Rent Smart Wales change to landlord rights

[justasking111]

Having jumped through all rent smart Wales hoops, doing courses, paying fees. The website now won't take calls and won't let us log in. In December the rules are changing again. In favour of the tenant once again. Our tenants have had one rent rise in six years of £25 pcm. We've thrown in the towel now. Husband has had two operations, I've had a few things year our health is slipping away. So we decided to sell up. Getting a section 21 form is nigh on impossible so we've engaged a solicitor today on the advice of a local estate agent who said her office had seen 31 tenants given this notification last week alone.

We're talking about one town not a big town either. The Welsh government have pushed it too far now

I think £900 for a 3 bedroom semi-detached in the roughest part of town is daylight robbery.

We're in the next village, same 3 bed housing on a good bus route backing onto fields , tenants have three gorgeous little dogs so plenty of walking places. A spar, PO, butchers, Chinese/fish and chips shop, hairdresser, for £600 a month. They paid £550 six years ago when they rented a completely refurbished home, new central heating, kitchen, bathroom, new carpets, raised decking in part of the garden. Big outhouse great for storage.

They had a bit of a financial blip a few years ago so we adjusted payment dates for them.

So yes I know we're good landlords.

Freezing rents for 18 months with mortgage rates creeping upwards will put many more properties on the market I suspect. I think some landlords have overreached with cheap mortgages though.

Good. Private landlords are the lowest of the low.

There's no point trying to have a measured conversation on MN about the PRS and landlords.

The idea that LLs selling up in droves is a good thing is utterly shortsighted when you have no social housing to replace it. People currently renting would be buying if they could afford it. They can't. So where do they live when their rental is sold?

No one has an answer for this question.

I've got friends who rent. One a single mum with a child she can't get a mortgage. Another retired army 50 years too old for a mortgage . Another couple they struggle with her and his health. They'll never get a mortgage. My DS he and partner can't save yet because only one of them have managed to get a job out of university in their chosen career. The other working in a coffee shop.

It's not a landlords job to support everyone despite Nicola Sturgeon take on it. Why should the individual bale out the Scottish government.

Not to pull a thread from the dead, but I could not agree more. Just sitting through my 8h training to renew my licence.

There is only one looser in what Rent Dumb Wales' plans and thats the tenant. Less houses to rent make it harder to find somewhere and more expensive. If tenants cant see this and continue to snide at landlords then they're very short sighted.

It's a tenants choice to rent. If you have such an issue with paying a landlord to live in a house they maintain for you, then don't.

It seems many tenants and RSW see all landlords as some rich powerful landowner like the Sheriff of Nottingham when most bought their rentals years ago when houses were cheap and just sat on them when they met a partner etc.

My rental is being sold as soon as my fixed period with this tenant is over (providing they want to move out, otherwise even though the contract has an end date they can stay another 6 months by the new laws).

Well done Rent SMART Wales.

It's a tenants choice to rent. If you have such an issue with paying a landlord to live in a house they maintain for you, then don't.

For those who cannot get a mortgage - what would you suggest the alternatives are to renting?

Of course some people can't which is exactly my point.

If you are renting a house from a landlord who's maintaining it and paying the mortgage as you cant get one, you shouldn't be slagging said landlord off and celebrating when measures passed by the powers that be are making landlords decide to sell up. You being able to live in the house is completely reliant on them being able to run the house as a business, like it or not. Else every landlord would have their own charity.

You cant be in the position where you need to rent and also be bitter about landlords renting their houses out.

I should have phrased that differently. Its a tenants choice to rent a house and sign a contract which is set out clearly before they do so. If they aren't happy with anything in the contract they don't have to rent that house.

@adz9 The trouble is that we all have to rent somewhere; your argument is a bit like saying we have no right to complain about food prices (or hygiene standards) in this country because we all choose to buy food. The alternative to buying food is...?

Even if we are talking about a choice to rent a specific home, we still have issues around informed choice. Take my last landlord for instance - I was keen to avoid anywhere with damp due to prior bad experiences; unbeknownst to me they painted over the damp before putting it on the market, and then acted all surprised when mould appeared within two months. Before you assume it was condensation - it wasn't. The damp surveyor they eventually sent out confirmed it was both penetrating and rising damp. They then did nothing about it for a further 3 years.

I had very little choice in which home to rent because I'd inherited a dog and few give permission to have a dog.

The overall standards in the private rented sector are piss poor, and often the 'choices' are between crap option A and slightly less crap option B, because we don't get the choice to opt out altogether. I can choose whether I want to buy a car or not - there are viable alternatives like public transport and cycling - but you cannot choose whether or not to rent a home.

It's also galling to be told you 'can't afford' a mortgage of £500/month when you've been consistently paying your landlord £800/month. My last landlord had bought in 2014 for £120k, which based on 3% interest and £15k deposit means a mortgage of £497/month.

I was never that fussed about the financial side of buying a home - building equity and so on. Private renting would have been fine if it was run like social housing. Long-term tenancies with no threat of the landlord evicting you on a whim (end S21 evictions) or because you've asked for repairs. Repairs done in a timely manner. Ability to redecorate rather than living with the landlord's scuffed magnolia paint. Landlords that allow pets and children. In essence, the ability to treat it like it's your home not just somewhere you live temporarily.

Somewhat ironically I'm now a live in landlord - I bought somewhere in the end (only possible due to a bereavement in the family) and now rent out my spare room. It's not tricky - I rented out the best bedroom in the house, redecorated and put in new furniture, and was super upfront about some planned building works (not affecting lodger's bedroom), with a significant rent reduction to cover the inconvenience during them. Only thing from my own list above is I don't take pets or children, but that's because they wouldn't be compatible with my own dog who would eat them (I found a fresh graduate who loves dogs but doesn't want one of her own at this stage in her life, so quite enjoys having many of the perks of dog ownership and none of the responsibility). I also don't - as some landlords do - make out I'm performing some sort of public service by 'providing' housing.

I see your point in regards to food, but do somewhat disagree with the context.

Its like complaining about the price of food in Marks and Spencers when you could just shop in Asda. Nobody is forcing people to rent a house. They rent the house they choose to rent because its either what they can afford or what they want.

I trust you could have given notice as soon as you found out about the damp and been out in a couple of months and into another property?

I completely get there are bad landlords, but there are an awful lot of bad tenants as well.

You're missing the point of my gripe and focussing on the comment I made about tenants complaining.

Fortunately I have a brilliant tenant. She's been in the house 7 years. She has 2 kids and did have a dog which I have no worries about. I've allowed her to decorate as she wishes and I repair anything that goes wrong AS SOON as it happens. I try to be as good a landlord as possible. Yet I will be selling the property as soon as the fix is over due to the Welsh Assembly Governments completely one sided rule changes.

My point is that cracking down on ALL landlords and making things so complex and so in the tenants favour does very little to help tenants at all. Granted it might help the tenants that have a bad landlord in the very short term but these landlords will just sell up. So their tenant has gone from having a bad house to no house.

Landlords who aren't bad landlords have an awful lot more to lose now than ever before with the new WAG rules. There is NOTHING in these rules to help landlords, good or bad, in any way, so thousands are selling.

The only outcome of these rules is a massive lack of rental properties and a massive amount of people who can't find a house to rent.

What do these people then do? Tenants coming on here and saying its all good news for tenants and that landlords deserve to be cracked down on in a blanket style are, in my opinion, completely short sighted.

www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-10-11/why-is-the-private-rental-market-in-wales-in-crisis

PLEASE actually look into the rules in the new Welsh Housing act and see if you would be happy with them as a landlord.

On the face of it what's listed in that article sounds like a good thing when you bullet point it. But actually have a look what it involves.

They miss out things such as:

the length of these new occupational contracts (often over 100 pages).

On how missing the smallest detail in there can lead to a landlord not only having rent withheld legally by the tenant, but also they can be legally taken to court for compensation on top.

On how a in fixed contract of X length you can't issue the 6 months notice until the end of the fixed term, effectively giving 6 months extra after the end of the fix.

On how you can't legally refuse a tenant wanting someone else adding as a contract holder even though you might not want that.

The list goes on........

Over 100 PAGES the model statement is actually 36 pages. Which compared to the old tenancy agreement is onerous for landlord and tenant alike

www.gov.wales/model-written-statement-fixed-term-standard-contracts

We have smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, annual gas boiler check, electricity check for our tenants. Went into check one house in October, the tenants had smashed the smoke detectors off the ceilings because of the noise. The tumble dryer in the sitting room!! Was setting it off. Smashed up the extraction unit in the bathroom because of the noise. Cost £420 to replace them. We're in the process of evicting for that and many other things.

As landlords we follow all the rules. They're double glazed, insulated. BUT in a few years won't comply because they're in band D. now we can't afford the passive heating solutions being mooted by the government. I have to do more exams next year to remain licenced. So we have two choices sell up or lease the property to the council who will then be responsible for everything and decide themselves who will live there. I wonder if they'll adhere to the government's high standards?

Exactly this.

DP have a rental property. It’s their pension as they have always been self-employed and thus didn’t have employment pensions. This was their way of saving for their retirement….

How evil they are trying to give themselves a comfortable retirement. All landlords are money grabbing scum, aren’t they. Ffs.

OP, they’re in Wales and selling up too. It’s just too much hassle now.

There was a big landlords exhibition in Cardiff last autumn. Overseas companies from Europe, middle East are snapping up properties to add to their portfolios. I'd like to see the Welsh government bring them to court they're shadows and will never be caught

@adz9
I see your point in regards to food, but do somewhat disagree with the context.
Its like complaining about the price of food in Marks and Spencers when you could just shop in Asda. Nobody is forcing people to rent a house. They rent the house they choose to rent because its either what they can afford or what they want.

But they have to eat something. Take, for example, the cost of milk. A few months ago you could buy 4 pints in Asda for £1.10. It's now £1.65 - and the same price in M&S as it happens. That's not to mention that most of us were already shopping in Asda...

You can't just stop eating, or having a roof over your head, and even the prices for the most basic foodstuffs - and the smaller properties in less desirable areas - have gone up vastly.

Rent and food are the most basic things. You can go without things like a haircut, or a day out at the seaside, for instance. You cannot simply go without food and shelter when the prices are too high - you simply have to go for the least shit option on the market.

I trust you could have given notice as soon as you found out about the damp and been out in a couple of months and into another property?

I was 2-3 months into a 12 month contract when I found out, so had to stick it out for the year. Once upon a time, I would have moved. But then I inherited a dog, had some health issues, went self employed (easier to manage as your own boss with health issues) and knew I wouldn't be able to pass the affordability tests, even though the rent was always paid. Plus there was lockdown somewhere in the middle of all that. So, being realistic, I lacked the choices you think I had.

Even if I had had that choice, moving creates a great deal of expense, upheaval and hassle that shouldn't be required; at the end of the day my last landlord was fundamentally dishonest about the property, and so denied me the right to make an informed decision on where I live. No doubt the same landlord has painted over the damp and let it out to the next unsuspecting tenant.

I completely get there are bad landlords, but there are an awful lot of bad tenants as well.
You're missing the point of my gripe and focussing on the comment I made about tenants complaining.
Fortunately I have a brilliant tenant. She's been in the house 7 years. She has 2 kids and did have a dog which I have no worries about. I've allowed her to decorate as she wishes and I repair anything that goes wrong AS SOON as it happens. I try to be as good a landlord as possible. Yet I will be selling the property as soon as the fix is over due to the Welsh Assembly Governments completely one sided rule changes.

I'm glad you're a good landlord, though I am yet to find anyone admitting to being a bad landlord. I rented seven properties in the private rented sector, and only one landlord was truly good; I was sad to leave after a relationship breakdown meant I couldn't afford the rent alone. Another had the property, an HMO, in such awful condition that the electricity main switch rusted through (discovered by an ashen-faced engineer from the electricity company when they came around to switch the meter) and the kitchen floor partially collapsed. We were paying him ~£30,000 per year for that, and that was a decade ago and in the north of England; no doubt he's charging much more now.

Before the EICR rules, there was nothing to prevent the landlord letting out the property with such dangerous electrics; nowadays there are safeguards in place. Likewise the gas safety check.

My point is that cracking down on ALL landlords and making things so complex and so in the tenants favour does very little to help tenants at all. Granted it might help the tenants that have a bad landlord in the very short term but these landlords will just sell up. So their tenant has gone from having a bad house to no house.
Landlords who aren't bad landlords have an awful lot more to lose now than ever before with the new WAG rules. There is NOTHING in these rules to help landlords, good or bad, in any way, so thousands are selling.
The only outcome of these rules is a massive lack of rental properties and a massive amount of people who can't find a house to rent.
What do these people then do? Tenants coming on here and saying its all good news for tenants and that landlords deserve to be cracked down on in a blanket style are, in my opinion, completely short sighted.
www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-10-11/why-is-the-private-rental-market-in-wales-in-crisis

Interestingly in that link the minister says that number of landlords registering and deregistering is on a par, which suggests that the landlords selling up are just far more vocal about it than those buying.

Where landlords do decide to give up, it's unlikely that the property will stay empty for long. Either the house will be sold to an owner occupier (perhaps an FTB who then vacates their own rental property) or to another landlord.

PLEASE actually look into the rules in the new Welsh Housing act and see if you would be happy with them as a landlord.
On the face of it what's listed in that article sounds like a good thing when you bullet point it. But actually have a look what it involves.
They miss out things such as:
the length of these new occupational contracts (often over 100 pages).
The model occupation contract is 36 pages long and its use is not compulsory (though I don't know why you'd reinvent the wheel) www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-03/model-written-statement-for-a-fixed-term-standard-contract.pdf

@justasking111 suggests it is onerous, but I would suggest that standardisation - once everyone is used to it - will actually be less onerous than the old system.

On how missing the smallest detail in there can lead to a landlord not only having rent withheld legally by the tenant, but also they can be legally taken to court for compensation on top.
The "smallest" detail like having an HMO licence where required (Rent Repayment Order), or protecting the deposit (being able to take the LL to court for 1-3x the amount of the deposit)? These are basic requirements, and have been for many years; the penalties have certainly made landlords comply.

If there's something new in the RH(W)A then please can you narrow it down a bit so I can find it, or better still link to it.

On how a in fixed contract of X length you can't issue the 6 months notice until the end of the fixed term, effectively giving 6 months extra after the end of the fix.
This is untrue; it says here you can give notice 6 months after the tenants have moved in. www.gov.wales/tenants-housing-law-has-changed-renting-homes#110744

On how you can't legally refuse a tenant wanting someone else adding as a contract holder even though you might not want that.
This is also untrue; it says here that a joint contract holder can only be added with the landlord's permission
www.propertymark.co.uk/membership/knowledge-hub/renting-homes-wales-act.html#:~:text=Joint%20contract%2Dholders,-The%20Act%20sets&text=A%20tenant%20may%20add%20another,become%20a%20joint%20Contract%20Holder.

Seeing as your four stated objections are all either factually incorrect, or were already in place before the RH(W)A, I'd suggest having a thorough read of the paperwork before you make any big decisions on your investment and your tenant's home.

I work in a sector that is hugely regulated - food. We get inspected by the government - and named and shamed if something isn't up to scratch, required to put up a food hygiene rating sticker in the window even if it's a shamefully low score. The government has rules on everything from the number of sinks we have, to which cleaning products to use, to what clothing we can wear. New regulations get brought in all the time - like Natasha's Law for instance, which has cost me quite a lot of money in admin and additional labelling. But - you rarely hear the food industry complaining about the wide variety of regulations we have to act within, because we recognise that we are responsible for public safety. Natasha's Law is an expensive pain in the rear for me - but it's the right thing to do to safeguard people with allergies.

Landlords have managed to operate for many years in a regulatory environment where there are few rules and little enforcement, even when people's safety is at stake; things are overdue for some increased regulation.

I really do not have the time to respond to your every point as its clear we are never going to agree.

You can't just stop eating, or having a roof over your head, and even the prices for the most basic foodstuffs - and the smaller properties in less desirable areas - have gone up vastly.
Rent and food are the most basic things. You can go without things like a haircut, or a day out at the seaside, for instance. You cannot simply go without food and shelter when the prices are too high - you simply have to go for the least shit option on the market.

Very true. I guess us landlords are just lucky we don't face similar issues seen as we don't eat. Food prices don't effect us.

Our rental property mortgages have or are due to double in price as well as our own residential mortgages. Our gas and electricity bills have gone up just like people who rents have. A cost of living crisis effects everyone.

I have no idea why all landlords are seen as the Earl of Grantham when most of us have no pension and our SINGLE rental property is it.

Anyway, I will defend my original four points you have tried to disprove in such a condescending manner seen as I have just sat through two full days Rent Smart Wales training and you clearly haven't, pulling all your knowledge from your half hour Google search of each of my points this evening.

Firstly, RH(W)A hasn't existed since about 2015. It's now called Rent Smart Wales.

Out of interest do you even live in Wales yourself? I'd say from the fact you clearly haven't done the training or know very little about it, that you don't.

Anyway here we go:

The model occupation contract is 36 pages long and its use is not compulsory (though I don't know why you'd reinvent the wheel) www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-03/model-written-statement-for-a-fixed-term-standard-contract.pdf

AN OCCUPATIONAL CONTRACT IS 10000% COMPULSORY IN WALES so you clearly have absolutely 0 understanding of the main change to Welsh Housing Law. The use of the super basic OC provided by the Welsh Government is not compulsory, but the use of an occupational contract IS compulsory. It's now illegal to issue an old style tenancy agreement in Wales and if you do you are breaking the law and can be fined. All old tenancy agreements have converted to OCs as of Dec 1st and we, as landlords, have until June to issue them.

The standard occupational contract provided by WAG is BASIC. It does not include everything needed to protect a landlord or tennant and as it is a skeleton agreement it contains NO actual terms or supplements bespoke to the landlord or tenant specifically. It's just the BASIC legal agreement. NRLA version is longer.

Several friends have written these for HMOs and ended up in the 100s of pages.

Not withstanding any of this, my last COMPLETE AST was 7 pages long......
36 pages is a lot more pages than 8, especially with bits missing.

www.cpshomes.co.uk/cps-blog/2022/11/15/10-reasons-why-we’re-not-using-welsh-gov’s-model-occupation-contract-1-it-puts-landlords-in-a-weaker-position-than-they-should-be

The "smallest" detail like having an HMO licence where required (Rent Repayment Order), or protecting the deposit (being able to take the LL to court for 1-3x the amount of the deposit)? These are basic requirements, and have been for many years; the penalties have certainly made landlords comply.

Again, it's abundantly clear that you have no understanding of the new Wales only laws. I am not talking about either of these things. A licence has been a requirement for years as has protecting the deposit, this is common knowledge. What I'm talking about is in relation to things in the written statement of the new Occupational Contract.

There are certain things that if not included, can be held against the landlord and penalties payable. This can be as simple as missing a term out of the written statement, deeming it incomplete. Or simply forgetting to inform the tenant of certain things such as moving house.

Now I'm not saying a reasonable tenant would look to pursue these things but many would.

Please see this site:

my-local-solicitor.com/2022/03/14/renting-homes-wales-act-2016-welsh-landlords-time-to-shape-up-or-pay-up/

"Finable offences include and are not limited to:

Fail to give the contract holder a written statement within 14 days from the occupation date specified in the occupation contract.
Fail to provide a complete written statement.
Fail to provide a correct written statement.
Fail to provide a written statement in respect of a conversion from assured short-hold etc; to occupation contract.
Fail to provide information in relation to the landlord – the landlord’s identity and address.
Fail to provide information in relation to a change of identity of a landlord and their address.
Fail to provide a written statement of variation of a periodic standard contract.
Failure to provide a written statement of variation of a fixed terms standard contract.
Examples of compensation/damages

Failure to provide written statement – compensation is payable in accordance with section 87 of the Act and is equivalent to a day’s rent for each day that the written statement is not provided, up to a maximum of two month’s rent until the statement has been provided.

However, If the contract-holder believes the failure to provide the written statement was intentional, section 87 also enables the contract-holder to apply to the court for the compensation amount to be increased.

Interest will be added to the compensation amount if the landlord fails to provide the statement within the two month period.

Section 88 enables the contract-holder to set off any compensation he or she is owed against rent.

Failure to provide a complete written statement of the contract – the contract-holder may apply to the court for a declaration. If
the court concludes that the provision of an incomplete statement was deliberate on the part of the landlord it can order the landlord to pay compensation to the contract-holder and that
compensation may be increased up to a maximum of double the original amount."

SEE ATTACHMENTS

This is untrue; it says here you can give notice 6 months after the tenants have moved in. www.gov.wales/tenants-housing-law-has-changed-renting-homes#110744

Again, you are wrong or have misunderstood what I wrote and you own link which you've posted proves it???* *

Yes, on a periodic contract you can issue 6 month notice 6 months in.
On a FIXED TERM contract (as I stated) of less than two years you cannot issue notice at ANY TIME during the fixed term. This means 6 month notice can only be issued after the term, thus making the minimum term, the term +6 months. Again, as I stated in my original post.

If you have a fixed term AST it has to convert to a fixed term occupational contract. You can't make it periodic.

"if you have a fixed term contract (which says how long the contract is for) your landlord cannot normally issue a notice to end your contract. If you do not leave, the fixed term contract will usually become what is called a periodic standard contract at the end of the fixed term, and your landlord will have to serve a 6-month no fault notice to bring this to an end."

www.gov.wales/tenants-housing-law-has-changed-renting-homes#110744

This is also untrue; it says here that a joint contract holder can only be added with the landlord's permission
www.propertymark.co.uk/membership/knowledge-hub/renting-homes-wales-act.html#:~:text=Joint%20contract%2Dholders,-The%20Act%20sets&text=A%20tenant%20may%20add%20another,become%20a%20joint%20Contract%20Holder.

I never said this wasn't the case! I said you can't reasonable refuse.

Yes the landlord needs to give permission, but unless you can give some kind of 'reasonable grounds' which is wildly vague, the contract holder can take the landlord to court for the court to overturn the landlords decision. We know that the tenants are always right so we all know what way this would go in court.

www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/84

www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2016/1/section/85

SCREENSHOT ATTACHED.

Seen as your four stated objections are all either factually incorrect, or were already in place before the RH(W)A, I'd suggest having a thorough read of the paperwork before you make any big decisions on your investment and your tenant's home.

So, as I've clearly showed, every single one of my points was either factually correct or misinterpreted by you.

I think you should probably go and do some of the Rent Smart Wales training if this interests you enough so that you actually have some idea what you're talking about instead of using Google to try and look a smart Alec by posting condescending and incorrect replies.

@LastOfTheChristmasWine

Please ignore my RHWA not existing comment - it's very late and I realised I misread what you meant after reading through your response again.

The rest stands. You really aren't as well informed as you think you are in regards to the new Welsh laws.

How does using a letting agent change this? Yes the landlord needs to be ‘certified’ but then the headaches are all for the letting agent?

The letting agent also has separate rules to adhere to which they can also be held to account for.

There is a separate Rent Smart Wales course for this.

Things there are always things that using an agent won't protect a landlord from though. At the end of the day the agreement is ultimately between the contract holder and landlord.

@adz9 Surely this is just part and parcel of running a business though?
The rules around conducting business change all the time, so the business owner needs to adapt or sell the business?
No one forced people to get into the letting business. The rules have either been lax or ambiguous previously, now they are tightened up (maybe too far, I don’t know).
There must have been issues for the government to actually do something.

Im not disputing this for sure. It is exactly what's happening now.

I, and all other good landlords try to provide the tenant with a good house to live in We try our best to do what is right by them and the law as well as running a "business" but its reached the point where I think many of us feel that there are so many ways they can drop the ball in a tiny way which barely effects their tennant and be penalised. Many of us don't earn thousands a month from rental portfolios. I have one rental house which is a house I lived in for 10 years and kept when I moved on.

Landlords selling their rental homes is just as you say, them deciding that the rewards (often minimal and more in the property value rather than the rental income) are now no longer worth the risk or aggravation.

My entire argument is that this is also not good for tenants as they have less and less rental properties to choose from. If no landlords want to rent houses then where do they live? It's not like the local authority can help. They are already over subscribed.

Their actual stance on people being S21'd over the last few months has been to stay until you're actually evicted putting the issue back at the landlords door. Apparently until such a point they can't do much to help as they have very limited housing themselves which is often in a worse state than most private houses, or a private house through them!

There is no denying there are terrible landlords renting terrible houses but to blanket make the whole sector a nasty place to be doesn't just root them out. It ruins the entire sector.

My grandad used to say its one thing to scratch your nose. Its another thing to tear chunks off it. I feel this is exactly what RSW have done.

I'm selling one rental ASAP. Am evicting bad tenant. Other house this financial year as well as insurance, boiler check. Which meant a new boiler I'm five months rent spent. The rent is £400 pcm below market rate for a three bedroom, she's a nice lass who's partner buggered off when she had his baby. BUT she's not really entitled to a Three bedroom. I've raised her rent £25 pcm in seven years . She' says she can't pay any more. We're getting too old to be a charity. We've done everything asked of us. Wired in smoke detectors years ago, replacement windows whenever necessary. The property hasn't really appreciated despite the money spent on it. Bought for 80k spent 20k in 2007. Redecorated and recarpeted twice since then Now worth 125k so appreciation 25k capital gains tax limit 6k from April. Frankly we're done.

Can you just let them to the local council/housing assoc.?
Hassle free then as they take full responsibility.