to ask for good luck vibes as in court tomorrow evicting non-paying tenant

[fatnfrumpy]

I am so stressed- have been since Oct when our tenant decided if he didn,t pay any rent the council will rehome him!
I have no idea what will happen in court tomorrow. Our solicitor says tenant will be a no show and if evicted will sit there till baliffs appointed by the court go round in another TWO weeks.
All the while he is there not paying to use our brand new washer/dryer, dishwasher, fridge/freezer, oven etc.
Nor paying any bills or council tax.
We have worked hard/paid tax all our working lives for some 25+ years.
Got some inheritance sadly as my DM died and as the banks are paying peanuts we decided to invest it in a flat on a buy to let mortage for our pension/childrens inheritance etc.
Bought smart flat, bought new carpets, kitchen, bathroom. Top notch with all built in appliences etc
Hoped to attract a professional couple as two bedroom near station to commute to London , all good!
Agent finds us a tenant- newly seperated man in 40's who needs two bedrooms/garden so he can have son at the weekend. Earns 40k as chef in town. no references as he lived with wife before.
Trusted agent to check his salary etc.
They move him in whilst we are on holiday, before we even had a chance to meet him.
He says he has problems with direct debit with OUR bank so his first 3 months rent are LATE. Don't worry he says! we accept his offer of bank transfer in future.
Next 3 months rent are LATE but he now offers to pay us cash.
Neighbours complain he is threatening them with violence, stealing their parcels ( signed for a laptop and sportsbag in their name but said he hadn't . Police called nothing done!)
and drug dealing from our beautiful flat!
Police have staked out our flat from neighbours flat for days on end, but not arrested him, even though he has up to 30 visitors a day there for less than ten minutes!
Asked neighbours if they have seen underage girls going in our flat!
Turns out when I checked, he doesn't work, hasnt paid any bills,gas meter has been changed to a prepaid card meter, council tax are after him etc etc
In court tomorrow to evict him as he has not paid any rent since last October although we have a mortage to pay!!!
Turns out he has been getting £560 per month HOUSING BENEFIT from last APRIL He has told the court he NEEDS to be evicted by bailiffs 30days after the court date otherwise HE has made HIMSELF homeless and won't get a council house!!!!!!
He is not from the UK nor from the EU so how can that be?
I am dreading tomorrow especially not knowing what state our flat is in as we have not been allowed in their since October as we were HASSLING him!
Please send me good vibes!
Thanks

[MadamFolly]

You won't get any money out of him unless you pursue through the courts, even then you may not get anything. Definitely sue the lettings agent. Did he pay a deposit?

[fatnfrumpy]

Tenant phoned the court this morning to ask what time he had to be there- 3.30pm.
The judge waited till 4.15pm for him but he was a no- show.
Court papers show he receives £871 per month in JSA and HB yet he is Algerian.
He owes us to date £4,789.00 so now has a CCJ however our solicitor says he will not pay it voluntarily so to enforce it we would have to get him made bankrupt.
He has until 16th April to move out. Then we have to go back to court to get court appointed baliffs.
I asked the solicitor if I could go round and see him after court. She said I still had to give him notice to inspect the flat but if I asked to be let in and he agreed that would be fine.
My husband refused to come with me, thinks we should just leave him alone in case he got violent etc.
ig row and I went on my own.
Rang the security entrance three times, no answer. So left my hand on it and he answered.
I asked if I could come in and he buzzed me in. I had my keys but didn't use them.
He stood in the doorway and I asked him if I could come in and he said no. He said this is my flat and I have rights.
I walked down the stairs telling him I was giving him 24 hrs notice and I would be back with my keys tomorrow. He then let me in.
The stench of skunk was repellant! The flat is absolutly disgusting. Couldn't even see the kitchen work surfaces.
The heating was on full blast and all the curtains shut with all the lights on. Yet he is not paying his bills.
He looked unkempt and dirty.
He said he did,nt come to court because he was embarrased, we are decent people and he has hit a bad time, he is owed £70,000 from the restaurant he works at as a Michelin starred chef!!!!!!!!
He will pay us back if we let him stay, he has no where to go and is ill.
I was shaking when I left and had to go and buy 10 cigs ( I gave up a year ago!)
So it remains to be seen if he will pay us the money. He seems to think if he pays it he can stay?
We won't hold our breath I guess we will be back in court end of April.

[fatnfrumpy]

How strange why has this posted twice?

[zoobaby]

Good grief! Awful! Never mind his empty promises. You have to get him out by the correct channels.

[WeAreEternal]

What a low life scumbag.

I really feel for you op.

I am also a landlord and have had my own fair share of crappy tenants.

IIWY I would definitely pursue a case against the letting agents as they obviously did not to the proper checks.

We once had a single mother with a toddler rent a flat from us.
She seemed lovely, she worked full time in a newsagents and was studying part time to become a dental nurse.
She lived in our flat for two years no trouble. We did routine inspections every six months and although the place was a little untidy and always l

[kinkyfuckery]

What scum!

Am so sorry this has been such a bad experience for you. I really hope you manage to get money out of him (and the letting agent!) and are able to do the flat up again and find a proper tenant.

[WeAreEternal]

Sorry accidentally posted too soon.


.. And it always looked like it needed a good hover and a dust she seemed to be taking care of the place.
Then we stared to have trouble. She stopped paying the rent on time, it was always late or short and was never contactable (it turned out that her phone had been cut off)
Then when we asked to come check on the flat for the routine inspection she ignored requests to contact her to arrange a time, so we gave her notice and went round. But we couldn't get in as she had the keys in the door. This happened 14 times over several weeks.
By this point she was starting to owe us a good amount of money and as her tenancy was almost up for renewal we decided to serve her notice. Still with no response, apart from the fact that she stopped paying rent at all.
She stayed in the flat for two months before just leaving one day, just as we were getting ready to take her to court.

The place was a mess, she abandoned quite a bit of broken furniture and random junk as well as lot and lots if rubbish, lose all over the floor. The work surfaces in the kitchen were disgusting and there were old baby bottle on the floor with mouldy milk in them as well as a huge amount of very old stinking nappies. She had also broken the fridge.

We decided to take her to court for the money she owed plus cleaning costs as her deposit didn't even cover a fraction of it.

We later found out that she had quit her job a week after moving in and started claiming benefits, which voided out mortgage and insurance.
She owed over £4000 in unpaid gas and electric for the entire time that she had lived in the flat and she had also run up nearly £3000 of other debts at the address.

We won our case against her but she was only ordered to pay £5 per month to us.
It will take her 16 years to pay us back.

I hope everything works out better for you.

[Wibblypiglikesbananas]

Hi OP,

You still haven't answered the question re your letting agent. Why are you not suing them? They clearly didn't carry out adequate checks on your tenant.

Also, you said they moved someone in without your knowledge. As a fellow landlord, I would always insist on seeing references myself from the agent I agree to someone moving in - a bit of background about them, children, pets, salary etc.

I'm not unsympathetic, your tenant sounds like a total low life and you're going to end up out of pocket. However, it doesn't look like either you or your agent checked this guy out properly in the first place. I imagine your landlord's insurance is also now invalid as your tenant wasn't employed when he moved in, which is one of the standard conditions.

I really hope you get this sorted but you need to start getting angry and pursuing your agent, who has clearly not acted in your best interests.

[WeAreEternal]

I didn't even think about that wibbly.

Yes every agent that I have ever spoken to or dealt with has always passed on any perspective tenant information, after they have passed their checks, for my approval. I have never known an agent to move in a tenant without the landlords say so. That does sound very odd.

[Shenanagins]

You have my sympathy, it is every decent landlords worst nightmare.

[fatnfrumpy]

Wibbly,
We paid the agent a flat £500 tenant finders fee.
The references were never forwarded to us until we applied to court.
They told us he was a refugee from Algeria who had recently split from his wife and child. He had lived in the town for ten years. He didn't have references from previous address as his wife paid the rent in her name.
He worked as a chef in an Indian restaurant in town on 40k a year. His employer would act as a guarantor for him.
After six months we renewed his contract for another six months so in effect lost his guarator.
For the first 6 months (April-Oct) he always paid late blaming our bank, then asked if he could pay cash. We renewed because up to that point he was no trouble.
Although he paid late and we had a few bounced cheques he did always pay with apologies.
The minute we signed the next contract (Oct) without the agents he never paid us another penny.
In Dec I asked the agentss for the references which they emailed. It was hand written!!!!
I called the curry house and they told me he had never worked there but was a "friend" of the owner. Yes you guessed it the guarantor.
The agent called us when we were on holiday saying he was a good bet, he earned 40k could afford rent of £850 pcm. He had the deposit in cash and needed somewhere by the end of the week due to his seperation.
We trusted the agent, we were niaeve yes, he is our first tenant ever.
The agent said tough you renewed his contract and not through us!!!
Think he knew to behave so that we renewed and then played the game!
It is a victorian house split into four large two bedroom flats. We also own the garden outright. The other residents say things only got bad -, druggies coming all day and night since we renewed the contract. Thats when he started stealing their parcels too.
Everone has chipped in to install CCTV on the front drive and hallway.
He has up to 30 "visitors" a day all through the day and night.
We didn't discuss any of this with the judge as he just looked at the ££££'s he owed and the benefits of £871 pcm he gets and said evicted on 16th April But he did say I will see you back in court in May for the baliff order!
I can't quite believe I was brave or sill enough to have it out with him without a phone or anyone else in the house!

[fatnfrumpy]

Weareternal,
You wouldn't believe that of a mother would you!

[caramelwaffle]

You have my every sympathy; all the best for April and May

[Tugstonia]

Very best of luck to you OP, I really feel for you. I had a tenant who did exactly the same thing to me a couple of years ago and the whole process was hideously stressful. He sounds like a total scumbag and I hope he gets his comeuppance. Let us know how you get on.

[EuroShaggleton]

I'm sorry to hear that, OP.

We've just had similar - tenant stopped paying rent months ago and then claimed he was going to sue us because the flat was making him ill! It is a nice newbuild that my husband lived in until we moved in together a few years ago, and it was redecorated completely two years ago. He did things like not reporting a leak for ages, which caused mould (which he then said was making him ill). He just hadn't looked after the place at all. We ended up paying him to leave rather than waste time and money going through the eviction process. We're not happy about it (lost several thousand in unpaid rent plus the pay off) but at least we have the flat back now so it can be sold and we can hopefully recoup some of it. Some tenants are utter shits. I hate the bastard. I had IVF and then a miscarriage while he was threatening to sue us, adding enormously to our stress levels. Hopefully life will bring him exactly what he deserves...

[SW1XMother]

Haven't read everything but I would really worry about the state of your flat. Can you sue the estate agents
for not checking references etc. Isn't that what they get paid for?

[specialsubject]

shudder.

Anyone can set up as a letting agent - there is no regulation enforced as far as I know. There are trade associations and insurances against some of these issues.

But if you get a determined crook, they can make life utter hell.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Be careful about relying on bankruptcy its quite likely you will only end up with something like 1p to every £1 he owes you its often not worth doing it.

Unless of course your the person who owes the money.

[fatnfrumpy]

Euro,
I am so sorry that you had all the stress whilst going through another highly stressful situation.
Makes me humble about how "little" stress i have compared to what you went through.
I wish all the best for you and your DH! x

[CautionaryWhale]

She has seen the flat - it is filthy and stinks.
The agents are claiming no recourse or responsibility as she renewed his contract without them.

It is a shitty situation and I feel for you OP

[Wibblypiglikesbananas]

Oh my. What a mess.

So - to get this straight, you didn't use an agent in the regular way, ie to collect rent and/or do any necessary maintenance? You paid £500 for someone to find you a tenant on a flat that brings in £850pcm before tax. And then you went it alone after six months?

Do you have insurance of any kind? Did you organise for an independent inventory to be taken before your tenant moved in?

Your situation sounds like every landlord's worst nightmare. You feel like you've been more than fair to your tenant but he's thrown it right back in your face.

However, there were warning bells a long while ago, what with late rent and 'problems' with your bank. You sound lovely but naive about renting out your property. As soon as the first rent payment was late, you should have cut your losses and got out of the tenancy agreement as your tenant had breached it by not paying rent on time. Your tenant has behaved despicably but you have really not helped yourself. Not even asking for a copy of the tenant's references before he moved in was a huge mistake, which you're now paying for.

I wish you luck sorting this out but you need to wise up if you're going to continue being a landlord. Sadly, always expect the worse of people and make sure you get your paperwork in order, don't give second chances and feel sorry for people - this is a business transaction and nothing more. You didn't deserve to be treated like this, absolutely not, but there was a lot you could have done to help yourself beforehand. I think both the agent and tenant saw you coming to be honest.

Check out the Landlords' Association for more advice and guidance and maybe post in legal re your current situation.

[Wibblypiglikesbananas]

Hi FW, not disputing whether it's standard or not, just that it's not the easiest route to take if you're new to being a landlord.

Also, what exactly did that £500 bring, given that the agents didn't actually take or share genuine references with the OP? Absolutely agree about the guarantor signature btw.

[fatnfrumpy]

Thank you so much Wibblypiglikesbananas for your kind words!