Yes, life changes. If there’s any prospect of life changing, you look damned carefully at your investments and make sure they are flexible enough to suit possibly changing needs. You wouldn’t go for a 10 year fixed saving account if you thought you might need the money. You don’t become a LL and make property, which is already an illiquid asset, even more illiquid and difficult to free-up. You ensure you understand the timescales that will be involved in ending a tenancy and claiming vacant possession….and recognise that in doing that you might not hit the peak market point, or be able to suit personal changes that happen in your own life in a short timeframe.
The question is, why should decent tenants who want some security have to move multiple times, because private accidental LLs haven’t really thought through whether they can let the property be available for more than a few months? ‘Life changing’ isn’t good enough. And I say that as a LL myself.
There do need to be mechanisms for removing problem tenants who wreck properties and don’t pay. This tenant couldn’t be out in one of these categories yet. The OP has identified a couple of reasons behind delayed payment, and although the tenant should have paid, it would be too early to say they are a problem tenant especially as OP hasn’t even properly spoken with the agent to find out.
In reality, this is a LL who can see a falling market, and rather late in the day has realised she’d like the value to put into her own property. Some LLs will be honest about these things and say it’s just a business. Others won’t be willing to accept responsibility but instead to point the finger and say ‘the tenant deserved it’ and build minor delays of payment into ‘problem tenant who needs evicting’.
I’m a LL. I hope to make money over the long term with my properties. I know that in the short term I won’t always make money. Voids happen, some tenants cause damage or don’t pay. Sometimes property prices drop. I have to be able to weather those storms. I also have to act both reasonably and legally. That means, that if I want to sell, Inwill think ahead. Ideally, a property will naturally become vacant and I will then not let it but renovate and market. If that’s not possible, I’d look to give 6 months notice if at all possible. Where tenants have been difficult, I have always communicated to understand the problem and been really proactive in looking for solutions, and then given notice if there doesn’t seem a way forward. And then I simply proceed legally and try to remove emotion from it. I know an eviction can take more than a year. Fortunately it’s only happened once, but I know it could happen again and is one of the risks of this business. If I couldn’t suck up this cost, I’d have been foolish to expose myself to it.
On a thread like this with tenants, LLs and people who are neither, it’s always worth everyone remembering that we are talking about investments and also people and their lives. Showing some respect for the latter always goes a long way and is really important. I’d say that anyone who can’t do that, certainly shouldn’t be in this market, but stick to inanimate objects or widgets. And please, no excuses about ‘life happening’. It might not be palatable to sell at certain points when you inherit or move in with a partner and there might be losses or costs involved in selling….but this still isn’t you being ‘forced’ into being an oblivious or selfish LL. It is always a choice, and if it’s a choice that leads to negative impacts on others, whilst you avoid possible negative impacts on yourself, I think you have to own it and take responsibility for the choices you make, rather than suggesting they somehow fell upon you, or the events of life moving in, absolve you having responsibility from impacting others.