1st time landlord needs some advice...

[shentodj]

When my father-in-law died, we decided to let out his house.
We are using an agents, but they haven't proved too useful.

Yesterday the tenants finally vacated the property owing approx £5k in back rent.
The agent has just emailed to say that:
a)the gas has been cut off.
b)the electricity has been cut off.
c)the front door lock has been changed by a company called Utility Warehouse.
d)Key Meters have been fitted for gas/electric.

The agent is going to chase this with Utility Warehouse, but I wanted to know:
1)As we own the house, how is it that someone can come along and change the locks? Can they do this? Surely it’s still our house?
2)Can the utilities fit Key Meters without contacting us? Again, we imagined that we (the landlords) would have to be contacted before this could happen?
3)We are now left with the matter of chasing our ex-tenant for the £4.6 he owes. Our agent (not much help) is saying we can’t do this as we don’t know his whereabouts since he vacated. This can’t be right can it? How do we go about recovering our unpaid rent from someone we can’t locate?

Thanks in advance,
Shentodj

[M400 NBL]

The only thing stopping tenants from doing what they want are the conditions of the AST agreement and them actually honouring those conditions. I don't think energy providers need to see the deeds to a property so they'll do pretty much any service that tenants request as long as they answer the door. What did you pay the letting agent for? Were they not suppose to collect the rent? Check out landlordzone. There must be several situations like yours discussed on their forums. If your tenant ever paid rent by bank transfer, he may be traceable by a solicitor. I hope it works out okay.

[fade2grey]

also have a look on residentiallandlord.co.uk - another useful resource for info & advice.

You need to have a look at the terms of your AST with the tennants & also your contract with the agent. In my case, the agent fully managed the property & includes recovery services etc.

I'm not sure on the utilities but sounds odd - I'd defo contact them direct & find out why they were fitted & what the deal is there - sounds like you'll need to take some legal advice either way so talk to them about that too.

Locks - they shouldn't have changed the locks, but then again there's nothing actually stopping them other than the terms of the contract & who ever is managing the property checking.

[Dick Dastardly]

If I was you I'd join the National Landlords Association. It's only something like £80 a year and you make this back with their member discounts on things like insurance. The member helpline is what you'll be most interested in as they have specialist advisors who deal with issues like this day in day out.

[shentodj]

Some useful advice (as always from Pistonheads).

Thanks very much,
Shentodj