Landlord Misery

Well, here is the situation as of now.

The flat finally sold a few weeks ago. The new owner has long since changed the locks and is in the process of renovating the flat. No doubt he has needed a skip and will have to fumigate the property. The last time we set foot in the flat, there were swarms of flies in the kitchen due to the decaying rubbish Julie had left there.

We just feel relieved that the flat is no longer our concern.

We were so extremely patient with Julie while she was our tenant. Every time she sabotaged something within the flat, we just quietly fixed the problem and encouraged her to get things sorted in there. But she is a destructive and fundamentally dirty person, so after several attempts at putting right what she damaged, there came a point when we realised that you just can't help some people. Furthermore why should we spend hundreds of pounds paying for tradesmen when she wouldn't help herself.

She moved into a newly renovated flat that had no problems whatsoever and destroyed it with her filth and drinking habits. It still astounds me that she wants to set such an example to her daughter. An immoral liar, Julie is the type of person who will never amount to anything in life-she is one of life's spongers. How does it make YOU feel, knowing that your taxes go to fund losers like her?

If you are a landlord in South Somerset, Julie is renting another flat not far from (what was) ours. If you recognise yourself, be afraid. You have gained the original tenant from hell. We didn't give her a reference, so if you have one in your possession, look at it again. It will be a false one, likely done by a pal of Julie's. Did you follow it up by calling the 'landlord'? If you did, you would have spoken to that pal, because you sure didn't speak to us. Scum doesn't disappear, it just stagnates in a different location.

Don't have nightmares, just evict her.

I thought you might like to see pictures of the disgusting state of some of the rooms showing how Julie has left them. We took loads of photographs of every room in the property for proof and I showed them to my parents today. Of course they had seen the property immediately after we had renovated it and so were horrified at the pictures showing just how appalling it looks now. My father commented that the flat now looked like 'a squat'. Click on the pictures for a larger image and my comments.

This immoral and slutty excuse for a member of the human race is now living in someone else's private rental. I pity them.

Haven't been online much lately but here is an update on the flat situation as of today: 30th November 2007.

Our buyer (who agreed to take on the eviction process as part of the purchase price) took Julie to court. The judge awarded in our favour and she was supposed to be out by the 31st October 2007. However she appealed against this and it was necessary for me to attend court with a solicitor-I had to go because we are still the legal owners at this time because the buyer's mortgage lenders will not allow completion of the sale until she is out of the property. (This is because she claims Housing Benefit and it is against their lending criteria when a tenant claims Housing Benefit).

The court was a farce. I went armed with sheaths of paperwork for my solicitor as he had asked me to bring anything that would discredit Julie. I spent half an hour with him before the case to prepare. Julie had come up with various different reasons why she should be allowed to remain in the property until January: these included her concerns that her daughter would be unable to get to school (this from the Mother who preferred to stay in bed until midday rather than drive her daughter to school), the fact that she could only have emergency accommodation in a town far from the property (whose fault is that, idiot?), that she should get her deposit returned under the new scheme (her tenancy pre-dates the scheme. Did she not have even the basic intellect to think to check this out?) and that my husband had physically attacked her when we went to the flat with the surveyor (as if he would attack her in front of a witness anyway. She never fails to surprise me with the levels of her stupidity).

However when the time came to enter the court, the usher informed us that the 'other party has failed to turn up'. We spent five minutes with the judge who declared the case "struck out" on account of her failure to show. This was the only legal recourse open to him under the circumstances and so her eviction date of 31st October remained.

However she was clearly still in the property after this date. My husband happened to be in the village where the flat is located and so popped to the flat. Julie's former boyfriend (who she moved into the flat with originally) suddenly materialised. He had obviously seen my husband arrive and was able to walk to the flat from nearby. He asked whether husband was going to change the locks (he wasn't) because (he claimed) Julie was definitely going to be out by the end of that weekend. Husband asked whether they were back together again. He reluctantly admitted that they were.

A few days after that weekend, we let oursleves into the flat. It was still filled with her clutter but she is definitely not living in there. Furthermore she has totally trashed the property. The expensive electric fire that we fitted has been wrenched off the wall and broken along with the wooden mantelpiece and fire surround. She has even pulled the tiles off the wall. Various fixtures and fittings have been stolen including a mirror that was over the fireplace, a door, two electric radiators and fuses from the electric meter so that it is impossible to turn the electric on. She has even graffiti'ed abuse on the wall. She has left bags of rubbish everywhere, including some in the kitchen that have decaying food in them. She has left a fridge freezer that also has rotten food inside. What a filthy person she is, what an example to set to her daughter.

The police cannot take action against the theft or criminal damage. We can only claim as a civil case in a court. We won't bother. There is more than one way to skin a cat........

The council have told me that she hasn't given them a definite date of leaving the flat either, even though they have written to her twice. However they did tell me that she has put in a claim (as a single parent) for Housing Benefit for another property. Dear oh dear Julie. Not a smart move.

So at the moment we legally cannot change the locks. The bailiffs are due shortly and then we can complete with the sale. Presumably Julie thinks she is deliberately costing us by what she is doing with her delaying tactics. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you love but it is the new buyer you are costing now.

Watch this space.

Many thanks for your kind words, Stephen. Much appreciated.

We have had a personal crisis of a totally different kind here at home so I have not been blogging for a few days but here is an update.

We have decided to sell the flat to one of those people that buy at a discount in exchange for a very fast sale. I have been in discussions with a chap who is interested and it looks like things are starting to move.

He made us two offers: one price with J out altogether (which would mean we couldn't sell for weeks) and another offer (obviously less!) with J still in and he will take over the eviction process from where we have left off.

After much discussion, we have decided that we will sell the flat with her in and let him have the hassle of taking her to court and getting bailiffs involved. Yes, we will get less for the sale of the flat but weighing it all up, we feel it is something we need to do. With our other crisis to deal with, J and her petty, pathetic games are the last thing we need.

He WILL continue to evict her as I have been totally honest about the situation with her and he doesn't want her as his own tenant. His aim will be to clean the flat up and put a tenant of his own in there. So J will still end up homeless.

Financially it is probably a necessity too because since the Housing Benefit stopped the rent, we have slipped behind with the mortgage. Arrears have built up and with the threat of repossession, it makes sense to sell. We will have some equity so won't be out of pocket. We just won't make as much of a profit as we could have had we sold it tidied up. But when we weigh up the court costs of removing J, it evens out along the way.

Funnily enough I phoned the Housing Benefit people and told them that J was definitely still in the flat so now they have agreed to restore the rent. How bizarre it all is!

It is my hope that the sale will proceed okay. The buyer seems a decent enough guy so I'm not worried about him backing out. But I am worried about the survey that his mortgage lender will obviously require. Since J has 'trashed' the flat, I am scared that the surveyor will not recommend it to the mortgage lender. But we will have to wait and see on that one.

As the sale is supposed to go through in about a month, I hope this ordeal will soon be over.

And I can reveal J's name to the world.

I am so fed up. My husband went to the flat today to see if J had left or not.

She is still there. All of the windows were open and he saw a hand chucking stuff out of the kitchen window. I could have cried when he told me.

Ought to mention here that one of the things the couple in the flat below complained about was J's extraordinary habit of lobbing teabags out of her kitchen window. They would find teabags on their kitchen windowsill on a daily basis. At the time we were told this, we went to the side of the block of flats and sure enough, there were hundreds of used teabags on the grass beneath her window. And the couple in the flat below were able to show us several teabags sitting on their sill.

So therefore when my husband saw a hand throwing something out of the kitchen window, it is clear that not only is J still in situ, but the dirty bint is still chucking teabags out of the window...for whatever reason she feels the need to do so.

Can't really focus at the moment so will sleep on the situation and work out what to do for the best tomorrow.

But in the meantime my head hurts from the pressure of it all.

I've just remembered what else my husband said to me regarding J and whether or not she will leave.

It is his opinion that she will want to avoid being pursued by the owner/landlady of the flat beneath ours for the damaged ceiling caused by J's (firstly) leaking washing machine then (secondly) by her deliberate sabotage. Also we ourselves could reasonably pursue her for the damage she has caused in the flat, especially with regards to the sabotage.

She knows she will be held liable so my husband thinks that J will want to avoid any of us knowing where she is going. This way neither the landlady of the flat beneath or us could pursue her for financial compensation. Her deposit will not be returned to her in view of the damage she has caused but it won't be sufficient to compensate us totally for the things she has done.

She will know this and will no doubt not expect her deposit to be returned to her. So therefore my husband thinks she will prefer to go leaving no forwarding address (especially as it seems likely that she will have debts she will want to leave behind). She won't return our keys this way but she will assume, rightly, that we will change the locks anyway.

Oh, how I hope he is right. And there can't be many wives saying that about their spouses!

Stephen left me this message:

You must be so hopeful right now thinking that the nightmare might soon be over. I really am rooting for you although I know that an unpleasant clean-up awaits you. Still, it'll be great to get your place back.

Thank you Stephen for your kind thoughts. I have to admit that now I am feeling very anxious. The final eviction date is midnight today, the 1st of August. My stomach is tied up in knots so I try not to think about whether or not J has gone. But when the thought slips back into my mind, I feel distinctly queasy.

I so hope that J will just go but I am really afraid that she won't and we will be forced to instigate proceedings. And we just can't afford that. We have had to stop the mortgage payments on the property because now the council have suspended her Housing Benefit, we really can't meet the mortgage payments. We had to make a choice and so consequently we have chosen the house we live in...the roof over our heads. Thus we will now be in arrears with the flat.

If J leaves today, like she is meant to, we can sell quickly and avoid potential repossession. If she drags it out by forcing us to take her to court.....well, the delay could spell disaster for us. And this is why my stomach is in knots.

My husband, usually the worrier between us, has taken the "que sera, sera" approach. He is point blank refusing to allow the flat or anything to do with it to impinge upon his thoughts. He prefers to worry instead about our business. I asked him what his thoughts were about repossession but he just shrugged and said that the lenders (of the mortgage for the flat) would be costing themselves more by forcing repossession when they know that we will be selling the property immediately it becomes empty.

But that doesn't stop me worrying. And feeling sick.

I was watching 'How clean is your house' last night and as with most episodes, I was appalled by the disgusting living conditions of the family featured. They had clutter and stuff everywhere-on the floors, surfaces and just about anywhere they could find a spot. They had to walk over piles of stuff just to walk around the house and the poor kids had to root through the clutter on the floor to find their school uniform. And as for the squalor and filth in the kitchen...

But then it suddenly occured to me that what I was seeing was exactly how our flat was the last time we saw it. Our dirty, lazy and slatternly tenant J had created the same conditions as those I was watching on my tv. And yet our flat had been so immaculate when we first let it to her.

This realisation that what I was watching wasn't just a distant tv programme with no reality to me, but in fact actually related exactly to our flat, made me feel very deflated.

And depressed.

Well, how interesting. I have just had a telephone call from the Housing Benefit department at South Somerset District Council. The very nice lady explained to me that she was about to put a letter to me in the post advising me that J's Housing Benefit has been suspended.

Basically this is because J has told them that she hopes to be "out of the property by the end of the month" (meaning July). In order to avoid landlords being over-paid (heaven forbid!), this is their standard practice so that we (the landlords) are owed by the council rather than the other way round.

I was only thinking about this over the last couple of days anyway. Not the Housing Benefit-I mean I was thinking about J being gone from the property. Her notice expires on the 1st August so in theory we should be able to walk back into the property on the 2nd of August. If she hasn't gone, we would then have to take her to court which could take another 4-6 weeks and will cost us the court fees.

However, going on what she wrote in that text that I received from her (but which wasn't meant for me-click the Tag Text to read) and with what the Housing Benefit are saying, I hope it won't come to that and she will just go.

But I think I will contact the landlady from the flat below ours and ask her if there has been any movement from J; that is, has she been moving stuff out of the property? We have a garage beneath the flat that J had use of as part of her tenancy and I know for a fact that it was stuffed to the gunnels with clutter, so I would have thought that she must have made moves to clear that out at least.

Dare I be optimistic or am I heading for hassle? I so long for it all to be over.

I watched "Katie and Peter-The Baby Diaries" the other day. There was an upset in their household because their children's nanny had asked for time off to visit her father but it turned out that in fact she had gone off on a holiday to the Algarve.

This was discovered when she failed to come back for work when she was supposed to which left Katie in difficulties. Katie (aka Jordan) had work commitments but being heavily pregnant and with her other children to care for, she was finding it difficult to organise things without the nanny. Bless!

The upshot of this is that Katie was late for an interview on Radio 1 which so incensed the DJ, he point blank refused to interview her when she eventually did arrive. Furthermore he slagged her off on air. Actually I think he behaved very badly but that's not my point here.

The point is that Katie was so angry at the negative publicity she received, she decided to dispense with the nanny's services. So she went into the nanny's private cottage, which was in their grounds and was given to the nanny with her job, in order to pack her stuff into bin bags. It was while Katie was rifling through the nanny's belongings that she discovered that the nanny was actually in the Algarve and had lied to them as to her whereabouts.

Now this is the bit that puzzles me: do the rich and famous not have to abide by the same rules as the rest of us? While I can perfectly understand Katie's anger at the nanny's behaviour, what I can't understand is how she was able to just push the nanny immediately out of her home. Yes, the home was a cottage that belonged to the Andres and yes, it was 'tied'; that is, it went with the nanny's job. But surely, even after the nanny's instant dismissal, there should have been a period of notice before the nanny had to leave the cottage?

Furthermore, is it acceptable that Katie could just bundle the nanny's private possessions into bin bags? Surely this is a gross invasion of her privacy?

Goodness knows that if we could have, we would have bundled our tenant J's stuff into bin bags and left them on the street. But we are not allowed to, by law.

So how come Katie and Peter are able to do so? It doesn't make sense to me.