AIBU to think it should be easier to get these tenants out?

[WateryTart]

We're accidental landlords and have lovely tenants. However, the house next door to them is also rented and those tenants are causing problems to ours and the entire block. They haven't paid rent since January, have constant loud parties and are abusive to the neighbours. Their kids are terrorising the neighbourhood.

The agents say they are dealing with it and they will be evicted "soon". Surely once they stop paying rent they should be out on their collective ears? Let alone their other behaviour.

I feel so sorry for our lovely tenants who can't even enjoy their garden while these creatures are next door.

Has the pendulum swung too far in favour of tenants? Or, as I suspect, is the agency dragging its heels?

AIBU in expecting that rogue tenants should be easier to get rid of?

Oh course they wouldn't. And their neighbours certainly wouldn't be driving it.

Being ' on the case straight away' for antisocial tenants won't speed anything up. It still takes months. If they were on a fixed term the landlord may have had to wait for that to expire as section 8 is so difficult. Not that section 21 is easy.

Removing people from their homes is and should be a lengthy process. But when it is deserved it is no quicker. No fun if you are the neighbours, or have to clean up afterwards.

It takes 3 months of unpaid rent before landlords can start the eviction process. It's to supposedly protect tenants, but there's not much in place to protect landlords!

Miss mouse. The landlord is in a far stronger position than the tenant. At the end of the day the landlords still owns the house and the tenant has no real chance of staying if they are not paying the rent or are in breach of their tenancy agreement.

The tenant needs the protection far more than the landlord.

The s21 is the only reliable way to evict (with s8, if the tenant has paid enough to be less than 8 weeks in arrears by the time of the hearing, it doesn't count), so that's 2 months and then waiting for court date to get the possession order (was a couple weeks for me, but now longer ), then apply for court bailiff, then wait for a bailiff. And thanks to reduced funding of courts and bailiffs, waits can be 6 months now.

Getting insurance for lack of rent payment is almost impossible for typical tenants. I manage a flat in London where 3 sharers pay £600/month each. Nice young professionals, well-maintained but not smart flat. But as they earn under £30K each, I can't get rent protect insurance. Even though they have parents as guarantors. I don't know any landlord who can get that insurance as any tenant who qualified would be living somewhere much posher!

I had 2 years of hell living next to anti social behaviour of not just one household but 2 (flat) Council property and not a thing was done sadly. I'm now in private rented accommodation costing £200 a month extra but the peace of mind is immense.

Hope it all gets sorted out soon for everyone who is affected

"once they stop paying rent they should be out on their ears"

Right. That would be a GREAT law to make. Especially for lone parents whose benefits get messed up.

Just chuck em' out!

Of course you can't do that. Or expect that this happens to any tenant who doesn't pay rent.

The law is as it is to protect the innocent. Unfortunately there will always be ne'r do wells who try to profit from that.

It's stupid to say that people who miss a bill should have immediate droconian action. No sensible business would advocate that. Imagine, miss a water bill and have your supply disconnected. Miss council tax and go to jail. Miss gas bill and have your supply cut off. Ffs. We live in a civilised society. The landlord market includes unprofessional suppliers who can't really afford to operate in the market, but that doesn't mean the consumer should lose basic rights

If our tenants were behaving like that then we'd be on the case straight away.

and then you would discover that to evict someone legally, it takes a long time

Fair point, notcitrus - I am well out of london and out of touch with figures like yours. Here you get a whole house for less than each of the sharers pay, but the tenant earns rather more than 10k!

Perhaps this is one place where separate rules for London would be a good idea.

Thanks not but a s21 won't get tenants out until their fixed term is up, a s8 will.

How do you know they haven't paid rent since January and are in contact with their LL's agents if you don't know the owners?

I f they are terrorizing the neighbourhood I would certainly be asking your tenants to keep a record of dates, times and events - and possibly other people roundabout to do the same. Install cheap cameras? And notify the council.

It's clearly not in your ball court to sort them out but getting the landlord and agency to deal with it is clearly the first port of call while reassuring your tenants it will be dealt with.

Clearly some landlords game the system including those with multiple occupation tenancies and the bastards who run unlicensed and unacceptable shacks built in gardens for impoverished tenants but it's clear some tenants know how to game the system too.

Then you get another recent thread on Mumsnet where a landlord was chucking a tenant with 4 kids out with nowhere to go and the council demanding she stayed until the bailiffs came and then they were only offering b&b outside the area where her kids went to school.

As a landlord who keeps my properties in very good condition, allow kids and dogs and sort out any problems immediately (my tenants have been in for four years now) I think it's far too difficult to remove bad tenants.

I'm thinking if insurance doesn't cover all costs or takes so long to come through won't landlords just ask for a huge deposit to cover any shortfall. That wouldn't be a good situation for tenants.

They do already, most seem to ask for 6 weeks rent plus a month in advance, if you asked any more than that I doubt people could afford it. Angencies have pretty hefty fees too which have to be paid when you sign your contract.

I've had two awful tenants in my very nice house - have wonderful tenants now, thankfully.

The first one sublet, left the place a complete mess and actually stole certain small fittings from the property.

The second one paid one months rent and nothing more. Fortunately the rent was covered by insurance but it took six months to get them out.

After they'd gone my agent found there had been water leaking from one of the bathrooms for some time causing quite extensive damage, the whole place was in such a state that it had to be redecorated from top to bottom, including new carpets everywhere.

I know there are some awful landlords out there and I'd be the first to say that tenants need their rights protected, and in some ways tenants aren't protected enough.

But when it come to evicting bad tenants the law most certainly is not protecting landlords. Yes, I was able to keep their entire deposit, but it didn't come close to covering the cost of repairing the damage they'd done so yes, in many way, I do think it has swung too far and seems to actually enable and aid bad tenants.

Not going to go into details, but I started eviction proceedings in January. The eviction takes place this month.

It takes a long time.