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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 About a year ago, tenant stopped paying rent regularly, which my friend knew nothing about (the tenant had rather withdrawn from all his friendship circle during lockdown, and turns out to have had Covid rather badly and been very low ever since).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:
Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 16:41

Not me, sorry. No son, dead rather than ex-husband, and I don't drive.

OP posts:
Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 16:43

Can't see why it has anything to do with exh either
That was explained in the OP.

OP posts:
SimonJT · 29/08/2021 16:45

So she chose to do somethings she didn’t need to do, and shes now moaning that she chose to do those things of her own free will.

RedHelenB · 29/08/2021 16:45

@theThreeofWeevils

Can't see why it has anything to do with exh either That was explained in the OP.
Yes but as agent he had served notice which is what he had to do.
SeasonFinale · 29/08/2021 16:54

Martyr or she feels guilty that she foisted a non paying tenant on her son which he won't be able to evict for ages because of the covid restriction on evictions and inevitable back log. But still doesn't make the men CF.

ryanne · 29/08/2021 17:06

m

Marcee · 29/08/2021 17:09

She did it to herself and in that way she is being unreasonable to complain about it after all that.

AutistGoth · 29/08/2021 17:21

I agree that it wasn't your friend's job to do any if that for this tenant - but neither was it her son's or ex-husband's. It isn't a former landlord's job to find an outgoing tenant a new place to live, nor to help them move there.

It does seem as though this tenant has mental health problems or a disability, but how long can the son (not in the same country) be expected to let him live there for free when he needs to sell for his own family's home?

I agree that the ex-husband should have done more and that it wasn't your friend's job to do what she did. But ultimately, it was her friend, the tenant, who took advantage of her good nature - and before that, didn't pay rent. And I know I'll get criticised for saying that because he was a vulnerable adult. But vulnerability doesn't mean you get to take advantage of people.

Conversely, if your friend offered to do all of this for him because she'd rather do that than see him out on the street, I don't really think she can complain. Even if it was a huge hassle.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 29/08/2021 20:51

From reading the OP, I'd say being angry with the son might be unreasonable: he isn't in the country, probably hasn't been able to visit it for eighteen months, and was depending on his father, as the tenant's friend and his son's agent on the spot, to keep an eye on things for him.

Being angry with the tenant seems not to be worth the effort involved: he had covid, clearly hasn't recovered, and is being a wet hen. Not being prepared to be in contact with any of his friends or ask for help was very stupid of him, but being angry with him at this point wouldn't do much good.

The husband doing nothing about what he had undertaken, and then patronising the only person who does seem to have been doing anything about it, is another matter...

What it looks like to me is Weevils' friend having been prepared to take trouble for her friend and her son, but getting the definite hump when her ex was sarky about her having to do his job for him; I don't think she has been said to be complaining, just tired and fed up.

Banging their heads together would probably strike her as too much like even more hard work, especially since one is in another country and the other two are each at least a hundred miles from where she lives and she would have to corrall them into one room first.

Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 21:22

Yeah, but for me the banging of heads wouldn't be hard work, but sport.
The son could, I feel, have kicked his agent's arse a little earlier in proceedings. And yes, the sarky comments are Bloody Unforgivable, in my view and what made me utterly furious.
Anyway, my friend is a Good Egg.

OP posts:
gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 21:28

But you haven't said what you think the agent should have done. It is certainly outside of their remit to do what your friend did. She should have let the son get on with eviction proceedings.

maddening · 29/08/2021 21:34

@HunterHearstHelmsley
"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."

The son is the landlord, she did her son a favour as he is out of the country, but his dad lives around the corner and could have helped his son out more easily than she could.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 29/08/2021 21:47

@gobbynorthernbird

But you haven't said what you think the agent should have done. It is certainly outside of their remit to do what your friend did. She should have let the son get on with eviction proceedings.
Maybe if the agent had been asked to keep an eye on things he ought to have done so, rather than leaving it and not bothering? Just a thought....
Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 21:58

Thank you, @maddening. Someone gets it, at last.

OP posts:
gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 22:39

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime what was the agent supposed to do? Tenant doesn't pay rent, landlord is aware and needs to make a decision. Tenant has been served notice, landlord is aware that tenant has not vacated and can go down the legal route to evict.

It isn't an agent's job to find someone a new flat, or physically help them move. Agents do things like arrange repairs and take inventory.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 29/08/2021 22:46

[quote gobbynorthernbird]@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime what was the agent supposed to do? Tenant doesn't pay rent, landlord is aware and needs to make a decision. Tenant has been served notice, landlord is aware that tenant has not vacated and can go down the legal route to evict.

It isn't an agent's job to find someone a new flat, or physically help them move. Agents do things like arrange repairs and take inventory.[/quote]
The agent was said in the OP to know the tenant personally, though, and also to have been supposed to be keeping an eye on him; not just sitting around not doing anything. That was before any notice to quit or non-payment of rent -- which are also the agent's business, are they not, particularly the latter?

HotPenguin · 29/08/2021 22:57

Your friend avoided a situation where the tenant was evicted, the tenant might have struggled to get another rental if that had happened. She didn't have to do it but she chose to. So I'm not sure it's the son's fault. The ex H could have been more helpful, but was he asked to do any of the things your friend did?

gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 22:58

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime they are not necessarily the agent's responsibility. That depends on the arrangement between landlord and agent. And, even so, what this woman has done was entirely her own choice and not something any agent would touch with a bargepole.

gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 23:02

Also, a grown adult decided to shirk his responsibilities. How was an acquaintance supposed to 'keep an eye' on him without overstepping as an agent?

PallasStrand · 29/08/2021 23:04

@theThreeofWeevils

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.
But neither the agent nor the landlord is responsible for finding accommodation for a tenant who’s been given notice, far less arranging removal, personally driving the ex-tenant around, paying for a van, driving hundreds of miles for flat hunting, returning to pack leftover stuff! They just give the tenant notice.

Your friend is either quite mad, very bored and needed a project, or a bit of a martyr.

TerrificTeapot · 29/08/2021 23:13

If this doesn't drive the martyr out of her then... maybe you should get in on this gravy train and milk it for all it's worth! She definitely understands the extra mile or 520...

Original poster
theThreeofWeevils · 29/08/2021 23:24

Your friend is either quite mad, very bored and needed a project, or a bit of a martyr
None of those things, in my experience of her.
People seem to be overlooking slightly that the agent is the exH/landlord's father. On the fecking doorstep. A scenario where once again a woman/ mother is left picking up after others who could have done a tap to help themselves had the cared to.
I might be a bit biased, but the exH strikes me as having been outstandingly useless.

OP posts:
TerrificTeapot · 29/08/2021 23:36

Doesn't matter how hard you try to get us to man bash. SHE drove 1040 miles and SHE is planning to drive another 520 miles when she doesn't have to.
The men might be full of fault in this story but your friend needs help.
Like saving the drowning kind of help before we go around bashing any heads.

gobbynorthernbird · 29/08/2021 23:36

He's useless because he didn't spend all that time and effort on someone who is a waster and was about to be evicted and probably owes their son a shit load of money?

AutistGoth · 29/08/2021 23:47

I agree that the agent should have done more, but so should the tenant. As for helping him to move out, that wasn't even part of his duties as an agent. The grown son gave the tenant notice and after one month, he was still living there, showing no signs of moving on and had been sporadic in paying rent. What should the son have done, let him live there for free indefinitely?

As for everything else, your friend did that because she was friends with said tenant. I agree that she shouldn't have had to, but her friend is a grown adult man who had shirked his duties for at least a month. The son is overseas and hadn't been receiving payment of rent or communication from his tenant. The agent should have gone around, I agree. But finding alternative accommodation was the tenant's sole responsibility. It wasn't the job of the agent or the landlord. Certainly not the job of your friend.

Ultimately, awful as this sounds, none of this would have happened had the guy just communicated with either the landlord or the agent. For whatever reason, he chose not to.

Why did your friend not push him to do everything she did himself? Remind him to do it, be on the other end of a phone line, offer emotional support etc, but ultimately make sure he saw to all of this himself.

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