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 well the thread was about me - it was me asking the best way to proceed with a difficult tenant who has been a bit of a dick (late payment of rent three months on the trot is pretty dickish).

You've changed it somewhat with your personal issues and traumas from many moons ago. And with your nastiness wishing sickness on a young child.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

it has indeed become a popular opinion; it's just a shame there's sometimes little behind it except resentment because someone else has something and they don't.

Ha, that's funny. I have a long term profitable business plus a few houses in various countries (not rented, given to family members to live in long term) and some landlord here is moaning to me about their single client business being unviable.

But you go on believing that if you want. The resentment I have is that the current crop of Landlords have managed to contribute to wrecking the country and made it insufferably difficult for net exporters like myself to function. I know this because pretty much every employee I've had has come to me with their landlord problems at some point or another.

It's her thread, of course it's about her. The only one me-railing this thread is you.

It funded her previous maternity pay, repairs to the property (her asset) and she also has 15k saved up over the last 18 months from the tenant's income.

Jesus Christ, listen to yourself

You can do whatever you want with your money

But don't sit there and say you've made no profit from your rental when you've made £15,000 to see you through maternity. How the fuck is that not profit?

btw some of us did have to live off £156/week SMP, how hilarious

It's not that.
It's that the Op has stated that she has made (yes made) 27k profit out of a property. 27 k that the tenant has paid for the rent of the property. She was late with rent once by a week and she withheld rent as a result of living in a freezing cold flat with no hot water for 10 days and was offered 100 compensation.

It's that that same poster is claiming that she's an accidental landlord but has no issue with being vindictive. She has stated that she wants to buy a bigger home for her new arrival and wants to sell the property, with no consideration for the sitting tenant. Because she can. <<- her words.

No one is moaning about what she spends the money on, who cares

The objection is to the claim that she's not made any profit when she said herself she's used all that money to fund maternity leaves, that IS profit

Either it is accepted that landlords are business owners, act as such, but get something out of it, or they get out and the economy suffers. What you can't expect is them to act as social landlords, dealing with all the shit and the risks with no benefit back at all

Exactly this - but as we see again and again, some do want it both ways and life just doesn't work like that

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Oh please, yeah of course we want it both ways and you don't. It's not like my business has had to conform with Oodles of legal obligations to employees and clients, GDPR, Private Pension provision, Tax Audits and the rest of it before we even get to brexit changes, lockdowns, energy increases, salary increases, and years of low interest rates making it difficult to store retained profits. All this operating in a dog-eat dog environment where if you fail you go bankrupt and lose everything.

You're the special ones right while we've had it easy and haven't had to solider through all this while you can't even face getting some external wall insulation done for the benefit of your tenants cos god forbid you might like the rest of us keeping the country going you might have to scale back and invest some of your profits or asset gains at some point. It's all about you you you.

Sadly because it's easier to divide, so that we're too busy arguing amongst ourselves, instead of aiming the anger at politicians who have done the real damage.

MN is a strange place. Women are actively encouraged to maintain their financial independence, unless that means keeping hold of a house that you own when moving in with a partner.

We should be applauding women here for being sensible enough to keep hold of property.

Landlords aren't the problem. Successive government inaction is the killer.

Oh dear, what bitterness HotChoxs

Nowhere have I said landlords are somehow "special", that it's all about them or that they shouldn't be subject to proper legislation - after all that's inherent in running a business and I see no reason for them to be exempt

But as vivainsomnia correctly said, we don't get to insist they act as proper businesses and then expect them to behave like a version of Social Services too

It's easier to divide, so that we're too busy arguing amongst ourselves, instead of aiming the anger at politicians who have done the real damage

Wise words, SamanthaCaine, though I'd add that part of that damage was selling off social housing stock, and an inconvenient truth is that many tenants were quick to appreciate the huge discounts on what they'd previously insisted was a "precious resource not to be used for financial gain"

As always, though, it's much easier to have a pop at individuals than to look at the bigger picture

There are 5-6 million people on Universal Credit and over a million on housing benefits.

The taxpayer is paying a lot of money to a lot of private landlords.

@BloodAndFire

your boyfriend was seriously ill and needed a stable base.

Taking on a 6 month tenancy where the LL refused to make it any longer at the outset was reckless. Why should the LL be held up as the baddie when the contract was for 6 months and the LL made clear “no question of” extending!

Politicians haven't done the real damage. I can bet my bottom dollar not a single one of you wrote to your local MP to stop encouraging fiscal policy creating boom and bust. How can you blame politicians if the majority of the electorate only care about what's right or wrong when they start suffering

We asked them straight out if we would be able to stay long term in the flat. They said yes

it wasn’t the agent’s flat
and if the LL was refusing to negotiate re length of tenancy beyond 6months…. I can’t fathom why you’d take it on when you specifically needed a long term let

Added to which, the LL refused to negotiate on the length of the tenancy beyond 6months.

Clearly a short term let.

The OP took a risk. And then seems very angry when the LL didn’t bend to her will

It was my story and the agent told me that the landlord had instructed him to lie (so that she wouldn't lose rental income).

@SamanthaCaine
We should be applauding women here for being sensible enough to keep hold of property.

My point exactly, even after all of this the most important thing is someone keeps hold of a property. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong to keep it.

No, politicians are not to blame. Look closer to home.

So are you @BloodAndFire

because @BloodAndFire blames the agent (along with LL and his wife) for the fact that he wouldn’t extend the 6 month lease that he made clear there was no question of extending from the outset

So the agent said to you “we were instructed to lie”?

Good on you OP. Very sensible

I'm reading through this and thinking 1) mumsnet is full of smart ladies as always albeit with different values, life experience, education, location etc. 2) I am so lucky to get my family out of Britain seven years ago. Back to Finland where greed is not good. :) 3) OP maybe showing their true colours when using phrases like "Because I can" whilst mocking someone who shared a traumatic experience.

@finnmum

According to an OECD research published in 2019, Finland has the highest rate of mental diseases in the EU, at 18.8% with depression and alcoholism as the two most common mental diseases.

I have not read the comments of other at all.

if a tenant decides they are not leaving it takes months for the eviction process.

We saw a flat which was very reasonably priced not far away, (eldest child) it was clean and tidy but needed modernisation.

The lady who owned it was a bit strange, in the fact, she decided to rent it out against the solicitor and estate agents advice. Our solicitor said don’t waste any money buying it until you can guarantee a vacant possession.

The lady is stuck with a tenant five months later, who hasn’t paid rent for four months, the estate agent told us, the tenant isn’t exactly houseproud, the property has been damaged, stinks and has to pay to get her evicted, and the tenants not going because they believe they will get a council house!