Landlord Misery

DevilAngel (a warm welcome to you) has visited and left the follwing feedback:

i do feel for you. my husband manages a portfolio for his boss and his
biggest problem is tennants who wreck the houses, but they tend to use
an agency to source tennants and secure a very large deposit in the
event of damage.

Whether or not to use a letting agency was something we thought long and hard about at the time we decided to let the flat. But what made our minds up was the experience of a work colleague of mine at the time.

Janet and her husband had bought a new-built property as an investment for their retirement. They used a well established letting agent in this area to deal with not just the sourcing and checking of their potential tenant, but also with the daily running of the tenancy. The costs of this 'full package' of tenancy management was horrific-I was astonished at the price they had to pay to the agent each month. But Janet and her husband were in their 50's and as such did not want the hassle of dealing with any aspect of the tenancy and so preferred to leave it in the hands of the letting agent.

The letting agent found a tenant who had impeccable references and who was financially solvent. The first two months passed fine. But then the tenant missed the third month's rent. When the tenant missed the fourth month's rent, the letting agent proceeded with an eviction notice on the grounds of non payment of rent. Because it takes time to get an eviction through the courts of law, by the time the tenant left the property, FOUR month's rent was outstanding.

It transpired that the tenant had been made redundant and so had been unable to keep up with the rent, something that the references or bank statements could not have possibly predicted. Furthermore the tenant was unable to catch up with the outstanding rent after leaving the property, even though the courts ordered them to repay it.

Therefore Janet and her husband-who let's not forget had to continue paying their mortgage regardless-were left seriously out of pocket. The standard deposit collected by the letting agent in the first instance was not enough to cover the outstanding rent and the letting agents (certainly in this case) had made sure that they were not liable for the rent as could be seen by the small print on Janet's contract with them. It was a no-win situation.

So this got me thinking: why should I bother to use an agent? Despite the huge fees they collect from the landlord, the landlord is still not protected from non-payment of rent. When Janet calculated what she had spent each month on the letting agent's fees and added it to what she had lost in outstanding rent, she had made a huge loss.

So I bought a book specifically intended for DIY landlords, which has been an excellent source of information. It even contained templates of all the forms necessary to a tenancy, bar the AST agreement form-I downloaded this from a solicitor's website (after paying for it). And the website Landlord Zone has been invaluable.

Like with Janet, our tenancy started off fine (for 18 months in our case) and things only went wrong when J's boyfriend left her. Even then it wasn't an immediate downslide. Her deterioration seemed to begin around October 2006 and seemed to coincide with her increased drinking.

So it seemed to me then-and still seems to me now-that using an agent is no guarantee against things going wrong. If a person is able to deal with the day to day running of the tenancy, I would still recommend doing it solo. I thoroughly checked J's (and her boyfriend's) references and everything stood up to scrutiny. So doing it solo is one area of the tenancy that I would not have changed even if I had known what the eventual outcome would be.

As for the amount of deposit, we followed the law as stated here on Landlord Zone:

The amount of the deposit should be a maximum of two months' rent. If the deposit is more than this amount it could in theory count as a premium and may give the tenant an automatic right to assign the lease without the landlord's consent.

As can be seen above, no more than two months should be taken but in the case of non-payment of rent or excessive damage (as in our case), this amount is far short of the costs that the landlord may be left with. And this is what's so unfair about the tenancy laws.

Thank you for your feedback DevilAngel. :-)

And also to Stephen: your brother's problems with his tenant seemed to begin with the tenant's personal change of circumstances in much the same way as it was with us and our tenant J. No landlord can possibly predict these things so here it stands that we (landlords) are all at risk from misbehaving tenants when events take a downturn for them.

I have had a visitor (Hello Stephen) who has written the following interesting points:

I could never be a landlord for this reason. The feeling that somehow the landlord ends up having to take responsibility for the tenant because the tenant doesn't want to.

So much easier said and done though!

You are exactly 100% right Stephen. I find it difficult to separate my head from my brain which probably accounts for why I'm not a millionaire! But I have taken the route of staying with my original stance, that is; I cannot retract my reasons for evicting J with the council. I have written to them and said so though I have not had an answer from them as yet.

My real difficulty has been my concern for J's daughter in all this as I feel she is the innocent victim. As a mother myself, it has given me some heart-tugging struggles of conscience. But I have sorted it out in my mind by reminding myself that J herself put her daughter in this situation-I did not. I would never have put my children in such a situation and I know that with total conviction.

I wish I could take my husband's 'ostrich' stance too but I'm unable to switch off in the same way as he does. However if I think about it too much, I feel like going to sleep and that's no good to anyone either!

But Stephen is right. To be successful as a landlord (or any business for that matter), a tough inner core of steel is required. I'm not sure that this can be learnt though because it would perhaps involve changing a person's personality to some degree.

I try to be shrewd within our other business (in our dealings with the public) but at the same time act in an ethical manner. It's a constant dilemma and the public don't make it any easier! But it's probably safe to say that I'm no Alan Sugar!

We all make our choices in life to some extent and J certainly made hers when she decided to trash our flat and behave in an anti-social manner. Nobody made her do that so therefore she has to live with the consequences.

Thank you for your feedback Stephen :-)

I mentioned something about the flat today to my husband and his answer was, "I don't care anymore about the flat. As far as I'm concerned, I never want to see the place again".

Actually I rather envied his ability to take this ostrich-like approach. I wish I could too. However I don't feel able to shut off from the problems with J and the prospect of what the flat will be like inside once we do manage to get in to it.

Our business is demanding for us both but my husband wants only to concentrate on that and ignore the flat. I think it is a defence mechanism for him but I did gently point out to him that he will eventually have to go to the flat again at some point, as he is joint owner with me. But until J is finally gone for good, he doesn't want to think about it. I don't really blame him.

Previously, when J kept calling us to the flat to get repairs done, my husband would be extremely reluctant to go. And he embarrassed me on a few occasions when he failed to hide his dislike of J. In fact, she once jokingly said to me, "R** can't stand me, can he?". He was there at the time fixing the front door lock (that she had broken) so he clearly heard what she said. But he didn't say anything and just continued to glower. I saw her looking at him.

My husband doesn't usually act like this towards people, I hasten to add. Anyone who knows him will testify to him being an easy-going, affable type of guy who gets on with pretty much anyone.

But he couldn't hide his increasing dislike of J. She obviously annoyed him to such an extent, he wasn't able-or willing-to disguise it. It's actually out-of- character behaviour for him.

However, being an ostrich is not.

I've just read in today's paper that David and Victoria Beckham have moved to the USA. This actually made my day as they annoy me immensely. Her posturing and pouting actually seems very sad. Desperation seeps from every one of her pores.

There are a few other people I wish they had taken with them, though. Of course top of my list would be 'tenant from hell' J.

But I would also like to see the back of Cherie Blair (it's so obvious where the creators of Wallace and Gromit got their inspiration from!)-I want to chew the skirting boards every time I see her or hear her speak. What exactly is she for?

Please America, adopt Jonathon Ross. Or Russell Brand. Or Jade Goody. Oh and that 'orrible bloke who fancies himself as a ladies man on Eastenders; you know, that Max Brannon bloke. I mean, as if! Most unlikely Lothario I've ever seen.

It may seem as if I've got rather side tracked here from my problems with J! But when problems weigh you down, it always pays to try and find the uplifting things in life. Which goes back round to the Beckhams moving to the States-see, there are good things happening!

Back two years ago, when J and her boyfriend first came to view the flat and to apply to be the tenants, I asked them what they did for a living. In J's case, she told me that she was temporarily not working but was definitely going to be looking for work in the near future. This wasn't a big issue then as her boyfriend's wages was enough to cover the rent at the time.

However J had also told me that she had had a very good job with a local radio station but she had been 'laid off'. She claimed that she had taken them to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal as she believed that they had dismissed her due to an incident that occured while she was there. She reckoned that she had been awarded damages and so had been awarded money from the court.

I'm not about to go into what that incident was as I don't feel it would be fair on the radio station. Given that J has proved that she is prepared to blatantly lie when she is upset with someone (as we know only too well), I have come to the conclusion that while the radio station probably did dismiss her, it is unlikely to be for the reason she gave me.

I would be inclined to believe that when they dismissed her (which could be for any number of reasons, including her work, timekeeping etc), she decided to get them back and so lied in order to take it to the tribunal. And yes, she probably did win damages.

Does my opinion sound harsh? I think not. As I said, I know she is prepared to lie when angry.

But the twist in the tail is that we-as a company-have had professional dealings with this particular radio station. And we know that they are lovely people working there. Furthermore they are a totally committed and professional team. Therefore I do not believe that this incident ever actually happened. It's my belief that it was probably a revenge claim to embarrass the radio station and was also a means of extorting money out of them (in damages).

And therein lies my opinion, for what's it worth.

I've just realised that one of the adverts here on my blog is for 'Tenant's Rights'. While I accept that the adverts are a necessary evil in order to keep the free blogs going, did they have to pick an advert for tenant's rights to go with my blog?

After all, my point in this blog is that tenant's are better protected than the landlords, for goodness sake. How about landlord's rights?

And how annoying on the part of the advertisers.

I have been thinking about how all this started. It was all because (like so many others) we couldn't afford to buy a property in the county of my birth, the county in which we lived, worked and our children went to school.

I remember reading somewhere that Dorset is the second most expensive place to buy property after London. I don't know whether that is true but I do know that we were in a quandary.

By my husband resigning his job on the farm, we would have been 'intentionally homeless' ourselves and would not have received any help from the council. But when we started looking at the prices of renting a 3-bed property in our area, it seemed like such a waste of money as the rental costs were so high.

We knew we couldn't afford to be too fussy and so consequently would have to move into a town. But we accepted this. Despite being used to living in the country (and me in particular as I was brought up on a dairy farm in the middle of a small hamlet), we were totally at ease with trying town life. Yes, we miss the open fields and peaceful quiet; yes, we have had to learn to adapt to having neighbours either side of us. But there were so many complications with renting. Some said no children (and we had two). Some said no pets (and we had a dog and a cat). So buying a place of our own was the only sensible option.

But if you were to ask me would I do all the same things again, my answer would be: mostly yes but we would have sold the flat rather than get a tenant. I regret that we have accumulated so much debt although on reflection I don't think we could have changed that. But there is nothing we can do about that except pay it back slowly but surely. It will take us years and it gets frustrating when we can't afford to buy things (for instance, new clothes become a luxury). But having a tenant is the ONLY thing I would have done differently.

Oh and we love our home and we have adapted to town life-it definitely has it's advantages!

Well, today I have finally written a reply to the council in response to their asking if I could 'retract' J's eviction.

Having thought about it carefully over the last few days, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot in all honesty consider any kind of retraction. When I consider the damage she has caused us, both emotionally and financially, I feel surely that she has feathered her own nest, so to speak. So I cannot worry about her future welfare. The fact that she will be considered 'intentionally homeless' is her own doing.

But I do feel that some people can't be helped. When J was unable to cope with the electricity board when they were taking loads of debt via her key meter, it was me that had to phone the electricity board (at my expense and time, mind!) to try and sort it all out. J just didn't seem to be able to cope with it at all and phoned me in tears. Frankly it wasn't my concern (as a landlord) but I felt sorry for her. So it was me that negotiated a far smaller amount of debt collection from her key meter and it was me that saw to it that that they acted immediately so she wasn't left without enough money to buy food.

Was she using me by playing on my sympathies? Rather looks like it now as she seems to find the money for other things.

Why did she not phone the electricity company herself? Why did she not have the strength of character to sort out her own problems? Does this make me a muppet? Definitely.

In a strange turn up of events, I have received a text on my mobile tonight from a number I don't recognise but I can make an educated guess that it was sent from J to a third party. However it ended up coming to me by accident. My husband wondered if it was a deliberate slip but judging by the contents of the text, I think not. Plus, my name begins with a 'C' and the text was addressed to someone called Chris, so I think it was definitely a mistake on her part. Please note that in the text, her name is written in full.

This is what it says:

Hi Chris, j**. Sorry havent been in touch earlier been waitin 4 ring back from housing but no joy. However i can scrape together 2nd month up front.So will be two from housing, then one from me. Sorry thats best can do. maybe we should all meet up tomorrow early evening to discuss. U can get me on this no tonight. Bye for now j**

Any thoughts?

I have had a letter from the council regarding J's eviction. When the Housing Officer phoned me and asked me why I was evicting J, he asked me if I could put my comments in writing. So I sent him a copy of the report that I had had to create for the solicitor.

Now they have sent me this letter that asks me to consider 'retracting' my reasons for evicting her and would I consider allowing her to remain in the property for longer than the 1st August deadline, in order to avoid the possibility that they will be obliged to provide J with 'emergency and temporary accommodation'? I am guessing that this letter is a standard format, sent to every landlord when a tenant makes an application to the council for housing. But even so, how can I possibly 'retract' after everything J has done?

I fully understand that by formally evicting J because of her sabotage and bad behaviour and making the council aware of the fact, they consider her to have made herself 'intentionally homeless'. Therefore they are under no obligation to provide her with a home except for emergency B&B for a temporary period of three weeks only. This is how the council have explained it to me, leaving me in no doubt that J would be basically stumped unless she could magic up enough money for a deposit for a private rental. And this seems unlikely.

I have considered the effect this could have on her daughter who actually seems to be far more mature than her mother. But both the solicitor and various family and friends have said to me 'it's not your problem'. As they have all pointed out to me, J herself didn't exactly consider her daughter's welfare in all this, so why am I worrying about it?

Landlords are often given bad press and are made out to be some remote Dickensian character. I hope this blog of mine redresses the balance a little. We are not all heartless. And more often than not, we end up as the injured parties, with the law allowing it to happen.