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

I'll come and project manage it for you for nothing and bring it in under £20k. If I can do it once I can do it again!

Pancake You need to report your Landlord! Call your local Housing Options team. They can help

Mother he's not our current 'LL and we left as soon as we could.

Also I suspect he would have got a lot of sympathy as his illness was serious.

The sympathy didn't work both ways though, we went through a lot with that place and were spoken to like we were nasty psychopaths bothering an ill man for no reason if we tried to get a service we were paying for every month!!I

It's the risk you take if you decide to rent a property out. The circumstances are unfortunate but this is exactly why landlords take out insurance and pay a lettings agency to run the property and make inspections.

It's not the OP's fault that the tenant abused the property, but the landlady allowed the situation to develop by not inspecting for so long.

Put this down as an expensive lesson, and don't let in future.

Every place I've rented has had quarterly inspections, I don't get why people get uppity about it being intrusive. You're living in someone's property, of course they want frequent inspections to make sure all's well otherwise they could end up like OP's mum. Our current agent sticks his head in each room and that's it, takes less than 5 minutes....hardly intrusive

I feel sorry for both of you, it is just a huge catalogue of errors and omissions. Firstly, make sure the building is insured. If it were me I would be sorely tempted to sell the house, as it is, at auction, just to be rid of a major worry. Neither of you are cut out to be landlords from what you have said. You are never going to get repair money (or any recompense) from your tenant. Life's too short, get rid, move on and breathe a sigh of relief.

I am not aware of any insurance that protects against damage done by tenants?? A gap of 100 k between needs a little t of work and fxed up seems ridiculous. Ask two more agents and see what they say.

As a landlord there are responsibilities

If you are in UK
Your parents should be submitting yearly information to HMRC for money that they earn from renting out a property (even if the tax is zero)
31 Jan 2018 is the deadline for this year
You can submit later, but there may be a fine
You can also provide info about years in the past
www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/who-must-send-a-tax-return

If the property is empty, your parents will still need to pay council tax

If your Mum did not want the responisibilty of being a landlord, she could have paid a management agency to inspect the property etc

You can sell the property in its current state and someone will still buy it and renovate it
The quickest way to sell is via a property auction company. You will need to pay the auction company a set fee or % of the sale and solicitor fees.

Your Mum may also be liable for capitals gains tax if she sells the property, because it is her second property More info on HMRC website

I am sorry that your Mum has been ill. However, she should have asked for help earlier
I would suggest getting house and contents insurance even if nobody is living there

Why the house was trashed ?
Perhaps the original tenant had left and sublet the property ?

If you had an asset of 30k+ would you take your eyes off it ?
Most properties cost more

If you cannot afford to renovate, sell it

There is such a thing, as i said it is called malicious damage cover. It isn't in the standard landlord policies because it is expensive.

It doesn't usually cover filth, its for smashups, deliberate flooding, arson, that kind of thing.

Was she paying tax on the income? Or at least completing self assessment tax returns and declaring the income?

Wtf's that got to do with it?

Because the tax man can make you pay 20 years of unpaid tax or take away your assets if you dont declare your earnings

The old saying that nobody can escape tax or death !

Nothing to do with what OP's posted.

I feel incredibly sorry for your mum, and the state that you describe the flat being in is absolutely disgusting. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly let their home get like that and it’s awful that you’ve had to clean up other people’s piss and shit.

However...

I have been a tenant paying rent to an ‘accidental’ landlord before and I have to admit there’s a part of me which feels just a smidge of resentment reading your post. In my case, my landlady owned a flat and suddenly decided she wanted to travel the world for a while. She pretty much just took off and didn’t look back. We were four tenants paying nice big sums into her bank account every month, funding her lavish travel around the world, while she was almost completely uncontactable. Whenever she did manage to pick up an email she would be totally incredulous at the idea that we might need anything done around the flat, and would give us the cyber equivalent of a great big shrug. She acted like we were terribly unreasonable to expect our landlady to actually BE a landlady.

Obviously none of us started pissing on the floor in protest! But I did feel incredibly pissed off and resentful that she was getting half my salary every month so that I could live in a flat that she’d essentially abandoned, and which was gradually falling into disrepair (through no fault of ours).

I am angry on behalf of your mum but I do think she has to accept a sizeable chunk of the responsibility for this, unfortunately, albeit with some very understandable extenuating circumstances.

She could use the money she's saved avoiding tax to pay for the property refurbishment.

I do sympathise, it's a hell of a price to pay for naivety. But apart from checking and double checking the quotes and valuations I think you've just got to accept the situation and move on.

My comments are relevant

If the property is empty, there are still bills to be paid eg council tax, insurance

I would also check if the tenant has paid all their utility bills eg electric, water. Whose name are the bills in now ? Some providers have a monthly standing charge.

The OP was asking for help relating to renovating or selling the property

I may have missed something
I was trying to help the OP budget for unexpected bills and other unexpected things that may occur

Where does anyone say she hasn't paid tax?

Agree my builder is the way forward here. Get some proper quotes ( you dont pay to advertise jobs but the tradesman pay to quote so you know they are serious) & then work out whether you have the time/ energy/ stress reserves to cope with a renovation.

If not auction it. Dont rely on the valuation of one estate agent, btw, that way madness lies.

A middle ground might be to do the structural stuff like ceilings but not cosmetic stuff and then it can be marked as a fixer upper rather than a wreck.

Either way the property should be sold. Your mum should not be a landlord in future.

broken sinks, loos etc. It might be better to investigate the possibility of charging for criminal damage

Now, there's a point. If he's done a runner to Australia he could be on Interpol.

So sorry you are going through this OP. I can completely understand your mum not having the wherewhithal to deal with all this, taking care of her husband, ageing, etc.

Was so shocked to read of the damage. I've only seen that in a house occupied by junkies (2 minute professional visit) 40 years ago.

Bet the police would be interested. In Australia? Something dodgy going on there.

Take photos too! Evidence.

No, there's nothing to say that tax wasn't paid but it's a fair question given there was no building and contents insurance or inspections. Was there gas safety certificates? Was the deposit in a protection scheme? Were there PAT tests?

I really am sorry OP, for you and your poor mum.

If the self assessment form is completed each year, the person may find that they dont need to pay tax on the income that they have earnt
Therefore there may not be any tax to pay
Some expenses are tax deductable
People can earn x amount before paying tax

However, council tax is a tax that needs to be paid

I didnt say that the tax was not paid !

I think most people have given their opinion.

Is your mum in a position to mortgage the property to get raise the funds to get the work done?

The summary here seems to be:

• your mum has been very poorly advised about being a landlord and also about the value of the property.
• an estate agent with a vested interest builder mate is most probably on the make here.
• your mum should not do any more landlording and should probably get shot.
• no point pursuing the tenant, and not advisable anyway because your mum could (potentially) be prosecuted for lack of gas safety checks and (if she hasn't done t he right tax paperwork) subject to an HMRC fine.
• get that house insured now, otherwise her depreciated asset will be literally worthless should the worst happen and in extremis she could find herself on the hook for even more if e.g., her property caused damage/ problems to an adjoining one.

It's awful that they've trashed the house but equally you could say she had a lucky escape in that nothing went wrong when the tenants were renting from her.

On the wider point- what would you suggest the law does to resolve this? You’re never going to get someone to repay £35k on a house they’ve left. It just wouldn’t happen, even if they were legally obliged to. What could be put in place to stop them getting away with it?

No wonder tenants get a bad name. This really pisses me off. Most tenants are reasonable, tidy people who just can't afford to get on the property ladder, not feral animals. It depresses me that the few idiots make tenants look and feel like second class citizens.