Tenant broken boiler, refusing me access to check it

[DonkeyApple]

eldar said:

Chasing them for damages and costs can result in a CCJ which can act as a flag.

I wonder how many non professional landlords after the trauma of having to evict one of these meat units is just glad to finally be released from prison and lack the desire to keep going after the scrote? I don't think you can blame them for just wanting to be free and moving on, thus do meat units often escape unpunished for their bullying?

[Fastpedeller]

MrChips said:

Fastpedeller said:

I sent them a letter stating I wasn't paying the last month's rent. They could use the deposit, as I had every belief they would illegally withhold our deposit if we paid the last month's rent, and the property would be left cleaner than it was when we moved in. Cue more swearing over the 'phone, and threats to kick us out - I calmly told him I'd checked with the local court and it would take several weeks before they could even get a hearing, and said if they wish to come round on the day we move out they can check the condition.

This for me is a good demonstration of the issues that landlords can face. The way you’ve written your post seems you think you did the right thing?
You decided you’re gonna break the contract and withhold rent for what at that time was zero reason! Even poking fun at them pointing out the court timescales work in your favour.

The court system is woefully inadequate against tenants who both know and are morally happy to play the system as demonstrated by this whole thread!

As a landlord I can be immediately liable for things that go wrong with the house, rightly so. I’d also be more than happy if someone wanted a reference off a previous tenant. What we need is an equally robust system in place for those tenants who take the mick, often costing the landlord thousands of pounds and many months of stress.

On the contrary - the Letting Agent broke the contract agreement regarding checking the property during hours which had been agreed. This wasn't a case or 'zero reason' as the LA had threatened (there's no other way to describe it) to enter without our agreement. We were model tenants, paid on time and left the place better than it had been given to us. The LA's record of illegally withholding the deposits of over 80% of tenants speaks for itself.

[Simpo Two]

DonkeyApple said:

thus do meat units often escape unpunished for their bullying?

Meat units?

[Simpo Two]

DonkeyApple said:

thus do meat units often escape unpunished for their bullying?

Meat units?

[DonkeyApple]

Simpo Two said:

Meat units?

Lumps of meat. No brain, no purpose, no use. Just living tissue.

[Fastpedeller]

To also add to the comments MrChips made, I'll also make it clear that prior to the above experience we had let out my Wife's (then girlfriends) property because she had negative equity. So we had experience of the 'other side' of the equation. We let through an agent who was bordering on crooked... some examples:-
Told tenant they couldn't have a 1 year agreement because the landlady wanted only 6 months because they might sell (not true). At the same time told us we couldn't have a 1 year agreement because the tenants wanted to start a family so only wanted 6 months (also we found out wasn't true). Each time the tenancy agreement was renewed (read date changed and photocopied) they charged the tenant and us each both £70. (30 years ago)
Put a fence panel up, charged us £160. fence blew down in wind the next week, and they charged us £50 for (not) putting it back in the posts correctly, and 'adding' a large nail! (we found out when we visited the lovely tenants the next week (3 hour journey). It was then that we discovered the lies about the refusal of 1 year agreement. Fast forward another 6 months and we received a call from the distressed tenant who noticed the agent (or their mtce) had entered without permission or asking and fitted a new roller blind in the kitchen. We refused to pay the £190 for the blind (not required).
The tenant asked us to sack the agent - we didn't need asking twice. The agent 'refused' to be sacked. We sacked them anyway, and both us and the tenants had a further good 2 years together before we eventually were able to sell (and they started a family!)

[Groat]

If you want to know how you ended up with a crap tenant or useless letting agent, buy a mirror.

[monthou]

Groat said:

If you want to know how you ended up with a crap tenant or useless letting agent, buy a mirror.

Very helpful.

[Groat]

monthou said:

Groat said:

If you want to know how you ended up with a crap tenant or useless letting agent, buy a mirror.

Very helpful.

Yes, and until you accept it you don't get the benefit of learning from it and will only be left with giving up as an option.

Edited by Groat on Saturday 12th February 18:03

[LooneyTunes]

DonkeyApple said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

For housing there's no reason why tenants can't have a score like a credit score to facilitate accurate matching between the right type of landlord and the right type of tenant. Such a system would actually be better for all parties. Better matching means more efficient processes. The local authority prefers to just deal with professional landlords, they don't want hundreds of amateurs clogging their system with problems so a system that stops those problems happening to the small landlords helps everyone. Conversely, professional landlords by their nature can handle the problem tenants in the correct way. They have no emotional attachment to the property or vulnerability to human emotions and can simply process the problem unit efficiently, again creating less work for the local authority.

The database wouldn't need to be public access just a practical scoring system that the local authority uses to more efficiently allocate the right tenente to the right landlords.

To a degree I agree with the idea that a central tenant referencing would be extremely useful if done correctly but don’t entirely agree with your logic around “matching”.

You don’t want to create a situation where there is a view that professional landlords can deal with/absorb all the crap so it all gets pushed in their direction unless they are specifically in the business of dealing with problem tenants. Otherwise you end up with cream-skimming by others (the smaller landlords) and the inadvertent creation of sub-prime portfolio that then becomes unsustainable.

If you accept that there is a variable level of risk presented by tenants then the obvious “market” approach would be to price the awful ones higher.

[Groat]

LooneyTunes said:

To a degree I agree with the idea that a central tenant referencing would be extremely useful if done correctly but don’t entirely agree with your logic around “matching”.

You don’t want to create a situation where there is a view that professional landlords can deal with/absorb all the crap so it all gets pushed in their direction unless they are specifically in the business of dealing with problem tenants. Otherwise you end up with cream-skimming by others (the smaller landlords) and the inadvertent creation of sub-prime portfolio that then becomes unsustainable.

If you accept that there is a variable level of risk presented by tenants then the obvious “market” approach would be to price the awful ones higher.

You are slipping down a rabbit hole marked "SILLY".

[surveyor]

Fastpedeller said:

To also add to the comments MrChips made, I'll also make it clear that prior to the above experience we had let out my Wife's (then girlfriends) property because she had negative equity. So we had experience of the 'other side' of the equation. We let through an agent who was bordering on crooked... some examples:-
Told tenant they couldn't have a 1 year agreement because the landlady wanted only 6 months because they might sell (not true). At the same time told us we couldn't have a 1 year agreement because the tenants wanted to start a family so only wanted 6 months (also we found out wasn't true). Each time the tenancy agreement was renewed (read date changed and photocopied) they charged the tenant and us each both £70. (30 years ago)
Put a fence panel up, charged us £160. fence blew down in wind the next week, and they charged us £50 for (not) putting it back in the posts correctly, and 'adding' a large nail! (we found out when we visited the lovely tenants the next week (3 hour journey). It was then that we discovered the lies about the refusal of 1 year agreement. Fast forward another 6 months and we received a call from the distressed tenant who noticed the agent (or their mtce) had entered without permission or asking and fitted a new roller blind in the kitchen. We refused to pay the £190 for the blind (not required).
The tenant asked us to sack the agent - we didn't need asking twice. The agent 'refused' to be sacked. We sacked them anyway, and both us and the tenants had a further good 2 years together before we eventually were able to sell (and they started a family!)

We have rented quite a bit. Our best landlords have always been direct.

The last house before we bought was through an agency. Had the same sort of games. They were pushing for a renewal to generate a fee. I saw no point and they said they would serve notice then. Fortunately, they had left the LL email details in a chain on a previous issue, so I was able to sort it out with the landlord who dealt with the agent. Once we started communicating with the agent and copying in the LL or vice versa life was easier.

The best thing of all. The renewal (done at no fee to us) had a 1 month tenant break clause. Absolute fee generation at its best.

[LooneyTunes]

Groat said:

You are slipping down a rabbit hole marked "SILLY".

Quite the opposite! I was pointing out that that’s where DA’s matching idea ends up.

[Groat]

LooneyTunes said:

To a degree I agree with the idea that a central tenant referencing would be extremely useful if done correctly but don’t entirely agree with your logic around “matching”..

Yes the 'matching' is silly but the bold bit equals it in the silly stakes.

[Fastpedeller]

surveyor said:

We have rented quite a bit. Our best landlords have always been direct.

The last house before we bought was through an agency. Had the same sort of games. They were pushing for a renewal to generate a fee. I saw no point and they said they would serve notice then. Fortunately, they had left the LL email details in a chain on a previous issue, so I was able to sort it out with the landlord who dealt with the agent. Once we started communicating with the agent and copying in the LL or vice versa life was easier.

The best thing of all. The renewal (done at no fee to us) had a 1 month tenant break clause. Absolute fee generation at its best.

Our Daughter has moved to a new job in Cambridge (= expensive) and is renting directly off the landlord - a shrewd elderly gent and his dear lady wife who wanted to meet us as a family .... they wanted to know dad would be cutting the grass I think! Lovely people, and much better than dealing with an agent. Better for them (no fees) and better for Daughter - nicer property than some at more money = win-win

[LooneyTunes]

Groat said:

LooneyTunes said:

To a degree I agree with the idea that a central tenant referencing would be extremely useful if done correctly but don’t entirely agree with your logic around “matching”..

Yes the 'matching' is silly but the bold bit equals it in the silly stakes.

I disagree. I know your view is that life makes a mockery of referencing, which is to a degree true, but being able to get greater insight into a prospective tenant’s rental history would be of some value. Hence the “if done correctly”.

[Groat]

LooneyTunes said:

I disagree. I know your view is that life makes a mockery of referencing, which is to a degree true, but being able to get greater insight into a prospective tenant’s rental history would be of some value. Hence the “if done correctly”.

Well it's true that life's vagaries emasculate functional referencing, but is this "done correctly" going to involve CRO checks and access to medical records por exemplo??

Silly notion in my opinion that there's any referencing that's going to predict future individual human conduct or have any efficacy if it doesn't include exploration of health and prior (for example, but not exclusively) serious recorded though not visibly evident behavioural issues which are very likely to impact on conduct of tenancy.

Would you give the average landlord access to such sensitive personal data? Would you take the average landlord's subjective opinion of a tenant seriously? This is a country which has people who comfortably describe people about whose backgrounds they know nothing as "scrotes", "turd-munching retards" and "meat units". Do they have any serious input to make to tenancy referencing?

So what does "done correctly" comprise of ?

Edited by Groat on Sunday 13th February 01:34

[FilH]

AstonZagato said:

Fastpedeller said:

I suggest a good starting point is that any Housing Benefit (or whatever it's called) from the local authority be paid directly to the landlord, and isn't made available for the tenant to 'divert' to their own funds - this would have helped the OP (and others) enormously. There is no reason (that I can see) for the landlord not to receive the funds directly from LA.

I believe this was how it used to be before Ian Duncan-Useless changed it - Housing Benefit was paid to the landlord. It was obvious that a number of scrotes would either deliberately trouser it or be [painfully bad at budgeting that rent arrears would be inevitable.

I vaguely remember this happening. Anyone know the reason for it? As can't see any positives. Going back to the landlord receiving the funds from the LA would sort a lot of issues out overnight.

[Groat]

FilH said:

I vaguely remember this happening. Anyone know the reason for it? As can't see any positives. Going back to the landlord receiving the funds from the LA would sort a lot of issues out overnight.

The tenant can opt to have rent directed to landlord/agent. I generally (though not always) insist on it as a condition of the tenancy. Oddly enough when tenant has instructed direct payment, UC usually (tho' not always) send the FIRST payment to the tenant tho' not the subsequent ones.

This doesn't affect the tenant's right to change the payment back to themselves if they feel the landlord is behaving irresponsibly.

O and if tenants receiving rent directly don't handle it responsibly on receiving report of this UC will stop sending them rent and redirect it to the landlord.
If they steal it, their income benefits will subsequently be sanctioned and stage repayments made to the landlord until the amount has been fully recovered.
The tenant's only way to escape from this is to move.

Edited by Groat on Saturday 12th February 20:53

[SpeckledJim]

Groat said:

Well it's true that life's vagaries emasculate functional referencing, but is this "done correctly" going to involve CRO checks and access to medical records per exemplo??

Silly notion in my opinion that there's any referencing that's going to predict future individual human conduct or have any efficacy if it doesn't include exploration of health and prior (for example, but not exclusively) serious recorded though not visibly evident behavioural issues which are very likely to impact on conduct of tenancy.

Would you give the average landlord access to such sensitive personal data? Would you take the average landlord's subjective opinion of a tenant seriously? This is a country which has people who comfortably describe people about whose backgrounds they know nothing as "scrotes", "turd-munching retards" and "meat units". Do they have any serious input to make to tenancy referencing?

So what does "done correctly" comprise of ?

Edited by Groat on Saturday 12th February 20:05

Simply a verifiable record of rent payments on time or missed, and the values/proportions of past deposits refunded would be a good indicator of someone’s trust worthiness, wouldn’t it?