Re post:- tenant always pays late, we now need more urgent advice!

[pippala]

Thank you to those who posted on my thread earlier this week.
We made contact with the tenant and have arranged a meeting tomorrow afternoon.
We have decided unless he pays us the rent owed in full tomorrow we are going to serve him with a letter giving him one months notice to leave. (one months notice to each party on contract)
In the meantime we have had a very serious complaint from one of the other owners in the house.
Aparantly several parcels delivered have been signed for over the last few months but not left outside doors. Including a laptop!
Earlier this week a very expensive xmas present was delivered. Signed for with the owner/occupiers name(although he was at work!)
When he got home the wrapping and labels were in our tenants dustbin!!!!
He called the police and have an appointment for them to come out to discuss on Tuesday next week!!!!
We have had complaints over the last few weeks of our tenant having up to 25 visitors a day coming and going to the flat. Up to 2am. These visitors leave the front door unlatched (normal buzzer entry)
The other tenants/owners are now telling us they are convinced our tenant is a drug dealer and want us to get rid of ASAP!!!
Since we contacted him earlier today to say we are coming tomorow to do an inspection, there has been a hive of activity there today with him and his friends "tidying up"
I am not looking forward to our visit.

Is it an AST ? did you specify just a month's notice in the agreement.

Hi LIZX, Yes it is an AST. With one months notice for each party.

He sounds awful.

But really, anyone ordering a laptop to be delivered should be home to be there when the postman comes.
(or arrange to pick it up themselves).

Sorry you're going through this.

Yes we agree the other owner should have been there to take delivery of a laptop!
We went to the other two owners and the other flat that has long term tenants in and asked them about our tenant.
They told us various stories about his behaviour but when we asked are you happy for us to give him a further years contract they were non- committal.
They are now all saying they felt vunerable and didn't want any repurcussions!
The owner/occupior joked that he was a drug dealer and now has turned round and said they are 99% sure he is!!
They are setting up cctv cameras this weekend.
Our tenant does not seem to leave the flat to "go" to work.
He has a bedroom (walk in wardrobe) full of designer suits.
Our flat is a luxury one, with expensive fixtures and fittings.
Yet he seems unable to pay his rent.

I've looked at the other thread and this and I'm a bit confused. On what grounds are you giving notice?

When does his contract end? Because the 1 months notice on a years lease is in regard to ending the lease at the 12 month point AFAIK. I'm fairly sure you have to give 2 full months notice to quit otherwise.

If you are giving notice because of late rent, he has to be at least 2 whole months behind with his rent.

I'm not sure where you stand on evicitng him on grounds of the neighbours complaining.

The fact that you have continued to let to him knowing he smokes/pays late etc will make the court likely to side with him, so you need to know what you are doing.

Evicting a tenant is very difficult. You have to do exactly the right thing at the right time. If you make a small mistake you get sent back to square one and have to start again.

From personal bitter experience in a cut and dry case for me (no rent full stop and major damage to the house) it took over a year to eventually get rid of my tenant and cost me thousands of pounds. And that was just the legal side, never mind the damage she continued to cause to the house that was truely wrecked. Like had to strip it back to the jpoists wrecked.

I think you need to be very carefull WRT how you approach this, and you need to decide if you can put up with the situation untill the lease ends. It is a pain chasing rent but at least you are getting some.

I would take the issues of the other residents seperately. Again you will have to check out what your legal responsibilities are wrt this (I have no experience of flats).

Thank you all.
It is in the contract from our agent- hired on the tenant finding basis that either party can give one months notice.
My DH wants to visit tomorrow very amically and say this is not working out. You(tenant) are not paying on the due date and it might be better if you move out and find somewhere else?
Not mentioning the fact the other tenants and owners feel vulnerable etc etc
I may call the agent tomorrow to see if they could come with us although there involvment was just to find a tenant, do credit checks and contract.

Yes you need advice. And wrt the agency - am I reading it right that your involvement with them ended after an initial tenant find? In which case they will not be remotely intrested in helping you.

They may offer to take on the management of the property for 10% + fees but that is a different matter!

Have you givien written notice of an inspection and received a written reply? If not you can't turn up.

You have to do things right. You also can't really go round for an informal chat and suggest he leaves. You either go round for an inspection (pre arranged and approved) and it is only an inspection or you find a legal way to begin eviction procedures.

I'm not trying to be harsh, I'm a LL, I can see where you are coming from, but when you are a LL you have to abide by the rules.

Is the one month's notice in your contract with the agency then, not the legal agreement with the tenant which would normally default to 2 months' notice on ll side / 1 on tenant's with 6 month minimum term (or perhaps 12 in your case if specified). If the agent has no ongoing management or rent collection contract with you they won't get involved now. Agree you can't take legal eviction action on the basis of one late payment and without hard evidence that he has broken terms of your contract with him. Your only hope is that he would leave by mutual consent but tbh if he has it so cushy why would he.

You have had some very good advice on this thread OP. The only thing I would add is that if the rental agreement entitles you to claim interest for late payment, I suggest you start charging it rather than continuing to let your tenant get away with paying whenever he feels like it. This is your property, you have to be very careful to protect your position and take proper legal steps if letting it to this person isn't working out for you.

My understanding is that if you have signed a year's contract with no break clause, neither of you can end it without a mutual agreement or unless the tenant falls into significant arrears or breaches the contract in some other specific and serious way. If there is a break clause and you have got the point where it can be used, then two months' notice needs to be served on the day the rent is due. ie. if rent is paid on 23rd of November, you cannot go in on 24th and give two months' notice to leave on 24th January, you would be effectively given three months' notice to leave on 23rd February.

As a landlord (and an a property solicitor pre-DC), I would suggest that you need to follow ISeeSmallPeoples advice above if you have decided that you want to evict your tenant

It can be a very complicated, costly and long process. It is worth paying for expert advice.

Thank you all for your advice.
We spoke to the agent this morning re the one months notice in the contract. They said the same as all you guys and advised us how to proceed with our meeting.
On our part the meeting went ok.
We were pleasant but firm.
The flat was very sparse! it is a very flash flat but looks unlived in?
Our tenant had a "friend" there as a witness presumably.who seemed to know the history of late payment well! He was kind of defending our tenants persistant late payments by making excuses for him!
To cut the meeting short basically he has agreed to leave by mutual consent on Feb 1st. we have asked him to sign a letter that our solicitor will send him to agree that the tenancy is not working out.
He gave us a cheque for October's rent but asked us not to submit it to the bank till Wed as it will bounce. He doesn't know when he can pay us Novembers rent!!
I expect now that we have agreed he can't afford the flat, he won't bother paying us any more rent till he leaves.
The flat smelt of cigarettes and there are rugs on the cream carpets that were not there last time we inspected so I guess they are covering stains?
We didn't look round we just wanted him to agree to leave which he seemed happy to do. He admitted he found it beyond his means.
Honestly he doesn't act or look klike a drug dealer, he was sheepish and apologetic but he is a flash git trying to live a flash lifestyle in a penthouse flat that he can't afford.