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.

My heart bleeds for you poor landlord
Who asked you to feel sorry for them? Typical reaction!

If one of my customers stops paying I have to work out how to maintain enough cashflow to pay suppliers, not make staff redundant, and avoid bankruptcy
Exactly, and if that happened with more than a few customers, the right thing to do would be to sell the business before you end up bankrupt. Why are you so incensed that landlords would opt to sell before losing out financially?

And to be clear, only 12% of tenancies are ended by landlords, in more than 80%, it is ended by the tenant.

But it wouldn't happen with more than a few customers unless you were extremely unlucky or there was a black swan event.

And if that happened, you couldn't sell the business, you'd put it into liquidation.

Hi,
As a tenant, who's landlord has just sold the house we live in.
I think, she will probably, stop paying her rent.. Which I know might annoy you.
But she will have to get enough money together, to rent another house, such as a holding deposit, then a month's rent up front.
Our house sold really fast, the rent market is mental, houses go up for rent one day then by the next day all the viewings have gone. I was told its 50 plus applications, per house.
I did say to my partner, that if we didn't have to pay rent, we could save up enough to buy our house (this is what we wanted) however we didn't have enough deposit.
We have paid our rent, but it did annoy me, as he was going to get enough rent to cover any missed payments when the house sold.
So she might think the same as me. But the rent comes out of his account, so it got paid.
Have a look at what other flats like yours are selling for and maybe see if they are selling quick. Ours was about 2 weeks. It was very fast, maybe consider letting her not pay you. For us we had been living in our house for 12 years, so it felt like we had been thrown under a bus.

Gosh. I’ve literally read through this thread and the bitterness, vile comments by people is just wow!

I am not a LL and never want to be one, especially after reading all of this. My father does have a property that he rents out, one he bought with his years of working and putting money aside (the good old days when you could save, although he worked 16 hours a day six times a week. I could work 24 hours a day and not manage it now!). This property will only be sold once he is no longer with us and if I’m honest I never thought about who I would sell it to. After reading some of the posts I think I would look at selling to another LL. The thought of making someone homeless wouldn’t sit well with me.

@roarfeckingroarr I understand that your tenant has paid late a number of times, have they actually paid but just late. Or not paid at all? If it’s the former then aren’t you just happy you’re getting paid and that your tenant may be having some difficulties. You’ve not spoken to them but have labelled them as a ‘dick’ why is that. What exactly have they done. Obviously it’s your property and you have every right to sell it so I don’t agree with people basically abusing you for it. I do think some of your comments are coming across as smug even if you haven’t meant them to be. If you genuinely need to sell it then I would first try and do it with helping your tenant as much as possible and allowing them to find somewhere within a decent time frame rather than send them a legal notice. That will put their back up straight away.

@BloodAndFire - from what you’ve written you seem to be carrying a lot of resentment for what happened to you many years ago and you are literally taking it out on this OP. From reading her posts I do not think she meant her comment about serving notice at Xmas. I agree she should not have said it as it clearly touched a nerve with people. Rightly so when there is such a cost of living crisis and the OP is blasé about another persons potential homelessness. I also think if she wants to sell her property that she’s worked for and wants to buy a bigger place for her growing family that is her absolute right. She’s had her tenant for a few years so it’s not like she’s throwing them on the kerb minutes after they moved in. As I’ve said above she could maybe do it in a nicer way and try and keep an amiable relationship and try to understand her tenants situation.

@vivainsomnia

My heart bleeds for you poor landlord
Who asked you to feel sorry for them? Typical reaction

Oh my apologies, given all the complaining you're doing about it being so difficult to be a landlord these days I thought that was what we were supposed to be doing.

Funny though because I've never heard of a landlord pulling 100 hour weeks for 6 months straight to keep their business afloat, but other businesses do it all the time.

you put down a fraction of that as a deposit, let it out,, the tenant pays the mortgage. the house price goes up over a period of time, voila, equity
Makes you wonder why not everyone just do that. Oh wait, because the banks don't let you borrow what you want just because you are demanding it and counting on equity growth to make a big huge profit. Voila it isn't. Yes, some did very well with this model, most landlords, the majority being retired people would have the bank laugh at their face.

A bank won't lend to someone who's not presenting a viable business model?

What a shocker!

Oh my apologies, given all the complaining you're doing about it being so difficult to be a landlord these days I thought that was what we were supposed to be doing
I haven't complained at all, I have no reasons to.

I just said, and still stand by the double standards that is thrown at every such threads, with an expectation that landlords should treat tenants as high status clients but then act as social landlords when the client isn't managing to behave as expected by a client.

Your analogy is the perfect example comparing your business with that of being a landlord. I very much doubt that if your clients stopped paying you, you'd continue to serve them with the same high standard, a smile and much empathy with them because they can't afford to pay you after they paid for their food.

A bank won't lend to someone who's not presenting a viable business model?
Well what's your point then? Buy multiple properties to make being a landlord a viable business or accept that it isn't so for the majority of landlords, hence them doing the right thing by selling.

It's one or the other!

Incorrect. I've had to float my clients several times when they run in trouble. Many times the business has gone into liquidation and it hasn't resulted in future payments.

@HotChoxs How do you manage when that happens? It sounds nightmarish.

I didn't say they weren't doing the right thing by selling. I think it's a good thing that these cowboys are now disappearing. My positions is they shouldn't have entered a business that they weren't prepared to treat as an actual business. My position is also that they should have the good grace to sell on the property if it is tenanted to another landlord and not take out their incompetence on the tenant.

There are many businesses that do the same thing as these small landlords, go into it thinking it's some form of atm and doesn't require hard graft and go under. At least landlords have something to sell.

In the case where you can't get a bank loan, the solution is to quite simply add to the balance sheet to make your proposition viable. Many of us have run businesses while workings jobs in the early stages to get the funding to expand it.

Keep fingers crossed, and find new clients, quickly. Negotiate with suppliers. Cut any fat. As a last resort, borrow. I've been fortunate enough to always have enough reserves in this instance to stay afloat, I didn't even take any Govt money during Covid and we actually found new clients.

@HotChoxs Your situation could be compared to being a landlord in some ways. As you said, a business needs significant cash reserves for when it’s not generating income, e.g., when a tenant doesn’t pay their rent. But the problem is the timing, isn’t it. You can fall back on your reserves and hopefully find new clients fairly quickly, whereas evicting a non-paying tenant takes months and can sometimes involve significant costs.

Realistically, landlords need a couple of years’ worth of rent stashed away for emergencies.

Of course, tenants are in the most vulnerable position -really the whole system is reliant on reasonable behavior and good communication on both sides.

A good stock of council housing would be a far better solution, like that’s going to happen. ☹️

OP I've not read the whole thread as it will have descended into the inevitable, and believe me I sympathise having been in a position where we let our (only) house out for a few years due to circumstances and to say it didn't end well would be the understatement of the century.

But please don't try and market it while the tenant is still in it. She's perfectly entitled not the allow it and she's correct on that, whatever her other faults. Plus if there is no goodwill there, which is very likely if you're giving her notice, it doesn't bode well for house viewings, she's hardly going to have the place looking it's best.
And then what happens if you agree a sale and she refuses to move and you have to evict her? It's an extremely lenghty process and you might be granted possesion of a completely trashed house at the end of it. Basically the whole thing has the potential to be an absolute nightmare.

Basically as a tenant she's paying for your property to be her home, and have quiet enjoyment of it, and that doesn't include facilitating viewings which are really not her issue or anything to do with her.

Just get her out, draw a line, do what you need to do with the property and then market it.

This. Perfectly said. Taking money from tenants is a business which has legal responsibilities. All business needs to be managed correctly. I not the op said she was unable to sell during covid which was why it is rented. Housing market has now dipped significantly and forecasted to go lower next year. I don't have sympathy sorry for anyone in this position that could be predicted.

Because OP doesn’t expect to make a profit if they sell the house.

"quickly" in this case doesn't mean tomorrow, it means before reserves run out which could be a year and for many businesses a lot longer. Realistically businesses that don't have reserves can easily go out of business. Reserves just didn't fall on my lap they had to be created, initially by saving up before I started the business.

And that's the point I didn't start my business without first saving for many years to be able to give myself runway, but landlords enter this without having much of a plan if things go wrong.

No good deed goes unpunished 😂

@Goodgrief82 thank you. I'm quite proud that I've taken absolutely not one penny of taxpayers' money to support my maternity leaves, despite being a single parent. Thinking about it, the vast majority of those savings have come from my day job because I've spent £10k+ on improving the flat with insulation, decorating, new efficient white goods over past few years. But thanks anyway for support - I truly despair at how nasty and personal this site gets.

PP who used term "me-railing" - LOVE IT

@BloodAndFire can't argue with this.

I've no problem with having a safety net. I do object to you a) me-railing this thread with your irrelevant story and nasty personal wishes upon my family, b) you vilifying this landlord you encountered back in the 90s for not letting you stay indefinitely when he/she had made it clear it was 6 months and not possible to extend and c) then claiming you were forced to spend all your last pennies on rent when, well, it wasn't yours was it?

Brilliant advice. Really appreciate it. Have taken a screenshot. Thanks.

Oh but she will 😂

@HotChoxs at no point has the tenant indicated she's struggling to pay the rent. She's told the agency she "shouldn't have to" because the boiler broke last month (since replaced). The previous months she was late with no explanation.