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.

No further advice but wanted to wish you luck Op.

Unfortunately as with most things in life, a small minority ruin it for the majority- the vast majority of tenants are good decent people as are the vast majority of landlords. However those who go rogue and behave despicably get everyone a bad name and then this makes others more wary (& likely to behave badly!)

Hopefully she'll actually be a decent person and you can move on amicably.

I let out my home when required to work elsewhere. I then wanted to move back but to that area but was looking at a larger house.
Notice was given, the rent stopped and legal proceedings followed. This was a family with children and they requested that we retain the property and let it out to them as they had children in school. We were advised this would count in their favour - something I have never got to the bottom of - how a landlord who needs to sell for financial reasons could be made to retain a house for the benefit of the tenant.
The family was offered a council house as a result of eviction proceedings but turned it down as they preferred my house as it was in a better area.
The court proceeded with eviction and they refused to leave. Had to get bailiffs out and they knocked on the door at 6am - the family had left the previous night. Stranger still all the back rent was eventually paid. Poor family must have been in a tough situation.
It was an expensive and stressful process.Exchanged and completed on the sale the day after the eviction.

Your landlord insurance is likely to have free legal advice and you do need to start the eviction process asap. You should be decent and explain your situation to the tenant and she may allow viewings given how accommodating you have been in the past and you could delay starting everything until after Christmas. If however, she is going to be obstructive and mess you around, then you just follow the proper legal procedure to get your property back and for her sake let’s hope she won’t ever need a reference. It won’t take a year, nothing like it but again, the legal advice will prepare you.

I find it really off that tenants just refuse viewings. Surely in life you give and take. I wouldn't try to hoist last minute regular PITA viewings - but why can't tenants be reasonable and say "ok, I'll be out on these two days next month, arrange some then"? Why must everything be such a battle?

It's their home. Why should they have the intrusion and disruption of people inspecting the property while they're living there? It's really invasive imo. I wouldn't do it if I was a tenant.

I was able to market my flat with my tenants still in situ though I was prepared and expecting to wait until they moved out. They had 6 months left on a 2 year contract and I initially told them well in advance in case they wanted to buy it themselves. They didn’t (and were planning to leave once the contract was up anyway) but were happy to accommodate viewings. I had an offer by the time they moved out but I did have to prove that they were leaving and the flat was vacant over a month before exchange.
However this all happened because they agreed to it, I don’t know if they had any obligation under the contract and I wouldn’t have pushed it.

This. She's already comfortable with late rent. I'm sure no rent will be a small next step. Serve her notice asap then prep to sell.

There is no ‘life circumstances threw it as us’. As a home owner, no-one is forced to become a LL. And any tenant should be able to expect a professional LL who knows the law and understands that when they sign tenancies, they no longer have the ability to sell as they previously did, and that there are legal processes to gaining vacant possession which can take months. I say this as a LL who feels pissed off frequentky by amateurs who have entered the market without proper knowledge and then expect the tenant to behave as if they are doing the LL a favour by paying large rents and to behave as if the LL still lives there and can do exactly as they want. The tenancy gives the tenant legal rights to a home and until the tenancy ends with the tenant moving out or being formally evicted by the court process, they retain those rights,

Too many threads appear with LLs saying they are marketing their property and the tenant is being ‘obstructive’ and not allowing viewings, or not moving out sooner than the tenancy ends or the notice period stipulates. This is not being annoying or obstructive. It is insisting rightly on your contractual rights that you’ve paid for. And too many times buyers have offered on properties which are tenanted and then complain about tenants delaying things…..often not realising the LL hasn’t even given formal notice and an S21 or that they are legally enemies to remain and have a formal eviction process. They don’t realise that exchange could be a year away. More fool them for offering in such a property, but worse still the greedy LL who tired to market a tenanted property.

OP, understand the legalities.

Also understand that your desire to sell and the tenant being tricky about their rent are two different issues.

Yes I would also recommend getting rid before trying to sell. It's shit being a landlord it'll be worth selling it so you don't have to deal with tenants like her anymore.

No advice but I don’t think you or all landlords are scum.
Ours is lovely!

@Garysmum what a nightmare - I'm sorry you had so much trouble with your tenants.

@Guitarbar yeah being a landlord is shite. I didn't plan it and I will do my utmost to never be in this position again. I find it nuts that in any other aspect of life, we expect people to adhere to contracts and behave decently, yet as soon as it comes to renting it's a free for all of non-payment and destructive behaviours.

To all saying how invasive/annoying it is to allow viewings - I've only ever seen refusal to allow viewings on Mumsnet. Never have I refused viewings when renting a property - whether the landlord wanted to sell or I was moving on - and I haven't heard this colloquially either. I thought it was standard that you work with the lettings agent to find mutually acceptable time to allow a reasonable number of viewings.

OP, I'd get the Section 21 notice served asap, then you can just sit back and wait. The sooner that's done, the sooner you can proceed things further down the line.

We allowed viewings at our last rental (we were on good terms with our landlord and were leaving anyway to buy somewhere).

All we specified was we had to be in and we were given at least one hour notice.

I lost count of the times agents just let themselves in - once at 9am on a Saturday when I was in the shower. That was the final straw and we changed the locks until we moved out.

@JoyBeorge
why is it ‘her home until she moves out’ if she’s not paying her rent? 😏

Just to add I have considered doing Air BnB until its sold. It's a pain in that obviously you have to furnish it but will be worth it if we have to wait a while before completion.

In the end, it’s all about the legalities and not what you think is right or fair or decent.

To exchange you need vacant possession. Mortgage lenders won’t usually agree a mortgage until a property is vacant and certainly won’t release funds for exchange until vacant possession is confirmed. When you cannot guarantee the date (and you never can until someone actually goes….some people just do stay beyi d then for all kinds of reasons …and perfectly legally, although certainly annoyingly) to keep a buyer hanging with no certain date, is simply a wrong thing to do, especially when long chains are involved.

This is purely a legal process. Understand you will need to serve notice and make sure it happens legally. You will then need to wait for them to vacate. Whether they pay the rent in full or at all in the intervening period is something you can pursue legally too. How long it will be until they vacate…you won’t know. They might go before the notice expires, on that date or refuse to go so they are made legally homeless and qualify for council help and wait to be removed by bailiffs many months down the line. You just don’t know. Being annoyed doesn’t get you anywhere. Understanding the legal process and accepting it and ensuring you keep things moving within the timesframes allowed is allowed. And in the end you have to see it all as a business and these time delays and costs are all part of running this type of a business. If you struggle to accept that, you never should have been doing it in the first place….otherwise it’s like running a shop and being angry that you can’t always access stock, or that you might face unexpected maintenance costs, or staff salaries might increase, or the law requires you to meet certain regulations….it’s all just part of the process of running a shop. And LLing is a business and involves regulation and costs and processes which all come as part of receding rent. Too many LLs are amateurs who want easy rent without recognising the real costs and obligations that come with it.

Can you get the letting agents on the case to make life easy for the tenant. Do they have another property available for her? Carrot, not stick.

In a similar vein, can you increase the rent to make your property less appealing so it's less worth resisting the S21.

I'd check the small print of the contract and see what it says about late payment/ non-payment. It might be worthwhile giving her a bit more rope — a month or two more to pay late/ fail to pay — to establish a clear pattern. Then issue her with notice and brace yourself for non-payment. It might be worth reminding her that she'll need a reference from you. If you're in London or another city with a high demand and a lack of supply, she'll realise how important a reference is.

I became an accidental landlord when I met my current partner but wanted to keep my own home in case we found we couldn't live together.

In all kinds of business, those involved in legal contracts don’t stick to them. It’s entirely normal. And then you have to revert to legal process to get things legally rectified. This is no different. People are always going to court to claim monies they are owed and to enforce contracts. It’s naive to expect it will always be plain sailing. Likewise, many tenants find their LLs renege on their legal duties - they don’t maintain property as required, don’t give required notice to be present etc etc.

And yes, a tenant who isn’t paying STILL has their contractual rights. They are entitled to the process of law and not to be removed from the property outside of that, nor to have forced viewings. Likewise, a LL is also entitled to the rent that they should contractually be paid, even when they aren’t maintains a property…and again it is possible to go through legal processes to enforce the contract. You have to follow the legal processes and cannot just Eddie what you think is right or fair.

Having had the landlord let himself into the flat while I was in the bath to do a viewing (of the flat I hope, not just of me) , and then cleared the house and started redecorating before my contract was complete, any subsequent landlords have lost all 'flex' from my side. I'll just stick with my legal rights, ta.

Just tell her you're moving back in and give her notice to vacate.

When I used to rent, I had 2 owners wait until I'd been living there 5 or 6 months and decide to sell the place. It was complete PITA as I never would have moved in if I'd known they were planning to sell. They're being greedy wanting someone else to pay and be inconvenienced.

The laws are different here and I did have to let them have showings. Plus they always wanted to have an open house on the weekends.

Your tenant might be annoying but it is her home and therefore rightly she has rights. Tenants are people who need a home not just a convenient way for you to cover the mortgage on your spare house until you wish to sell it.

This is why the only people that can end a tenancy are the tenant themselves
or the courts. You as the landlord can only give notice that your require possession.

If the terms of the contract were unacceptable to you, you also did not need to agree it.

I know some people hate landlords but nightmare tenants who won't respect a legal agreement are bastards. So many of us are thrust into this situation because of life circs, rather than choosing to buy up many bits of housing stock to make a large profit. It's bloody hard work and when someone decides to be an utter arsehole and not fulfil their part of the tenancy agreement - or worse, not leave - the cost and stress are overwhelming.

You weren't "thrust into this situation", you made a deliberate choice to rent out your property rather than sell it at a loss. That decision has now come back to bite you on the arse.

Professional landlords recognise the risks and pitfalls, take out insurance to mitigate losses, and generally accept that not every tenant is going to behave as they should.

become a member of NRLA national residential landlord association they have correct advice have an answer phone and downloadable paperwork - they advised me through an eviction of a singerly unpleasant tenant and the annual fee is about £70 and tax deductible.

Indeed "accidental landlord" always makes me laugh.

"one day I woke up and found a tenant mysteriously in my property". You made a deliberate choice to let out a property, as selling it a market price was not palatable to you. The was a deliberate action. Therefore you are expected to behave in a professional and informed manner.

It is also possible to serve a S8 notice on the ground of persistent delay in paying rent. So the account could be up to date but there have been constant issues with payment. It's often used as an alternative so it could say that there are rent arrears or there have been problems with late payment. It's used in case the tenant coughs up just before the court date.