My Tenant has done a runner

Bungarm2001

"It didn't occur to me abt getting copies of passport, NI, etc.. at that time. I supposed it's inexperienced. Do you think asking for a copy of some form of ID eg. passport now is too late?"

MIGHT be worth a go...but I seriously doubt you'll get very far unfortunately. The tenants are now perfectly within their rights to refuse. If I were you, I'd try and come to some amicable agreement if you can. You could even try going down the road of real diplomatic pressure...like 'I know Chinese people are honourable and always want to do the right thing....' etc etc Somtimes this kind of approach works!

If you get nowhere, put it down to experience and be more aware next time. Chase your LA (IF you continue to use one) to do all the right checks etc and then YOU check that they have.

I have since found out that China does not hold reciprocal agreements with the UK where court services/convictions etc are concerned...I kinda knew that, but I had a free afternoon once and decided to find out NOT that I would ever consider persuing the unpaid rent that far! It wouldn't be financially worth it. :eek: Did try the guarantor, but like I said, that particular avenue came to a dead end as she had skipped off too. I just put it down to another chapter in the never ending saga of letting to students. :rotfl:

By the way...they weren't the worst ones we let to..we had 3 other Chinese students who we had in another property. They wanted to move into another one we owned because it was bigger...fair enough...they had been model tenants so we thought why not. Toward the end of the tenancy, they did a runner 2 months before the end of the tenancy and we didn't realise until a couple of weeks later.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, when we got in there we found out why they wanted a bigger place..it was clear that they had used the place to import loads of sh!te from China...there were massive broken up containers everywhere! :rotfl: The smell was terrible..kitchen not cleaned for weeks by the look of it too! :eek: As far as we could tell, they'd been importing loads of cheap nasty pottery things, like little dishes you see in Chinese take-aways...that and a load of really nasty plant pots. We found loads of them left behind. Thought we might recoup some of our losses by selling the stuff but even at 5p a pop at a car boot sale they never shifted...!! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Don't get me wrong tho...some of our best student lets have been to Chinese people. One lot kept their elderly neighbour fed and our property absolutely in pristine condition...so, not all bad then! :beer:

SquatNow

static999 wrote: »

I rang credit company a mth ago asking if you can report tenants doing a runner & as you guessed it - NO. Basically, I was advised the only way you can recoup your losses or to "black list" them like how the banks dent our credit record is to bring them to small claims court!

I've been pointing this out for ages... nice of a landlord to finally admit it... Tenants... if you're landlord messes you about and you leave owing rent, you WILL NOT get a bad credit history...!

The only way they could put a mark on your record is to take you to court, and if they've messed you around the judge wont automatically find in their favour. In fact in order to get a bad credit history, they have to take you to small claims court and win, and then have you not pay... if you pay up in small claims court your record is clean anyway!!!

BobProperty

SquatNow wrote: »

I've been pointing this out for ages... nice of a landlord to finally admit it... Tenants... if you're landlord messes you about and you leave owing rent, you WILL NOT get a bad credit history...!

The only way they could put a mark on your record is to take you to court, and if they've messed you around the judge wont automatically find in their favour. In fact in order to get a bad credit history, they have to take you to small claims court and win, and then have you not pay... if you pay up in small claims court your record is clean anyway!!!

Oh dear, the usual half a story from SquatNow. Where've you been, we missed you?
Anyway, the above assumes they turn up to defend the case. Even if you don't have a great case, if the opposition don't turn up you tend to win by default. Also, it's not just small claims you can bring against debtors.
Further, for all tenants that "do a runner", anything they had on credit will start slipping into arrears (unless they made very careful arrangements to tell all their creditors except their landlord where they were moving on to) and that will show up on their credit report. So a "bad credit history" isn't just available because they have a small claims CCJ against them.

static999

SquatNow wrote: »

I've been pointing this out for ages... nice of a landlord to finally admit it... Tenants... if you're landlord messes you about and you leave owing rent, you WILL NOT get a bad credit history...!

The only way they could put a mark on your record is to take you to court, and if they've messed you around the judge wont automatically find in their favour. In fact in order to get a bad credit history, they have to take you to small claims court and win, and then have you not pay... if you pay up in small claims court your record is clean anyway!!!

Squat - you encouraging tenants to not pay their rents? With DPS, surely they are more protected now than before.
I agree there are plenty of non-model LL but there are also plenty of tenants from hell.

I don't know what I was told by the customer service person is correct or not. But, if no one can confirm they have done something, then perhaps it is. I'm not sure what letting agents does if that happens. I would be interested to know.

Bungarm2001

Well I'll tell you that my ex-tenants now have a very bad credit history.

They left no forwarding address so we sent all their mail right back to each company that they owed with a covering letter with our address and noting how much they owed us in rent.

We also pointed out that they obviously had no intention of paying each of them either, since they didn't arrange for forwarding or give us their new address (mobile phone co's, car loan co's etc etc too many others to mention)

We did receive quite a suprising amount of positive feedback from the various other parties they left owing.


Admittedly, their bad credit history wouldn't have probably been affected in any way if we had bothered to persue them thru small claims, but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I believe they are still in the country...rumour has it that one of them had to go to court recently as he was arrested for not turning up for a hearing over non-payment of fines.

static999

Bungarm2001 wrote: »

They left no forwarding address so we sent all their mail right back to each company that they owed with a covering letter with our address and noting how much they owed us in rent.

We also pointed out that they obviously had no intention of paying each of them either, since they didn't arrange for forwarding or give us their new address (mobile phone co's, car loan co's etc etc too many others to mention)

That is a great idea! How did you come up with that!!? :T Definitely a very experienced LL!! :beer:

Last time I saw my student tenant coz she & her man didn't know how to change the light bulb in late Jan (they've been there 5 mths!), she even told me they haven't rang the electricity company to have their names on the bill!! :eek: Just makes me wonder why this country allow people like that to continually enjoy basic necessity like electricity when they deliberately opt not to pay! Worst thing is they are rich students.

stormbuster

my tenants are moving there stuff now, they owe rent can i park my car so they cant leave or change locks while they are moving stuff
stormbuster

PasturesNew

stormbuster wrote: »

my tenants are moving there stuff now, they owe rent can i park my car so they cant leave or change locks while they are moving stuff
stormbuster

Short answer: No.

superfran_uk

Hahahaha :rotfl:

bumpoowee

stormbuster wrote: »

my tenants are moving there stuff now, they owe rent can i park my car so they cant leave or change locks while they are moving stuff
stormbuster

yeah thats a fantastic idea go for it