The Perils of Letting a Propert in the UK

by Pete
When we moved to Canada the sale of our property had fallen through and we were forced to let it out to cover the mortgage payments. For the first few months things were ok, the tenant Liam Marchant-Lane paid on time. Then after a few months rent started to get later and later. It became apparent that we had the tenant from hell syndrome. There were countless promises from both Liam and his father Clive Marchant-Lane that hey would get up to date with the rent but these were seldom kept. We also heard third hand that hey had broken up garden furniture, burnt it in the grate and set fire to the chimney.

We finally manged to get him evicted but not before they had done a considerable amount of damage. More than the deposit would cover. By the time it was all over he owed 5 months rent. His father Clive Marchant-Lane promised to repay the debt but to date has not done so.

This has now given us a healthy distrust of that family and we have started a web site for private landlords to name and shame difficult tenants to warn other prospective landlords of people with a record of non payment. The site is called www.tenants-from-hell.com.

The problem is that even when they are in the wrong English law makes it difficult and costly to remove them. Even if you take them to court and win you still have a devil of a job getting them to pay. If they don’t pay its back to court again which ends up costing you more money than you were owed in the first place.

It is about time the Law was changed to level the playing field. In the meantime if we were doing this all over again we would have been much harder and insisted on eviction sooner rather than letting the agent and ourselves be fobbed off with empty promises.

Author Resource Box
www.tenants-from-hell.com www.goingtocanadaeh.com