Ex tenant won't abide by deed of surrender terms

[cb31]

Long story short, had a tenant until end of next year who upset a neighbour and decided to leave the house as he was stressed. We agreed to let him end the tenancy as long as he paid rent until we found new tenants and repaid the already paid management fees, 10% of his rent to end of term.

He signed the deed of surrender once the new tenants were found in which he agreed to those terms. Now he doesn't want to pay as he has a list of things he wants to deduct which miraculously come to the value he owes, he just wants to call it all even. It is literally laughable and I don't believe he has a leg to stand on, however I want to make sure I am going about this the right way.

I want 100% of the amount he owes, I am already making a loss on the new tenant fees and check-in/out fees which the landlord is now liable for so don't see why we should let him off thousands. Moneyclaim online sounds perfect once I find his new address, with the national estate agency contract I imagine it would be a formality in me winning. Sign it one day then change your mind the next, ridiculous.

My question is about MCOLs 'pre-action protocols', I realise I have to send him a letter informing him of the claim but what do I do with arbitration? From my side there is no arbitration, you owe the money, you agreed to pay the money so just pay, however I don't want to put myself into a bad situation with the court.

Anyone got any advice? Thanks

[Cyberprog]

cb31 said:

My question is about MCOLs 'pre-action protocols', I realise I have to send him a letter informing him of the claim but what do I do with arbitration? From my side there is no arbitration, you owe the money, you agreed to pay the money so just pay, however I don't want to put myself into a bad situation with the court.

The courts want you to be seen to be acting reasonably - he's signed a contract, and you want your money, but if he pays up quickly, maybe offer 10% off that in arbitration. That way you can be seen to be reasonable. I've done similar to get a quick outcome.

[cb31]

I understand but the bloke can afford it and understands the law, he is simply trying to get out of paying. We have been extremely reasonable already by letting him leave the contract just over a year early based on a flimsy excuse, it has cost us time and money by being nice.

Is there another way to appear reasonable, maybe offer a payment plan or something? I don't want to take less money, we have spent thousands over the last couple of years pandering to the tenants. Granted we have some retained benefit from some of the spending but some has been a complete waste. I'm sick of pandering to them.

[OutInTheShed]

You might invite him to explain why he thinks he doesn't owe you.

I have a vague feeling you're not going to win this.
By wanting to go straight to law thinking there is no possibility of there being two sides to this, you are making yourself look ..... unreasonable?

[Dapster]

cb31 said:

Now he doesn't want to pay as he has a list of things he wants to deduct which miraculously come to the value he owes,

What are the things that he has identified as deductions? Are they credible and reasonably valued?

[cb31]

Dapster said:

What are the things that he has identified as deductions? Are they credible and reasonably valued?

Some examples, he wanted to fill in the gaps in the floorboards in the living room 18 months ago, I said go ahead and paid for materials. He now says that he spent 100 hours doing this so @£9/hr that is £900 I owe him. The neighbours had 2 fence panels down for a while, took it down to replace and then had a heart-attack so never fixed it. He claims this made the house unsafe so he shouldn't pay rent for that month. The rest is down to emotional distress, just over £4k in total.

[SydneyBridge]

He sounds an absolute nightmare

I assume you owe him some deposit money, are you allowed to deduct anything from this?

Ps. If not, run and be glad to have him out..

[cb31]

SydneyBridge said:

I assume you owe him some deposit money, are you allowed to deduct anything from this?

Yes, to be fair they kept the house quite well, just a couple of minor issues. The non-payment is completely separate from the deposit, he will be getting virtually all of it back as the deposit is protected well by law.

I don't mind adhering to the law, shame the tenant doesn't too.

[NNH]

cb31 said:

Dapster said:

What are the things that he has identified as deductions? Are they credible and reasonably valued?

Some examples, he wanted to fill in the gaps in the floorboards in the living room 18 months ago, I said go ahead and paid for materials. He now says that he spent 100 hours doing this so @£9/hr that is £900 I owe him. The neighbours had 2 fence panels down for a while, took it down to replace and then had a heart-attack so never fixed it. He claims this made the house unsafe so he shouldn't pay rent for that month. The rest is down to emotional distress, just over £4k in total.

It sounds like he's getting his legal advice from some bloke in the pub. We've had a few tenants like this who pull oddly precise numbers out of nowhere until we start pressing them with legal action. I'd keep on with the MCOL process, and make an offer that he can pay in two installments of 50% (no more than that or you'll never see it). He'll probably crack as soon as he sees you're serious.

[Dapster]

cb31 said:

Some examples, he wanted to fill in the gaps in the floorboards in the living room 18 months ago, I said go ahead and paid for materials. He now says that he spent 100 hours doing this so @£9/hr that is £900 I owe him. The neighbours had 2 fence panels down for a while, took it down to replace and then had a heart-attack so never fixed it. He claims this made the house unsafe so he shouldn't pay rent for that month. The rest is down to emotional distress, just over £4k in total.

He sounds like a nightmare! You can't just pull numbers out of your arse - they need to be reasonable. 100 hours is nearly 3 weeks full time work and I don't think he can charge you for his time unless he's a registered business and issues an invoice - otherwise it would be down to the 2 of you agreeing a reasonable sum. Presumably "emotional distress" can also be calculated reasonably and him having the condition would need to be signed off by a mental health professional.

Get some proper advice and contest his garbage.

[cb31]

I was wondering if I should claim for some expenses too, such as time for tens of phone calls with the estate agents dealing with letting it out again, bills for the new tenancy agreements and extra check out and ins, plus some payment for the stress we have been under dealing with the whole nightmare?

That way when it goes to arbitration we can both agree to drop the spurious claims and just proceed with the contractual agreement he signed. I'm worried that by not agreeing to any of his deductions I will look unreasonable.

[Dapster]

cb31 said:

I was wondering if I should claim for some expenses too, such as time for tens of phone calls with the estate agents dealing with letting it out again, bills for the new tenancy agreements and extra check out and ins, plus some payment for the stress we have been under dealing with the whole nightmare?

That way when it goes to arbitration we can both agree to drop the spurious claims and just proceed with the contractual agreement he signed. I'm worried that by not agreeing to any of his deductions I will look unreasonable.

If it were me I would be to keep my side of the arrangements as clean and reasonable as possible. Don't load up spurious costs - there is an amount of admin involved in being a landlord in any event. Your signed agreement and tenancy agreement should cover your position - he probably doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[LF5335]

A few things here for me. Firstly, are you litigating on principle? It very much reads that way and there’s a view about it within the legal industry. IANAL, but this is worth a read to get some reality back into things

https://www.hillhouse.com.au/knowledge/its-the-pri...

Secondly, winning your case is only the start of it, getting the money is a long way down the line and the cost of enforcing a judgment can be pretty high too. It’s sometimes a lot more financially sensible to suck it up and move on.

As pointed out, the advice your ex-tenant seems to be getting is a bit bizarre, but they will stick with it and no matter how well you do with the case they will keep pretending you’ve lost. I have recent experience of this, as annoying as it is walking away and swallowing the loss is often the route to a less stressful life.

From a claim perspective you have to be prepared to mediate, compromise and discuss to show you’re being reasonable. Just go in and offer pragmatic solutions. You have to take the emotion out of it, as this discussion has gone on, you’ve got more emotional about it. You can’t allow that to happen when mediating, let them be the emotional one.

cb31 said:

I was wondering if I should claim for some expenses too, such as time for tens of phone calls with the estate agents dealing with letting it out again, bills for the new tenancy agreements and extra check out and ins, plus some payment for the stress we have been under dealing with the whole nightmare?

That way when it goes to arbitration we can both agree to drop the spurious claims and just proceed with the contractual agreement he signed. I'm worried that by not agreeing to any of his deductions I will look unreasonable.

Ought be worth reading this thread from earlier this week about you applying random charges.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Link added that I forgot earlier

Edited by LF5335 on Friday 14th October 10:11

[julian64]

cb31 said:

Long story short,

Did he sign this form while having a mental health diagnosis of anxiety /stress disorder, and under certification for such by his GP? If so I would suggest his next step would be labelling you as part of the stress cause, and suggesting he signed the paperwork under a degree of duress.

I don't think anything is as clear cut as you would like it to be, and to be honest I would echo those suggesting a compromise

[cb31]

I hear what you are saying, I won't bother with adding any charges on my side to "even things up". I would be happy with him paying the bill he owes, he is a young professional who I feel is trying it on as he thinks he will bully us into writing his debt off. He has been very bullish about sending legal excerpts on mediation and getting legal advice before we take it further.

I will find it hard to give him a discount, we bent over backwards to keep them happy during their stay. He's engineered an early release on dubious grounds and now doesn't want to pay what he agreed to. I don't want to reward dishonest people so I guess I am litigating on principal, however £4k is £4k so it would be nice to get what we are owed.

[LF5335]

cb31 said:

I hear what you are saying, I won't bother with adding any charges on my side to "even things up". I would be happy with him paying the bill he owes, he is a young professional who I feel is trying it on as he thinks he will bully us into writing his debt off. He has been very bullish about sending legal excerpts on mediation and getting legal advice before we take it further.

I will find it hard to give him a discount, we bent over backwards to keep them happy during their stay. He's engineered an early release on dubious grounds and now doesn't want to pay what he agreed to. I don't want to reward dishonest people so I guess I am litigating on principal, however £4k is £4k so it would be nice to get what we are owed.

Trust me it’s unbelievably frustrating, but writing it off will be far better for your stress levels. Karma will catch them eventually.

Anecdote from my experience earlier this year.

Tenants of five years, paying a rate well below market and I was trying to bring them back towards the market rate. My fault they’d fallen so far off the market rate, but equally covid driven spiralling rents contributed to it. They’d always been decent and wanted to buy the house, but realised they couldn’t afford it. Rent always paid on time. They simply refused to enter into any discussions about a rent increase, so notice served. They wouldn’t leave, costs incurred to go through the legal process, eventually they left 10 days before a court ordered them to. Court initially made an incorrect ruling and cost me another month of trying to get them out. Took six months from when they should have left to when they did.

House was a bomb site. It was a brand new renovation when they moved in, I had to replace the kitchen, bathroom, carpets, curtains, redecorate completely. Gardens needed a fortune spending to get them away from being a jungle. Overall cost was north of £7000 (best part of a year’s rent) for repairs, legal costs were c£600. I got the legal costs back eventually after they realised a court had ruled in my favour on that and every letter requesting payment costing them an extra £100. The repair costs were simply not financially viable to chase, not least because, whilst I was professionally advised that I’d win, they also advised that there was virtually no chance of them ever paying up.

They moved out and bought a house in the next town over. Since then mortgage rates have risen considerably. I’m hoping they’re having a moral and philosophical discussion with their lender about why they shouldn’t put their mortgage up.

[blingybongy]

On the 25th of this month I will no longer be a landlord.
Thank fk.

[OutInTheShed]

Seems to me there might be a whole minefield of unfair contract terms and criminal law about what it's legal to charge tenants and when.

[MustangGT]

OutInTheShed said:

Seems to me there might be a whole minefield of unfair contract terms and criminal law about what it's legal to charge tenants and when.

A standard AST usually makes things clear, when I was a landlord I made use of a standard template and never had problems.

[OutInTheShed]

MustangGT said:

OutInTheShed said:

Seems to me there might be a whole minefield of unfair contract terms and criminal law about what it's legal to charge tenants and when.

A standard AST usually makes things clear, when I was a landlord I made use of a standard template and never had problems.

For sure, a simple AST where the tenant pays the rent and the landlord keeps it simple is well trodden ground.

Complex surrender stuff and demanding compo for fees rings alarm bells to me, I'd suspect it's beyond the scope of the Ladybird Book for Wannabe Property Tycoons so personally I'd be getting some advice from a real grown up lawyer before strutting off to MCOL