I rent out my property to total twats - is this my fault? Probably, but I want to grumble anyway LANDLORDS SUPPORT THREAD

[RattysPicnic]

Right, I realise that being a landlord resides somewhere around Tory Politician/Lazy Female Journalists/Fruit Shoot Marketers on MN but... I wanna whinge about the horrid people in my lovely house. Please let me.

I have utter wankers for tenants. Bad payers with attitude. I've been really, really nice to them. Four months in a row they've paid late and I've just said OK. After four months I asked that they set up a Standing Order for the rent and now they insist they're entitled to a 'payment window' of 15 days. Grrrrrr. They even had the cheek to send me back a copy of a friendly email I had sent saying 'fine' when they paid late last time - on the grounds that it proved it must be OK to pay late every time!

They have a contract btw, they just use the phrase 'notwithstanding the contract' as though that magically melts the lease away. The guy is a Prize A prick.

Anyone else need to let off steam?

Yes, warned my tenant today that this is the final month she is allowed to be late with rent , she's a month behind and has been for a few months now along with being late.

I,m a good landlord, every problem fixed within a few days, no rent rises for 3 years, I'm about £150 under Market rent.... But she's had some big billsnrecently!

So that's ok then, never mind what bills I need to pay!!

Happy to be a right wing , fruit shoot hated landlord with you!!

Can I do that? How/why would they change contract?

Thanks for replying btw.

I'm exasperated with the tenants and dreaming of them leaving. They do have a very sweet DD though so they can't be rotten to the core. Just twats, as I say.

Oh Eve. It's so annoying, isn't it? I've really tried for these people but I think that's made me look weak somehow.

When they were snowed in I organised a tractor to take them food FGS. And was so nice about the rent being late. And so nice about them wanting to do X and Y.

The rent is an obligation. I can manage to be nice for a while, occassionally. But as an entitlement - as these guys are truely convinced they are owed - sheesh. Read the lease!

SugarMousePink - you are right. They will pay and the house is tidy and calm (unlike mine, really).

I actually really liked the woman, she seemed bright and warm and quite on my wavelength when they moved in and they do have this sweet daughter. But the guy is a no-turning-back moron. Alarmingly, they own their own business and his maths, professionalism and judgement are so bad that DH and I assume that he's being so feisty cos the business is going under. Eeeek. Then what?

Five years. This is the third tenancy that I've been involved with (though references checked, tenants found, etc, through an agent).

Do I sound very naive?! I'm not. I just wanted a grumble.

As my house is quite far from where I live now I have an excellent agency looking after it.

They were phoning warning today.

It costs 15% but worth every penny. I have house rented for nearly 10'years now , had about 5-6 people in that time and this is the 1st ever problem.

Oh, good grief dh is going to be a LL when he finds the right property to buy. He's going to use an experienced agent, but it still sounds awful.

Is there anything to recommend it?

Okay, that's great info. thank you

dh isn't good with too much stress , so he's going to use an agent to do everything, at least to begin with. He's also going for a newer property to try and cut down on stuff falling to bits, building wise. He won't be doing any of the work himself if anything does go wrong, so we'll need to find a decent plumber etc.

I wouldn't have considered HB tenants, but there's a family across the road who are HB and they seem okay. Will talk to the agent about that. dh needs a lot of moral support in going down this route, so I'm trying to be positive (in spite of secretly crapping myself about it) lol I just have images of drug dens, roofs being blown off and tenants pooing all over the place!

if you have a mortgage the mortgage company may not agree to you having HB tenants, so your hands may be tied.

There won't be a mortgage so it's just a case of hoping the agents do their job and find someone sane decent.

You sound like a really lovely LL SugarMousePink

That sounds like a very good approach. I always feel sorry for some of the people on this site who have no boiler or proper heating etc. due to a crap LL I think dh will be okay if only he can calm down a bit