least 3 - 4 months and if if I get awarded I have slim chance of getting any arrears & costs back ? Thanks

Deposit non protection - yes they can claim 1-3x the deposit. I expect it'll be somewhere in the middle since it wasn't a minor paperwork error, as you didn't protect at all, but at the same time you didn't try to withold the amount and returned promptly.

Possession order - Well if you wait 3 weeks, you'll be 3 weeks behind in the process of getting the possession order and new, paying tenants, ie potentially lose 3 weeks rent. How does that compare to the £3-400 cost of applying to court potentially unnecessarily?

I guess you're thinking they'll follow the payment plan if you don't go to court.. but will they still continue for the 7 months after they move out? Could you mitigate this by speaking to them first to explain you're happy for them to move out on x and follow y payment plan, but for formalities you need to serve the paperwork in case anything changes. 

[Deleted User]

MultiFuelBurner said:

How does what they owe you compare to the £2100 you owe them for not lodging their deposit correctly?

If it's anywhere near even and they intend to leave perhaps count yourself lucky and chalk this one up to experience? 

Indeed, the best thing here would probably be to just accept you made a mistake and agree to tenants payment plan, if it's much more than £2100.

If you accept you owe them that and just write off any outstanding rent, they won't be in rent arears anymore so the council might be able to help them.

propertyrental

Forget the payment plan - the tenants will start paying and then stop. The fact that they owe 3 months rent speaks volumes.

You need to go for possession and evict asap, claiming back the arrears at the same time.

You can use the S8 (I assume Ground 8?)

AND use the S21 (belt and braces) since you have returned the deposit in full. I assume you've complied with the other 83 requirements. See

S21 checklist (Is a S21 valid?)

Yes, they could claim the deposit penalty. Court is unlikely to award them the full 3 x deposit as you've now returned the deposit. Maybe 2 xs?

Robbo66

Any compensation would be offset by the arears so there is every chance you would not have to give them anything but as the tenant isn't paying you're losing rent anyway. If you had already served the Sec 8 why did you serve the Sec 21 when you could have just started the court procedure after the 2 week expiry of the section 8. All you've done is complicate matters. There is no point in serving more notices just get the court paperwork submitted and pay the court fee, any costs can be added to the claim and this will all go towards off setting any deposit breach compensation.

Sarah1Mitty2

[Deleted User] said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

How does what they owe you compare to the £2100 you owe them for not lodging their deposit correctly?

If it's anywhere near even and they intend to leave perhaps count yourself lucky and chalk this one up to experience? 

Indeed, the best thing here would probably be to just accept you made a mistake and agree to tenants payment plan, if it's much more than £2100.

If you accept you owe them that and just write off any outstanding rent, they won't be in rent arears anymore so the council might be able to help them.

Good advice, just draw a line under it.

theartfullodger

MultiFuelBurner said:

But yes you are quite right 1p/1day section 8 g10. (But wow what narcissistic LL would use that)

Thank you for your kind words: The one and only time I used this (well, Scottish equivalent) thereafter all rent payments were in full & on time..

Thought I'd grown out of my narcissus phase....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

- ain't got the looks no more....

MultiFuelBurner

Very good lol