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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

or are these men Unacceptably Useless and CFs to boot?

51 replies

theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 15:25

This isn't my situation but my friend's.
Friend has an ex-husband and, among other offspring, an adult son in his forties who works and lives abroad. Adult son has a flat in the UK which he lets, most recently to a friend of his mother's to whom she introduced him. About a year ago, tenant stopped paying rent regularly, which my friend knew nothing about (the tenant had rather withdrawn from all his friendship circle during lockdown, and turns out to have had Covid rather badly and been very low ever since). Anyway, two months or so ago, friend's son contacted her asking if she know what was going on with tenant, because he had a buyer for the flat, the tenant had been given notice to quit by the beginning of the previous month and was showing no signs of doing so. He didn't want to be 'that' landlord, but he needed the proceeds of the sale for a deposit himself on a family house in the country he now works in.
My friend lives 100 miles away from the town the flat is in. ExH, who was also the son's agent for the flat and also an acquaintance of the tenant, lives only a few miles from it.
Somehow, it is my friend, in her late sixties, who has ended up, in a period of about three weeks:
• helping tenant to identify potential alternative accommodation in a city over 200 miles away
• driving a 520-mile+ round trip to flat hunt
• arranging interim accommodation for him in that city
• scheduling removals
• paying for the van
• driving a further 520-mile round trip on a bank holiday weekend to help tenant pack and to transport him and possessions he wouldn't trust to the removers to the new city
• and having to do the whole trip again in a few days' time, with boxes and cleaning stuff, because not everything was packed for removal when the van came...

She's exhausted and frazzled and very fed up indeed.
To crown it all, she has just found out that the son had asked his father to check on the tenant from time to time. This didn't, for some reason, ever happen. And now the exH is being rather sarkily congratulatory about my friend having made 'some progress'.
AIBU to want to get all three men in the case in one place and bang their useless heads together, really quite hard?

OP posts:
PollyValent · 29/08/2021 15:27

Why on earth did she agree to all this?

Yes they are cheeky.

Theunamedcat · 29/08/2021 15:30

My initial responses are violent not how I would usually react and possibly best kept to myself

The best I can do is WTF WAS SHE THINKING DOING FOR HIM SO HE WOULDN'T BE "THAT LANDLORD" FFS

DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult · 29/08/2021 15:34

Nobody had to step up because your friend picked up the slack.

LolaButt · 29/08/2021 15:39

Why did she do all that to help the tenant? As a friend or as the landlord’s representative?

A landlord would never undertake the activities your friend did.

Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 15:44

Why did she do all that to help the tenant? As a friend or as the landlord’s representative?
More the former, I think, but also as the landlord's mother, she wouldn't want him to have problems with the sale.

OP posts:
HalzTangz · 29/08/2021 15:48

I don't understand why she went to the lengths she did, it's the tenants responsibility to find accomodation and arrange their own removals.
At most they should have instructed a legal person to remove the tenant then go up to clear/clean the property or hire someone to do that

PollyValent · 29/08/2021 15:49

Will she get anything in return for all this rigmarole?
Is he a grateful sort of son who'd do anything for his mum or a bit of a selfish one? It all depends on that imo.

AutistGoth · 29/08/2021 15:54

I guess it depends on the circumstances. Was your friend guarantor for this person when he initially rented the place?

Agree that as the agent of the landlord, her ex husband should have stepped up. It's very wrong that he didn't bother.

I don't want to be too harsh on the tenant. He was evidently suffering very badly with poor mental health. Not that this makes imposing on your friend or not paying rent okay.

Likewise the son. I can see him being in a difficult position here: especially being overseas. A vulnerable tenant who isn't paying rent vs a need to sell the apartment for the benefit of his own family. Again, that doesn't make imposing on his mum okay. He should have definitely pestered his dad to sit up and take notice more.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 29/08/2021 15:57

The ex husband or son wouldn't be doing that stuff. It's not the responsibility of the landlord. If she's chosen to do it as a friend then she's brought it on herself.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 29/08/2021 16:00

^• helping tenant to identify potential alternative accommodation in a city over 200 miles away
• driving a 520-mile+ round trip to flat hunt
• arranging interim accommodation for him in that city
• scheduling removals
• paying for the van
• driving a further 520-mile round trip on a bank holiday weekend to help tenant pack and to transport him and possessions he wouldn't trust to the removers to the new city
• and having to do the whole trip again in a few days' time, with boxes and cleaning stuff, because not everything was packed for removal when the van came.^

None of that is to do with the landlord, you can't be annoyed with her son or ex husband because someone else was useless.

Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 16:11

you can't be annoyed with her son or ex husband
Oh yes I flaming well can, HunterHearstHelmsley: you'd be surprised. One for not flagging up a problem earlier and one for not performing his duties as landlord 's agent.
And I feel that her not wanting to see a friend who, for whatever reasons is struggling, out on the street made it easy for them to leave it all to her.

OP posts:
Phineyj · 29/08/2021 16:17

I have a friend who regularly gets involved in this sort of thing. We are Shock sometimes when she details the lengths she's gone to for friends and family. I don't know why she does tbh.

WorraLiberty · 29/08/2021 16:21

AIBU to want to get all three men in the case in one place and bang their useless heads together, really quite hard?

YANBU

I'd also like to bang her head quite hard and tell her to quit with the over involvement.

Mycatismadeofstringcheese · 29/08/2021 16:22

Is she doing it because she feels guilty about making the introduction which resulted in her son having a difficult tenant.

Also as she made the introduction, presumably she has a previous friendship with the tenant and she might be worried about him and want to help.

Agree that exH sounds useless.

WallaceinAnderland · 29/08/2021 16:22

No, they're not cheeky, she should have just declined to sort it. Don't know why she didn't really.

Mycatismadeofstringcheese · 29/08/2021 16:23

Not saying it’s right that she does it, just that guilt (misplaced or not) can be a very powerful driver.

gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 16:25

What exactly do you think the landlord and agent should have done?

BritWifeInUSA · 29/08/2021 16:26

If the mother was a friend to the tenant why wasn’t she in touch over the course if the tenancy? Just as a friend. The occasional phone call or text from a friend may have helped the tenant from falling into the downward spiral he ended up in.

Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 16:27

@Mycatismadeofstringcheese, yes, I think you're right.

OP posts:
SeasonFinale · 29/08/2021 16:28

OK so from the last post it is clear that the "friend" is you.

It was her son's issue which he could easily have instructed professionals to help evict the tenant.

If you/the friend chose to get involved they way they did that is on them.

3beesinmybonnet · 29/08/2021 16:34

It's wrong that your friend ended up doing all this stuff but she didn't have to do any of it, it was her choice. TBH she sounds like a rescuer.

WhereYouLeftIt · 29/08/2021 16:34

@WorraLiberty

AIBU to want to get all three men in the case in one place and bang their useless heads together, really quite hard?

YANBU

I'd also like to bang her head quite hard and tell her to quit with the over involvement.

This. There was an agent, whose job it was to manage the flat for the owner. It doesn't matter who that agent was, that he is her ex is irrelevant. It was his JOB. His responsibility. And her son's responsibility to lean on the agent to do his job.

When her son contacted her, her response should have been 'What does your agent say?' Instead, she's been running about like a blue-arsed fly.

It's all very well to say the men are useless (they clearly are) but don't you think her automatic martyrdom partially trains them to be useless?

ConstantlySeekingHappiness · 29/08/2021 16:40

Did the Ex-H receive a fee for being the agent?

SweetPetrichor · 29/08/2021 16:41

She didn’t have to do any of that, and neither did either the ex-h agent or the son. Finding a tenant new accommodation and helping them move is not what a landlord does…if she wanted to do it, as a friend, then fair enough but that’s her choice and her burden.

RedHelenB · 29/08/2021 16:41

Yabu. Martyr syndrome again and it drives me crackers. Just don't interfere, let the tenant and her son sort it out between them. Can't see why it has anything to do with exh either.

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