Tiny violins out - private landlord having trouble

[roarfeckingroarr]

I own a flat that I rent out because it no longer suits my needs to live there and I couldn't find a buyer without making a substantial loss during Covid (due to no private outdoor space).

I try to not be a dick - e.g. I charge under market rate, I don't increase the rent unless in between tenants, I get everything fixed as soon as I can (via management agency), I allow pets/children etc. All things that should be standard but too often are not.

Anyway, I have a tenant who is playing games. Every month for the last three she has had a problem paying the rent. First of all she wanted to move the payment date (fine, circs change, but she was a week after the agreed date), then she was late again, then she decided unilaterally she didn't have to pay because the boiler had broken and I couldn't get a new one installed over night. I reimbursed her for heaters to keep warm and had it replaced as soon as a reputable tradesman could install one - about a week in total. I get this isn't ideal and I offered a £100 discount as a goodwill gesture. She eventually paid.

I hate being a landlord and I am v shortly going on maternity leave with my second child so I need to sell especially as the income is now unreliable to use the equity to buy us a family home.

But I'm scared to put it on the market in case she takes that as free reign to stop paying altogether.

Does anyone have any advice that doesn't include "private landlords" and "scum of the earth" in the same sentence? I wouldn't expect her to let people traipse through her home at short notice and would hope to arrange maybe two open house mornings in Jan to minimise inconvenience - but I also expect her to stick to her side of the contract and pay the agreed rent during this time.

@BloodAndFire

no one curses landlords for selling, they curse them for things like pretending they have no intention of selling a property, when in fact they're only renting it out until they can sell it.

I do curse them for selling. Not because they are actually selling but because they are not honourable enough to sell it onto another Landlord.

This business has such poor ethics that it's not the done thing. Maximising sale price is the only factor. Continuity of tenure for the tenant is totally irrelevant.

The OP will do it. But wow anyone can justify it to themselves is beyond me.

So it's an investment then. Just a long-term investment for you. When you say you're not making any money out of it, you mean you're not making any money out of it to spend right now
It is an investment but would be so tenants or not. I didn't buy it to rent. It became a 2nd property because I moved into my partner, now husband's house. If I left it empty, it wouldn't make much of a difference to me money wise.

@HotChoxs what planet are you on! People who continue to make no profits from business don't continue trading unless they don't understand what it's all about or don't need the money! Of course it takes time to set up a business, usually, but that can't be compared with renting where there is no expectation of growing the business, just getting one client and keeping them!

@BloodAndFire I totally agree with you but it does not apply here. OP has rented the property for 2 years to the actual tenant so not short term with the clear intention to sell at the time.

They've confirmed they wouldn't give notice before Xmas and they appeared to have been a decent landlord dealing with repairs as quickly as they could.

We spent (literally) our life savings on the deposit and first months' rent for this flat, only to find it put on the market within weeks of us moving in - we then found out it was only rented out because they'd failed to sell beforehand

@BloodAndFire

how long was your tenancy agreement for?!

I rented for about 20 years and in all that time I think I only had one landlord who treated us like human beings and understood that it was our home. Probably not coincidentally, his own son lived in one of the other flats (it was a house converted into multiple flats), and the LL was just generally a decent human being.

The others varied in different ways, but I don't think any of them ever really gave a toss about the fact that while it was a money maker for them, it was our actual home.

We were lucky that another landlord bought our flat as described above, because we could not have raised the money for another month's deposit even if we could have found another flat to accept people on benefits.

I've had friends who were not so lucky and who ended up homeless after their LLs decided to sell the properties - and they were just informed by a letter one day.

We found out when we came home to a fucking 'For Sale' sign in our front yard.

There should be far, far better protection for people in the homes they live in.

There should be far, far better protection for people in the homes they live in.

every tenancy agreement I had in my twenties was for a minimum of a year with a 6month break clause.
my last one was a 2 year tenancy was a break clause at 1 year.

so you know the score from the outset.

@vivainsomnia

HotChoxs what planet are you on! People who continue to make no profits from business don't continue trading unless they don't understand what it's all about or don't need the money! Of course it takes time to set up a business, usually, but that can't be compared with renting where there is no expectation of growing the business, just getting one client and keeping them!

I'm on a planet in which I've had a business that's I've had for decades. One which took a serious hit during Covid, and one which was only able to survive because I had retained profit and a plan to adapt the business going forwards.

There are many times there have been a downturn in the business and I have had to absorb losses until the business was profitable again.

This is how businesses operate.

What planet are you on? Planet Landlord. No business sense whatsoever.

I'm going back well over 20 years here - I can't honestly remember - probably six months. I suspect they timed it so that the minimum tenancy agreement would run out just as the sale went through. As I say, we were very lucky that the guy they sold it to let us carry on living there as long as we wanted to. But that was luck, nothing to do with the original landlords/vendors.

As I say, we were very lucky that the guy they sold it to let us carry on living there as long as we wanted to.

presumably because he was a…. Landlord himself!

We certainly weren't in that flat for anywhere near a year before they put it (back) on the market. We had no idea at all that they'd been trying to sell it, and we would never have moved in if we had known. We even asked them the question outright (the agents) and they lied to our faces.

As I said, my partner at the time was having chemo and on benefits, I was not even 18 (so not even officially on the tenancy agreement), we had no money and not a legal leg to stand on.

Morally, it was a terrible, terrible thing that they did.

If the landlord is only offering a 6 month tenancy agreement and refuses to budge… it does sort of give an indication as to his intentions surely?

Yes. He was. Like I said, we were very lucky that it was bought by someone who wanted to rent it out, rather than by someone who wanted to live in it themselves. If that hadn't been the case we could not have got together the money for another deposit and a month's rent upfront in the financial and health situation we were in at that time.

Tbh it doesn’t sound like you should have been renting this particular property and the price he was asking for it if you’d used your entire life savings for the deposit and first months rent and had not a single spare penny.

There are many times there have been a downturn in the business and I have had to absorb losses until the business was profitable again
No, you CHOSE to absorb the losses, I assume having worked out a business plan that predicted an increase in sales again.

It doesn't work like that in rentals! You get one client, one fixed income. If you make a loss now, you'll continue to do so unless the government suddenly changes motions to allow landlords to pay less taxes etc... Well we know how this is going, so selling was indeed the right thing to do for many landlords before they really started to accumulate loss.

Would you have continued your business if you'd been told that you couldn't generate more customers but that your costs were due to increase and that was inevitable? If so, yor business acumen
needs to be reviewed!

@vivainsomnia

that can't be compared with renting where there is no expectation of growing the business, just getting one client and keeping them!

Er, no. If you have one property you have one client. There's no reason you can't have more clients.

This is actually a business decision to have one client.

I can set up a business and have one client.

I think you're reading a lot into this story that I haven't said.

First of all it wasn't a 'him'. It was a married couple with a kid who had previously lived in the flat themselves and had tried to sell it and failed, so decided to rent it themselves. We didn't know any of that at the time we rented it.

I don't know where you're getting this 'only offering a 6 month tenancy and refuses to budge' from. There was no question of us trying to negotiate a longer tenancy agreement.

Not sure if you have read my posts, but it was an absolutely desperate situation. My boyfriend had cancer and was travelling to hospital multiple days per week. He was on benefits with no savings. I was 17 and unable to earn anywhere near enough to support us even if I worked more than full time, so was tacked onto his benefit claim. We had been evicted from the previous place - a houseshare with two of my bf's friends - for the same reason - landlord wanted to sell the house. In that case we were not lucky, and everyone had to move out (separately).

We needed to find somewhere that would accept housing benefit, and somewhere cheap enough that we could raise the month's rent in advance and the deposit. It was a real struggle, I quite literally emptied the building society savings account I'd had my whole life (a few hundred quid).

Not sure why you are so determined to pick holes in a story.
a) It's true
b) You weren't there
c) I was

I'm sorry that a 24-year-old with stage iv cancer and a 17-year-old with a few hundred quid in savings weren't able to drum up thousands of pounds magically. It was a studio flat in Croydon. He was having treatment at a leading cancer hospital and needed to be within reach of that. Where do you think we should have been living? A cardboard box?

I don't know where you're getting this 'only offering a 6 month tenancy and refuses to budge' from. There was no question of us trying to negotiate a longer tenancy agreement.

so he made his short term intentions pretty clear if he refused point blank to negotiate on such a short tenancy agreement

@dreamingbohemian ah, yeah, sorry I can't live off £156 per week SMP 😂. Should I have given it all to charity?

No you chose to have one client. If you had several clients and had gotten to an economy of scale where you could survive this downturn you wouldn't be complaining about it.

It's no different from any other business. Landlords aren't some unique set of people who are the only ones who have Government regulations impacting on their business and unfavourable market conditions.

But you know... thank you for demonstrating the kind of absolute stony-hearted, blank-faced, deliberate incomprehension and breathtaking lack of human sympathy or understanding that is precisely why people do hate landlords and lettings agents.

Any chance of you reading any of the several thousand words I've written in response to this exact post that you posted already, or are you just going to keep saying the same thing regardless?

You, your boyfriend, and the situation had nothing to do with him. He provided a property with a 6 month tenancy agreement to you. And didn’t increase the duration.

Hahaha being poor is hilarious. Lol.

Fuck me, you literally haven't read a word I wrote. Jesus Christ, what a waste of time that was.

You're a landlord, aren't you. Don't bother answering.

Thanks @vivainsomnia for pointing out things I've said but certain posters are ignoring. I made it clear it wasn't a long term let. I've fixed all issues as soon as possible. I've no plans to serve notice until the new year because I'm not a dick. There are a couple of angry posters on here out for blood. It's fine.