Landlord Vent !!

Somerset

I'm having a bad day !!!

I own a house that I'm renting out through a managing agent. I hear radio phone-in's and stuff about greedy unscrupulous landlords fleecing poor tenants. This is the other side :

Tenant got sick and lost his job one month after moving in. Ok - Benefits involved, not his fault. So I'll be short on rent because housing benefit doesn't cover full rent but that's life . He lives there with his girlfriend.

Tenancy up end of this month. Relative returns keys to agent today. They've done a runner.

Place is full of crap. Agent said it looked like they loaded a car and left what wouldn't fit in. Place is apparently filthy - to the point where it doesn't just need cleaning but redecorating. There's a flea infestation - agent said he was bitten and could actually see the little buggers crawling on his leg.

And yes - they've also left a live rat in a cage. ( RSPCA called by agent )

So it needs fumigating, cleaning, rubbish removing and re-decorating.

There are bad landlords - there are also scum tenants.

Somerset

No one bothered responding. I guess nobody gives a toss about landlords.

elona

We let out a house a few years ago but got fed up with the hassle.

One person contacted local plumber when central heating went on the blink - but could not wait for one day for him to come round - so contacted a person in paper who wanted to charge £300 and then expected us to pay!

No way of proving that she had been ripped off so ended up paying most of it. Grrh!

When she left ended up slinging a bedroom carpet as her toddler had had "accidents "on it.

pandas66

I never saw your post till now. I work for a company and we rent out 6 flats to private and housing benefits receipt tennants. 5 flats have been no trouble in the 11 months of ownership. 1 tennant is an alchoholic, in receipt of h/b and a general trouble maker. His flat has been refurbished 12 months ago to quite a high standard, no rent increase levied for 3 years, problems caused by tennant range from verbal abuse to distruption in the night of him coming home. He took the radiator off the wall 1 weekend to sell and consequently flooded the lower 2 flats. The bill footed by landlord. I sympathise.

Norma_Desmond

Poor rat! - Not only filthy people, but cruel as well!

5bellies_2

My parents used to rent out two large victorian houses as bedsits from the late 70's to the mid 90's. They had tenants in there that were there when they bought the places til when they closed them down - never a problem and always ready to give a hand with redecoration and repairs.

Then the DSS dossers started moving in. EVERY tenant under 30 on the social caused trouble. It was the eventual reason the place was eventally shut down - they just didn't want the hassle anymore.

Wig

Somerset wrote:

No one bothered responding. I guess nobody gives a toss about landlords.

Give people a chance to reply mate.

You make your bed, you lie in it. Why did you not do regular inspections, like when you collect the rent? I know you said there was an agency involved, so why didn't they check? If you didn't agree this as part of their service to you then that's your look out.

You kept the deposit right? so what's the problem? If the deposit was not high enough to cover the damage, that's your fault.

If you, like a lot of landlords (who only think with their wallets) had the benefits chq's made payable to you, then one day you might get a letter demanding a repayment of a previous overpayment, because the chq is made payable to you then you become responsible. The simple way to avoid this is to have the tennant be the name on the chq's then they remain responsible.

If you have only a few properties, you make sure they are being inspected, if no one else does it then you do it yourself. If you have too many properties such that this is impossible, then I have no sympathy whatsoever because you are loaded with money and can afford to pay people to do it for you.

sooz

good luck, i sympathise. most tenants are lovely if you treat them right, others [not meaning to generalise, but in my experience the ones on housing benenfit] can be awful. at least they are out, and once fumigated and cleaned, and de-ratted you can re-let



re. 'you are loaded with money and can afford to pay people to do it for you.' - every circumstance is different. i hate agents, but have been forced to use them when had to move many miles away. they are quick to take money and make promises, but very slow to check anything.

Wig

sooz wrote:

re. 'you are loaded with money and can afford to pay people to do it for you.' - every circumstance is different. i hate agents, but have been forced to use them when had to move many miles away. they are quick to take money and make promises, but very slow to check anything.

So if I get you right you're saying you can't inspect the property if it miles away from where you live.....

Again that's your look out, you either trust your agency to do the inspections, you make it clear to them that you will sue them for property damage (like this) which is obviously due to a lack of proper inspection regime.

If you think you can't handle this, you sell the house and buy one closer to home.

sooz

that's not what i said, but a temporary move of several hundred miles away made it much harder to do inspections.

anyway, on what grounds do you suggest regular inspections, if people are paying - even HB- and causing no bother. tenants should be granted their privacy. what happen to the original poster happened at the end of the tenancy, so regular inspections - on whatever grounds - might not have helped

TheChillPill

Wig wrote:

If you, like a lot of landlords (who only think with their wallets) had the benefits chq's made payable to you, then one day you might get a letter demanding a repayment of a previous overpayment, because the chq is made payable to you then you become responsible. The simple way to avoid this is to have the tennant be the name on the chq's then they remain responsible.

As a former landlord, I can say with some authority that getting the tenant to have the cheques made payable to them is a sure way of making sure you never get a penny. An overpayment is always going to be better than nothing at all.

The properties I had were all rented at £350 per month, but I had to work on the assumption I would only receive £250 per month (housing benefit receipts). Getting the tenants to hand over cash was painfully difficult - and I used to visit them once a week!