Landlord Tears Down Roof in Ongoing Fight with Tenant

_Penny_Dreadful

The crux of the matter appears to be that Louis Scudder from Kent wanted to let out the home he had purchased under RTB whilst he left the area and left the letting of the property in the hands of a relative. Unbeknownst to Mr Scudder the relative offered Ayesha Kramer a 25 year tenancy with no break clause and rent set at £400pcm with no provision in the agreement for increasing the rent. 

At the end of his tether Mr Scudder took to demolishing the house with his bare hands resulting in the street being evacuated and a standoff with the police. 

Apologies in advance for linking to the Daily Mail. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13791739/Desperate-homeowner-tears-roof-house-tenant.html

HampshireH

That is a very desperate man.

tacpot12

Mr Scudder is likely to go to jail for contempt rather than murder, and be bankrupted, but at least the tenancy will have ended. I commend his resourcefulness and willingness to see it through to its logical conclusion.

theartfullodger

HampshireH said:

That is a very desperate man.

To quote the mail...

elsien

I’d quite like to know (just because I’m nosey) what the personal circumstances are that led him to have to move away and which started all this off on the first place.
And also would like to have been a fly on the wall when said relative was asked to explain themselves.

There’s a reason that people on here say there’s no such thing as an accidental landlord, and to be very clear on what you are doing before you embark on that journey. 

_Penny_Dreadful

tacpot12 said:

Mr Scudder is likely to go to jail for contempt rather than murder, and be bankrupted, but at least the tenancy will have ended. I commend his resourcefulness and willingness to see it through to its logical conclusion.

Allegedly the tenant owes over £10,000 of rent arrears. If that is even remotely true I’m surprised he was never able to evict or never tried to evict citing rent arrears as the ground. 

_Penny_Dreadful

elsien said:

I’d quite like to know (just because I’m nosey) what the personal circumstances are that led him to have to move away and which started all this off on the first place.
And also would like to have been a fly on the wall when said relative was asked to explain themselves.

There’s a reason that people on here say there’s no such thing as an accidental landlord, and to be very clear on what you are doing before you embark on that journey. 

He appears to have been awol from 1999 to 2007 due to a “challenging personal situation.” I think that’s a euphemism for prison but I could be wrong. 

I have no idea how the relative could have effed it so badly. 25 years, what were they thinking?! Let this be a warning to all those people who consider going abroad for a couple of years, letting out their home, and leaving the management of the let to inexperienced relatives. 

Herzlos

My first thought would be that if he bought it under the RTB scheme at least 25 years ago, and it's worth £150k now, he's probably still in profit after a £400/month rent over those years since I'm guessing he'll have paid less than £20k for it and the mortgage will have been paid off.

What's even more bizarre is that apparently the 25 year lease has ended now, and with the arrears I don't know why he's unable to evict her legally. It seems that he's done it illegally by removing her stuff when she was out.

What a mess for everyone involved.

_Penny_Dreadful

Herzlos said:

My first thought would be that if he bought it under the RTB scheme at least 25 years ago, and it's worth £150k now, he's probably still in profit after a £400/month rent over those years since I'm guessing he'll have paid less than £20k for it and the mortgage will have been paid off.

What's even more bizarre is that apparently the 25 year lease has ended now, and with the arrears I don't know why he's unable to evict her legally. It seems that he's done it illegally by removing her stuff when she was out.

What a mess for everyone involved.

I couldn’t follow the maths. We know he exercised his RTB before 1999 and as it had been his childhood home I’m guessing he received the maximum discount. Yet the £400pcm hasn’t been enough to cover the mortgage payments even when he changed it to an interest only mortgage. That doesn’t sound right to me especially given the long period of historically low interest rates in the middle of it all. 

I agree that it’s a total mess for all involved including the neighbours whose homes have been damaged during his rampage. I’d love to see the insurance claim forms for those.