To evict my tenants

[Landlordbyaccident]

Name change due to personal info possibly given.

I brought my first home in my 20’s and quickly paid off the mortgage on a 2 up, 2 down terrace in Birmingham. Nothing special and it always needed a new kitchen. I invested very little money in this house as I was so unhappy there.

I brought my current home in 2018 and we are paying a manageable mortgage although other outgoings has become a strain in the current financial climate. We owe around £75k on a house worth around £250 (not sure if this is relevant). My previous house has been rented out to a friends friend for around 2 years before this it remained empty.

They are paying £475 per month, other rentals in the area go for around £800. Some months they pay late or come up short. I know they are struggling. They are from a Caribbean island so I am not sure what benefits they are entitled to to help them.

Anyway my husband would like to ‘evict’ them. Ideally I would like them to increase the rent and remain in the house as they are no trouble and really nice people. I am going to be transparent in saying the house could do with some work being carried out but they never complain as I assume it’s because I am in a position of power and they fear I would evict them if I do.

After writing this I am not sure what I am asking? Would I be heartless in evicting them (goes against my core values) or raising their rent ? Should I just continue with the current contract and seek to cut costs in other areas.

what would you do?

@yoghurtflavours

Landlords - like tenants - vary massively. I was a landlord for 13 years, while we lived in job-related accommodation.

We sold our barn conversion and bought a new build, so as to have a house which was in good condition and easily maintainable, rather than an older property with significant maintenance needs.

We used a fully managed service, and all faults reported by the tenant were fixed.

We had a total of five tenants. Two were fine - kept the property clean and tidy and paid the rent on time. Three defaulted on the rent (just stopped paying) and were eventually evicted after due process. One of those basically trashed the place and left owing us 6 months rent, plus we had to refurbish and pay the legal costs.

A few times there were negotiations over rent at renewal time, we usually ended up accepting a lower increase than the agent suggested in return for a longer contract. The rent at the end was barely any higher than at the start.

We eventually sold the house to the last tenant, who has been in it for 8 years. The fact we were negotiating the sale did not prevent us replacing the boiler when it failed.

So for 13 years we provided a comfortable well-maintained home to five families who needed one - three of which didn’t keep their end of the bargain by actually paying the rent.

But yeah, all landlords are the scum of the earth.

IMO, you should try to bring it closer to market rate but still keep it fair if they’re good tenants.

Good ones can be hard to come by and I could never deal of the stress of a bad one.

You won’t get a balanced view on mumsnet, as for some reason it’s very pro tenant and anti landlord.

For me it’s quite simple, you’re not running a charity here, you’re running a business and you need to think of it that way.

An important factor is how much the property is worth in its current state, that will enable anyone to work out what the rental should be, ie what sort of yield you will have on your investment. Ie, if it’s worth 200k and you get 6k a year rent, that is a 3% yield. At the moment you could get a higher rate of interest with that money in the bank in a fixed rate bond. That is because bank interest rates are currently high. Usually you would try to aim for at least a 6% yield on your property.

I am of the opinion that good long term tenants are worth their weight in gold, so I wouldn’t knee jerk to evict just yet, but not paying the rent cannot continue.

If you evict these tenants you will have to spend money on the property to rent it out again. That may be worth it if you can achieve a much higher rent.

If you sell you may have capital gains tax to pay, so take that into account.

I think you need to take emotions out of this and make the decision that’s best for you.

And if the tenants don't like it they can jog on. Find someplace better at a lower price, and good luck with that.

Anectodal evidence is not irrelevant at all, to a mumsnet discussion. It’s not like I work for the office of national statistics and need to write a paper describing the basis of my summary of findings😂

I made clear I’m not denying or confirming the assertion of “majority” of landlords but based on my experiences and many others that I know ( and no doubt some on those thread) it’s not hard to believe that it might be a majority.

This.

For me it’s quite simple, you’re not running a charity here, you’re running a business and you need to think of it that way

In this context they are running a very unethical ‘business’ not paying out for repairs and maintenance knowing that the tenants will not speak up out of fear from being evicted. I can’t think why landlords get a bad name 🙄

Goodness. I hope - for your sake - you never require any kindness, human decency or knowledge of the housing sector. Seriously, what an unpleasant, spitty, stampy-foot snarl that was!

For those who think landlords are scum, it may be helpful to remember that if someone owns their own home, they have to replace their broken boiler themselves, with all the cost that entails. It's not on the landlord to gift you a free boiler out of the goodness of his/her heart. The way it works is that the cost of the boiler goes into your rent, either on the front end or the back end.

@aloris That would be fine if landlords did their job properly, but the issue is that a large amount of them don't. No, it's not on the landlord to gift us a free boiler out of the goodness of their heart. It's on the landlord to maintain a fully working boiler because it's a legal requirement, and far too many of them break the law. I've been renting for many years, as have most of my friends, and practically everyone knows someone who's had to go without hot water for weeks because the landlord wouldn't fix it for whatever reason. It's a very common situation. That's why they're scum, because they take advantage of their power by breaking the law in the knowledge that tenants can do very little about it.

@Justforlaffs No, I'm not a landlord. I'm a tenant who has experienced an average amount of bad landlords, and seen the way my friends have been treated by their own landlords. The reason landlords are leaving in droves is because they can't stand the thought of having to do their jobs properly. The fact that there is a national housing shortage is not an excuse to carry on accepting bad landlords as they are. I literally couldn't give a shit about those poor, poor people who could afford to buy a couple of buy-to-let properties, and now it's costing them too much. Diddums, my heart bleeds. That doesn't solve the problem of the housing shortage of course, but I'm not going to feel sorry for landlords. Landlords are in an overall position of power so you can quit with your sob stories.

This is op projecting her thoughts on the situation. she hasn’t been taking advantage of them when they’re on a paltry rent. More likely is that they’re happy with the house and have no idea they’re paying such a massive amount below market rent. I said about my tenant, whose bathroom I changed. It took about 3 years of periodically offering him to change it before I put my foot down and told him it was being changed, I was sorting out a furnished let and communicated the dates he had the let.

The property sounds tired rather than in a state of disrepair. As long as the front door and boiler etc works, it is fine as long as the rental figure reflects the state of the property.

It might say that but you cannot. That’s unlawful.

The fairest solution would be to write to them and tell them you will be increasing the rent significantly and give them the option of finding somewhere else within a timeframe or paying the increase.

Surely if you have no mortgage cost you can afford an ikea kitchen unless the kitchen is massive?

Either way I would probably give notice if your tenants are regularly late or underpaying a very low rent and your own income is tight.

You could do the kitchen after they leave so that if you find you have court eviction costs you can use they money for that instead.

It's a shame for the tenants but if the rent is low and accommodation OK they must know they are risking eviction regularly paying late and underpaying

It really isn’t landlord role to facilitate tenant’s benefit check.that’s their own responsibility
As a tenant I’d not want my LL knowing all my finance
suppose benefits check by @Landlordbyaccident reveals the tenant is in receipt of all eligible benefits not entitled to anything else but cannot afford their rent hence the late or underpayment. That is quite significant information

if tenants need benefits check it’s incumbent upon them to get one.

No landlord is obliged to keep a tenant who pays late or short.

This is op projecting her thoughts on the situation. she hasn’t been taking advantage of them when they’re on a paltry rent. More likely is that they’re happy with the house and have no idea they’re paying such a massive amount below market rent.

How patronising. It's all over the news, I'm sure most tenants are well aware of what's been happening to rent prices recently. Regardless of the rent, if you rent out a house that you fail to maintain then you're absolutely taking advantage of them, especially in the widespread knowledge of revenge evictions. Even if the rent is really low, it's still taking advantage. Charging a low rent doesn't automatically make you a good landlord.

🙄

“The Worcestershire boiler is completely legit and installed by a corgi”

Clever buggers aren’t they? No wonder the Queen loved them so much.

I didn’t say it was their role.

I said in this specific case - where the tenant is struggling already - it’s in the OPs interests to advise them, as suggested, to get get advice on if they’re claiming everything they can.

Being totally hands off and simply upping the rent isn’t going to help the Op if they can’t afford it.

If they’re not getting the help they’re entitled to and get it after their check the OP will benefit as much as the tenants. It’s well worth her while signposting them too get help

If the tenant is as nice as she sounds to be, then I think give her notice and explain your reasons. I’m sure if you are honest with her, she will understand and look for somewhere else and leave your property within your notice period. It is what it is. It’s your property, and you should do what you need to do. It’s clear that the tenant would not cope with an increase in rent. I say this as someone who rented privately for years, and acknowledges that I would have been screwed had I not been able to use private landlords, as many others would be.

Absolutely this. I've been on all three sides of the fence if there is such a thing. Owned three houses, been a landlord for 3 years, now renting since 2017.
Over 50 now post divorce and struggling to buy a new home.
If you decide to go down the path of refurbishment you should probably consider the upcoming requirement for EPC to be minimum of C in a couple of years so worth doing those works at the same time?
There is upcoming legislation to prevent section 21 evictions.
Despite the capital.gains.tax, and the rent is is taxed based on the full amount rather than just the interest, does it still make sense?
Feels like your business model isn't really working that well. As the poster above said, look at the current market value, and the income you get and work out your annual yield minus tax, maintenance and voids. Do a spreadsheet or something. Good luck, all the best.

And if you haven't protected the deposit in the DPS then that's the whole different bag if the tenants become aware of it.

Don’t be so silly. Of course she can.

Landlords can always up the rent if they wish as long as they give appropriate notice.

You think you rent a property and it stays the same rent forever? 😂

If they are good tenants and friends of friends could you have a chat with them and see what their situation is and whether they could claim something that they are not currently claiming that would enable them to pay the market value.

I would be honest with them and say look you are good tenants and I want you to stay in the property but we need to explore how you can pay more rent. I would also let them know it is ok for them to claim housing assistance. Some landlords don’t take people who claim due to restrictions on their mortgage but yours is paid off so no issue. I would just check that they are not claiming due to thinking they can’t. Possibly immigration restrictions prevent them from doing so.

This is my experience of being a landlord of several properties for over 20 years. Including the aforementioned tenant from a Western African country, who also pays late or part pays and is in arrears by a few hundred for a few months. He is a very nice guy and I don’t think it would occur to him I’d throw him out. I wouldn’t want to, which is why I kept the rent so low. The agent has asked me if I’d like to a couple of times…