To think it's fucking shit if a tenant can get away with this???

[NamechangerRanger6]

My parents are landlords. My dad has unfortunately passed away so my mum handles it alone now. The last tenant was in the house for 8yrs. 3yrs ago being in and out of hospital and ill health meant that my mum stopped inspecting. There had been no issues at any inspections so it just didn't enter her head. She did however plan to inspect last year. I know this is heavily naive and if I knew this to be the case at the time I'd have advised her differently and offered to step in for inspections myself.

6 months ago the tenant very suddenly gave notice and moved out, mum went to inspect (I drove her) when the tenant had already left (the tenant wrote a letter and posted the key with it, so there was no time to inspect) What we found was absolute filth. Human and animal shit. Piss up the walls. Rotting food, the original furniture provided with the house was smashed to bits. Parts of the doors smashed in. The patterned red carpet was so dirty it looked a dark brown and you could see no pattern. There was a wet pile of bin bags up against the kitchen door, covered in fruit flies and maggots and god knows what else. I suspect this was the cause of the mold behind the door (the only mold on any fixtures we found - plenty of moody food, clothes and bits of carpet tho) Ashtrays turned up everywhere. The sofa had fag burns all over. Toilet ripped off the wall, bathroom sink smashed on the floor. Light fixtures hanging out by wires. There's more but honestly it would take all day to write it all. I can't think of anything that's been left undamaged.

Since then, the holes in the walls have been filled in and doors replaced. Carpets ripped up. A team of cleaners got the worst of the cleaning done. The total bill for this so far is £8000 (the cleaning alone was 2800, Trust me when I say I don't blame them for that price. It was horrific and I couldn't stand in the house for more than 10 seconds without heaving). Furniture cleared out etc etc.

My mum has sent the bill for all work to the now ex tenant, there was an initial response where they offered a £15 a month payment plan. My mum cried to me about it but accepted (fearing that if she pushed they'd pay nothing) after 2 months they stopped paying. She cannot at this time afford to have further works done. The total to have everything replaced even using the cheapest materials and not replacing like for like is about £35,000. She's looking at selling but has been advised that she'll be looking at maybe £45,000 as a sale price in the state it's in (in decent condition the house would be worth approx £150k).

My mum has been in contact with a solicitor but via some digging we've found out that the tenant has left the country - for Australia. Solicitor advises that if this is the case mum has an extremely slim chance of actually recovering any monies owed and chasing it across the globe would cost thousands upon thousands and likely require an international debt collection agency of some kind and the tenant can easily just ignore it.

Aibu to think this is fucking shit?
I know that my mum should've done things differently but it seems very unfair that you can just book a flight and go to skip out on your financial responsibilities

The thing is, being a landlord is a job and should be approached professionally, it's not just a nice little earner where you sit back and wait for the monthly cheque to roll in. Your mum didn't treat it like that and has been spectacularly unlucky.

Totally agree with this. And actually your mum's been very irresponsible to be without insurance for this amount of time. I get that she's had a tough time and I feel bad for her, but she's clearly not cut out to be a landlady. She's finding this out the hard way.

*quarterly inspections

You are going to get very little sympathy here. I can see how easy it is to let stuff like insurance slide when you are depressed, ill or grieving. I let my inspections slide for a year and was lucky my tenant was decent.

Definitely look at the house valuation again. Get a few valuations. It does not sound right at all. I wonder if the agent wanted to get a friend buy it cheap and do it up?

It amazes me how people can treat a home so disgustingly. You home is what you make it but when it comes to being a tenant, save some respect for the fact that you can just hand in notice & leave & someone else picks up the hard work.

I'm sorry your mum has had to go through all this. I hope the next tenant looks after the place.

Quarterly inspections are the norm for most properties let by letting agents. Certainly where I am. I confess to not doing quarterly inspections of my own tenants, but they do invite us round for a cup of tea fairly regularly as we were next door neighbours before they moved into our house, and OH occasionally is in to do repairs so we know it's in decent nick.

OverTheParapet

Our letting agent conducts quarterly inspections on our low end properties. We don't use a letting agent for the others but rent to expats (rent 3-4 k/month) and conduct 6-monthly inspections ourselves.

I’ve just had a 2 bed complete refurb with tiling in the kitchen/howdens laminate flooring in the living room and carpet upstairs with Lino in bathroom. Complete new Howdens kitchen - will be cheaper than ikea and very good quality, nice quality bathroom, complete redecoration, new hob, exatractor, oven was new so not replaced. £13.5k in the SE.

I understand you may have floor boards to replace and possibly ceilings as well. The urine smell seeps into these. You’d lift the floorboards and replace it with cheap boarding. You’d probably overboard the ceilings unless things are really rotten and skim them.

Do you need to change electrics ie a rewire? If you need a complete replumb as in new pipework, boiler, radiators etc? That I could imagine being 35k

Who is quoting you an ikea kitchen btw? Trades use howdens. And the letting agent may also be using vat registered people. Always best to try and use trades, who aren’t as this adds 20% to the bill.

I’d possibly get an auction house involved. To make the smell a bit better, ask the agent/cleaners about setting off a bomb in the property.

I cannot believe the property will only sell for 45k. If it’s worth 150-165, you should be getting around 100k.

Why woud anyone trash their own accommodation voluntarily? Do people really start pissing on the floors or shitting up the walls if there had been no inspection lately?

If you're willing to sell it that cheap, I'll buy it off you.

Your costs, valuations and damage reports make no sense whatsoever.

I took the entire upstairs of my house back to bare brick, all walls and ceilings plastered, new floorboards (caber flooring in bathroom, floorboards else where), new skirting, new door architraves made, new doors, loads more electric points put in, repositioned light fittings, nice new bathroom fully tiled (I did not go for a very low budget but did not go designer) including replacing all pipework to and in the bathroom as had lots of issues, added in electric shaver and fan to the bathroom, new carpets and decorated - for £12k in London.

If you went super budget you could have shaved loads off and given your house costs £150 I bet you aren’t paying London trade prices!

Chanelprincess

To be clear, I was only aware of the issues when the tenant was in the process of leaving (by issues, I mean that my mum had been unable to inspect, etc).

This isn't my house, I have no legal stake in it in any way and I wasn't approached for help or advice and she never really mentioned it. I presumed she had it under control, maybe I should've asked but please don't blame me for not having insurance or inspections - while I can agree she was naive I'm not about to take responsibility for that.

The 35,000 is to cover more than just redecorating, a new kitchen and bathroom. but I shall look into it regardless, thank you. I have 0 knowledge of renovations so when someone says x costs y I find it easy enough to believe.

Also, wear and tear is a good point (and the carpets etc probably had their day anyway!) but it's more the sheer filth that angers me than the carpets needing replacing IYKWIM. Personally if it was a glass of wine spilled on the carpet that caused it to need replacing I probably wouldn't be that arsed.

I'm also aware it's not my money at stake here but I'm angry not only for the money, but the fact the tenant offered a piss poor payment plan then couldn't even keep that up, then in addition to that the reason for the damages (the utter complete filth and destruction of the inside of the property).
That's what makes me really really angry, and also at the fact that people can just run to another country to hide their debts and not pay them. I find that really upsetting and I find myself thinking does it happen with child support, credit cards, loans etc too? All other forms of "debt"? If so that's just wrong...

It sounds like (and I mean this nicely) that if she hasn't got the basics such as insurance covered, she isn't fit to be a landlord and that the best thing to do would be to do what you can afford to do up and then sell up. With the loss of her husband and her poor health it doesn't sound like she needs the extra stress of being a landlord unless she's willing to pay to use a letting agent.

Apart from the seemingly very high costs you have included your mum has other issues!

Once the cleaning has been addressed there is the fact that the T has been there for 8 years. It is standard procedure that decoration is redone every 7 years in rentals. So no arbitrator would award redecoration costs to your mum.

Damage, yes, but not for replacements for ANYTHING. Your mum would, at most be awarded a small % of the original cost. There is a standard calculation for any items that were damaged, like cigarette burns etc. Holes in walls could be charged for at cost, for each hole, not the whole wall.

Then, I would hazard a guess that you may not be sure that the deposit taken was properly protected at the beginning of the tenancy, all the correct paperwork given as and when the laws changed. So your mum may also be open to the threat of the T taking legal action for that!

I have every sympathy with your mum over this, but, as others have said, it is an increasingly more legislated area and, regardless of what people may say about greedy landlords, tenants can cause all sorts of stress, leaving landlords well out of pocket.

Also looking at prices and see some similarities to what needs doing so a few figures I've seen don't quite match up (but I don't have the exact figure for everything in front of me at the moment) so I'll definitely investigate further.
My mum was quoted for An IKEA kitchen by a local family owned company.
Should she look at people who only use howdens then (haven't heard of howdens tbh).

The deposit was registered with the deposit protection service. This was done from the outset.i know this as my mum had to claim it back from them (ie she didn't have it sitting in a random account somewhere)
With regards to gas safety etc I have no idea, I'm afraid. But I can ask. Will she be in hot water if she didn't have those things done?

Thinking about that again... broken sinks, loos etc. It might be better to investigate the possibility of charging for criminal damage, rather than anything connected to the AST.

But it the T has no money, even that would be pointless!

Blech!

It isn't impossible but as the largest penalty is 3 x deposit I wouldn't worry about it, given the other costs involved. If a no win no fee solicitor gets in touch, tell them you will sue for the criminal damage in return!

OP, unfortunately those are risks you take when renting. Many tenants are absolutely wonderful but sadly some have no respect whatsoever for other peoples property.

It's a very sad situation with your darling mum, especially with all she has been through. I would spend whatever you can comfortably afford to do with house up as best you can and then sell. You don't need this amount of worry.

This post is pure fantasy. I wish that were true.

I did a check out in a real shit tip last week and have been given a Health Warning on one I am doing next week. I see horrendous damage fairly often!

She should be fine now if she didn't have those things in place during the tenancy - the tenant is gone now and there was no issue with their safety during that time. The deposit scheme thing is good - if she didn't have it invested in that, the tenant could demand double/triple the deposit back, which would be utter gall given the state they left the place in.

My only concern would be that trying to make a legal case out of the damage might lead to some probing in that area to try to make the case that your mum wasn't a fit landlord and didn't maintain the property correctly, etc. But this is just supposition on my part.

Delete

I’ve been a ll for 20 years with more than one property. I don’t have ll insurance, only buildings. I’ve never needed ll insurance. Tenants have always paid rent and left when they should. My agent inspects and I pay for full property management.

The worse I ever had was a couple of idiots, who had dogs and let them walk in and out with poo on their feet and left a bucket full of poo in the garden. The carpets were ruined but luckily several years old. They left the house dirty so I used their entire deposit to redecorate, clean, change carpets.

If I ever get a house trashed, I will at a minimum have saved what I spend and I will have a completely new house internally. I am a very fit ll with properties in nice condition. No one in my family has ll insurance. We all decided it was unnecessary as we let unfurnished. Bathrooms and kitchens are fitted and come under buildings insurance.

Namechanger

Hey that’s a point. Does your mothers buildings insurance cover the costs for kitchen/bathroom? These are not contents.

@Celebelly @Chanelprincess I would be so shocked if we were told we had to be inspected every 3 months. We rent a 3 bed terrace in SE London @ £1200 a month and I think we'd consider moving if we were told we had to be inspected every 3 months.

Sabaisabai1234
I wish this post was untrue. The stress that it has put on my mother has been absolutely horrible.
They didn't actually give notice properly either - posted a letter saying that they were leaving and enclosed the keys. We went to see the property the day after she received the keys in the post. They didn't give her 4 weeks notice or anything.
I'm not sure if Australia is home to them (to be clear, "them" is one person, to our knowledge, I don't know if they moved more people in etc) but we've heard rumours that they moved there and a bit of social media stalking shows that they are now located in an Australian city and have been listed as such since a month after they left my mothers house.
In addition to that an electoral roll check on them in the area and local area only lists them at my mothers house, so they aren't officially living anywhere in about a 40 mile or so radius. That is what makes us believe they are in Australia but we are trying to verify this (if anybody has any idea on who we can contact to verify that then please tell me it would be very helpful in helping my mum decide whether or not to bother).

Also - please make sure she has empty property insurance now. If the house burns down or is vandalised she will have no leg to stand on. It must be specially EMPTY PROPERTY INSURANCE.

You are in this situation you are in. Like PPs have said, you can do it for cheaper than £35k. You are just going to have to get quotes, look for cheap materials, do some yourself.

Then sell the house so you don't end up in this situation again. Being a landlord is a job not a hobby.

I would be so shocked if we were told we had to be inspected every 3 months That's quite normal, though lots of LLs do 6 monthly. If you have to go to arbitration and you haven't had a regular inspection schedule they can and do reduce the money awarded as the LL hadn't fully negated their possible costs! LLs don't always win.