Landlords of wife stabbed to death by her husband take the children's inheritance cash to clean up bloodstains (Warning-Upsetting)

[ElenorRigby]

I am absolutely appalled by this, totally disgusting.
Poor poor woman and her poor poor children. Unbelievable.
Link

Aside from the landlords actions how on earth did this man get just 9 years for stabbing his wife 30 times?? He's already out of jail after serving just 4 years

Especially as he had previously abused his first wife.
Alisdair Sinclair's ex-wife tells of torment

It's a horrible situation, isn't it?

Although who do you suggest should have paid?

Surely the Landlords Insurance should have paid?

And yes, that's awful, 9 years and out in half . It shouldn't shock me, the man that killed my brother got far less than that, but it always does. Is life really that cheap?

I don't agree with the death penalty, but I do think taking a life should have a life sentence imposed - and life should mean life.

That was my thought, LtEve.
Thinking callously, it would be a good opportunity for an insurance company to show themselves as considerate and human.

It has to be cleaned professionally and yes, its value drops due to the murder. Also, the ll can't usually rent it out for a while. This happened in Nottingham when an internet stalker murdered the boyfriend of his target. The flat could not be rented out for over a year whilst the case and trial proceded. It wound up in foreclosure.

Although who do you suggest should have paid?

Um, the person who committed the crime? The landlords' insurance? Certainly not two grieving children!

Awful story. The poor kids but I think maybe some daily mail nonsense going on here. Top exec leaves only £13k, no life insurance? Lived in £900k rental but no pension/life insurance payment? In any case the landlords would not have known the value of the estate and may have assumed (as above) that there was more than enough to compensate them. Not saying its the right thing to do but I'm just not convinced this is the true scandal here.

Well I would have thought that they did try their insurance first.

And supposedly the perpetrator has no money.

So then what?

I'm not saying that it's right, but I don't see why they should be "out of pocket".

What a sad story.

Going on only the details given in the article, I don't think the landlords are doing anything wrong and it seems unfair that they are being accused of taking the children's inheritance. They were claiming reasonable damage costs from the person who they had the tenancy agreement with, not the children. The fact that that person is no longer alive so those cost have to be taken from their estate is irrelevant.

There will not be children paying for this because presumably they wouldn't have received the money until they were adults anyway.

Surely the onus should be on the murderer to pay rather than the children.

Where does this stop? If a distant relative commits a crime and they are skint am I to pay for what they have done?

The children are not responsible for the damages. I don't think they are anyway.

cloudsanndtrees if someone cleans out the savings accounts I have for my kids is that OK as they wouldn't have got the money for a few years anyway? That is what you seem to be saying.

If you have a £1,000,000 house which you can afford to rent out, then, yes I do think you should show some compassion and swallow your loss of the expense of carpet cleaning.

Horrible case, why the hell was he give such a short sentence and let out so quickly? I appreciate the murderer's despicable violence meant the landlords had to pay out for cleaning, but their legal action went way beyond that - and the Daily Mail claims the house hasn't dropped in value anyway. Could they not have left the children a penny?

Poor kids, lost their mother, their father's the murderer, and they've now lost their inheritance to the landlords.

Re. the legalities, why are the landlords claiming against the victim's estate? The murderer has no assets, but how come they can recover costs from the victim?

Maybe because they were married?

Dunno but still seems wrong and unjust. The poor woman was horribly murdered fgs, why is she paying for his crime, even after her death?

I think it is the murderer we should be angry with.

We had to spend a lot of money clearing up our flat after one nightmare tenant tried to stab the other nightmare tenant to death. (Thankfully he survived) Clearing up after that kind of incident is very expensive because the risk of AIDS/ HIV.

However it does not cost 13K to clean and redecorate one room to a professional standard. We had to pay the bill as the woman who commited the crime was in jail and had no money. I feel that the landlords should have taken the desposit and not sued for further expenses.

It sounds like the landlords wanted the entire house cleaned, re carpetted and redecorated. I don't think its the tenent's problem that the house was unrentable or there was a drop in house value. The tenant is only responsible for the length of the contract and in practice its quite easy for a tenant to break a contract.

If they were letting the place furnished then they should have been insured.

Thus the cleaning etc would have been covered.

Landlords have been negligent in failing to protect their asset properly. Don't see why they have recourse to claim funds from children and/or someone who was never on the letting agreement. Im sure that's not how it usually works.
Reallytired if a tenant damages something and doesn't pay it's not usual (lawful?) to go after their children / parents / siblings is it.

This case seems peculiar.

It does seem like a kick in the teeth.

I also wonder what the £92k? they were originally after was for? the houses value has gone up not down since the murder.

Also disgusted that the murderer got such a pathetic sentence.

Um, if they owned the house themselves would they not have cleaned the carpet or replaced it before selling?

I very much doubt a ll insurance policy would include cleaning in the event of a death regardless of the circumstances, would have thought it was pretty normal to claim from the estate.

"Reallytired if a tenant damages something and doesn't pay it's not usual (lawful?) to go after their children / parents / siblings is it. "

Ofcourse its not lawful. The only thing the landlord can do is keep the desposit that was held to cover damage. A desposit on a 900K house would be extremely high. (Ie. 2 months rent typically) There are insurances to cover lost rent or damage to property or legal fees.

I think the landlords are within their rights to keep the desposit but should not go after any further inheritance. I feel the landlords were greedy and dishonest. I am saying this as someone who has seen the mess and to pay the financial costs to a property caused by attempted murder.

Having an attempted murder in our flat cost us around 6K eight years ago.

'However it does not cost 13K to clean and redecorate one room to a professional standard.'

Apparently it wasn't just the one room.

OK so maybe they kept the deposit?
But it doesn't sound like that from teh article

It's the DM though so who knows

Like others I a shocked that he got such a light sentence / was out so quickly.

They were not just wanting the money to cover clean up costs though, they wanted money for the alleged devaluing of the house. Even though it has raised in value.

According to reports from the trial the husband forbade his wife from having a bank account and spent £100,000 on three identical cars. So actually plausible she had little in the estate. But the husband had assets. (unless they sold them all to pay for the defence - would he be allowed to if they were joint). So I still think there is something fishy about this story,