Updating post from Reddit.
I’m gutted, frustrated, angry. You name it. For context I’ve taken out landlord insurance and paid for legal and rent protection cover.
I’ve done up my apartment, tiled the kitchen and left a bed with £500 mattress, TV, the whole shabang, so my incoming tenants have a good experience, in a flat I called home for many years.
Paid property management to advertise and manage my property. They found me tenants on dual income (combined 50k), who passed all referencing and affordability checks. They chose reposit.
They moved in 1 August, and come September, have decided not to pay rent. Manahement chased them last week and initially played confused. This week they’ve claimed one tenant has lost their job so they’re choosing not to pay rent. One tenant is employed mind you. Declined to respond to a payment plan.
They’ve been given a goodwill offer of 48 hours to pay their debt and end their tenancy.
Given the lack of good intent seen earlier, I’m dreading the worst.
I’m lost and thought to seek help here. They were my first tenants ever.
I’d be grateful if anyone could answer the below:
I’m a bit lost so thanks for anyone who bothers to respond.
Beyond me how people can choose not to pay rent one month in…
Wow that's so soon and they passed referencing and affordability checks? That's not a good start. How many months tenancy did you do?
12
Oh no. 6 months would have been better but hopefully they change. S21 might also be going soon. Can try s8 if they are 2 months in arrears.
I wanted a 12 month contract to guarantee rent :(
A lot of agents also prefer 12 for their fees etc. Good you have rent protection but red flag issues within first month. Or maybe one off. Some tenants move from one property to the next.
Makes no difference if they stop paying after month 1 😜
section 8 grounds 2 months rent arrears stronger.
Had tenants who stopped paying, but not in month 1. Section 8 comes into play after 2 months arrears. That requires 2 months further notice. Then a possession order. Then bailiffs to enforce. They will be told not to leave until a bailiff turns up to force them out.
For me, all told, it took 15 months to finally get rid. The court process is slow and backed up.
Am about to look into enforcing the CCJs now things are back on an even keel with new tenants.
If they then contribute 99p to the rent, does that reset the clock?
My understanding (IANAL) is yes as they'll then be less than 2 months in arrears. Until next month, where, unless they pay a full month's rent, they'll be back at 2 months in arrears.
Best to talk to a lawyer ASAP. I suspect that the court would not look kindly on such tactics by a tenant.
So my understanding is the day they become 2 months in arrears counts. Paying 99p doesn't reset the clock they are still 2 months as it's not rent in full is my understanding. Courts won't accept nominal fees as clearing the arrears so you should be all good.
Hey OP sorry to read this it is really annoying, unfortunately, even though you sound like a good landlord people inherently take the piss.
It is possible this is a couple gaming the system, they could’ve been paid off to leave a previous tenancy with the promise of no CCJ’s so this would not surprise me.
If they don’t pay, please try to follow through with CCJ’s as they will just keep playing the same game.
Definitely agree with previous comments 1 month in and they’re not paying, I’d want to see the due diligence from the EA, I’m sure they’ll still want paying.
I hope it works out well for you but try to be cautious as these guys might have a modus operandi.
This is why I would never want a management company to sort out a tenant.
OpenRent are great in terms of their tools when advertising and vetting - I set responses to auto reply and make every prospective tenant fill out a form that asks them if they have a rental history, what's their income, how many people in the house, if they can get a guarantor and a few other questions.
I then filter for all the people that meet my desired criteria. I try and get a guarantor no matter what age for reasons like this. I have no shortage of options for tenants so always go for the best that I can get.
At least you have insurance
The insurance is a big plus. I use openrent myself but takes a lot of filtering. I have had one of my property used for drugs so wondered if it was managed would this have happened, anyway 3-6 months inspections going forward.
I also do the auto-reply, and in it I say that I’ll be requesting things like three months of bank statements, a reference from a previous landlord, and the last three months of payslips, etc. The number of people it filters out straight away is unbelievable. I get so many hate messages back.
I put my property up again for rent not long ago and got about 30 responses in two days. Of them, about 12 filled in the form I requested about about 4 of them were suitable.
I've thankfully not had any nasty responses. What did they say?
People wonder why rentals are hard to get. This is exactly why. The person won't get rent for the next year and won't be able to do anything to evict them for a year. Landlords have sold up and those that are left, like me.... Are VERY picky to prevent stuff like this from happening
Just people saying 'good luck getting a tenant when you're asking for all of that' comments about how stupid i am asking for a guarantor and theres no chance you're seeing my income etc etc. Maybe nasty is the wrong word sorry, maybe i mean funny responses!
Completely agree with you, i now need evidence coming out your ears, I have had my fingers burnt before and if it takes me 6 months to find a good tenant I would rather wait. There's not enough safe guarding for landlords.
Have you seen the agents referencing? Did they pass credit checks?
Yes I’ve been informed by management that they passed credit and referencing checks before they moved in
Demand to see the evidence of this.
Have done, they’ve said they’ll send over all documents to myself/insurance underwriters.
These shouldn’t take more than about a day to pass on. Ensure the agency isn’t having you on.
This is why you don't use agents.
Two options really:
1 - scorched earth. Without breaking the law, make clear that you are going to come after them with the full force allowed. You will have CCJs raised against them, you will write a reference that would get them rejected from renting a kennel in the future, you will be serving notice and you will continue to come after them for the outstanding rent for as long as it takes.
2 - reach an agreement by which they voluntarily move on.
Tbh I think you're going to end up on route one, because it sounds like they've played this game before.
I'd they do agree to route two, you could be as underhanded as them and agree to something but leave out mention of a reference and burn them after you've got what you want. They've done it to you in cold blood, so morally I can't think of a reason not to do the same to them.
Either way you should warm yourself up to the idea of not making any rent money and the flat being trashed by the time you get it back.
Tenants like this are the reason half of bad landlords are the way they are.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
It's called British comedy but actually that's how it should be resolved
Good work taking out the insurance!
How many months does your rent guarantee policy cover?
The legal expenses part should be covering everything you’ve asked about, so you should have nothing to do except put the claim in.
One year I believe and 3 months after they leave
Latest gov.uk stats from the Ministry of Justice show an average of 27.9 weeks to get possession from initial claim.
It can be a fair bit longer if there are complications and depends on what defence they try to put up.
You can’t issue a s21 yet as they’re in the fixed term. They’ll need to be at least 2 full months behind on rent before a s8 can be started.
Wait. The policy pays out 1 year after the tenants leave! That’s crazy
I think it's up to 1 year while they're there plus 3 months after they leave.
Could always pay some people to go around and have a word with them. I hate people not paying rent.
I can see that this will start to happen more and more with the renters' reform bill unfortunately...
That goodwill offer isn't really much - "pay what you owe AND leave" is no offer when they obviously know they can not pay rent for the next 9-12 months. "Leave and we'll call it quits on the debt" or even "leave now and we'll give you £1000" is more like it.
Don't want to hand them cash? They're going to cost you much more by staying.
From their point of view, they've just lost 50% of their income and unfortunately rent is the one thing they can stop paying without any immediate consequences so you've drawn the short straw. With that, you could hold on and hope they start paying again if/when they get another job...but it'll be at least 2 months before they get paid realistically, and you'll have the problem of the arrears still.
So, bite the bullet and pay them out.
Oh, and welcome to the modern world of renting out property - easy, passive income it is not (and rightly so, even though your situation is still shit).
You can do an S8 after 2 months arrears, but then you're basically waiting for the courts to do their work so you can almost certainly expect it to be 2026 before you get the place back.
Given I’ve got rental protection and legal cover.
Would your advice still make sense whereas I can wait it out and evict them whilst getting my rental income (assuming they pay out).
If you're getting paid from insurance anyway then wait and see, I've no experience of it myself but I've seen plenty of people complaining before now that it didn't payout as much as they were expecting, for as long as they needed...
However if you could get them out now, and afford it, I'd seriously consider it! If nothing else it'd be worth it for the lower stress levels :)
Make a decision when you find out what you're due from insurance, and for how long.
Section 8 is now 3 months in arrears (according to my agent) currently have a tenant that hasn’t paid last 5 months. But as we started section 8 they decided to get a solicitor involved for mould. The mould is down to them not ventilating the property.
The property has been in my family for at least 50 years and never had any mould issues
Some tenants are literally the scum of the sewer!
The 3 months is only when RRB comes into effect. It’s still 2 months until then.
References are not worth the paper they are printed on... We only paid a tenancy finding fee of £2k and when the tenants didn't pay rent on time, the agents said tougb shit basically... you should have paid us 10 per cent. Estate agents also said well the tenants can sign a DD and cancel it straight away so what do you expect? We did a section 21, but we were in a rolling contract by that stage. Renting is a lottery. Estate agents only see small-scale landlords as a cash cow...if they cannot make money out of you, they don't give a shit about you.
who pays 2k for finding fee when there's literally openrent for £70 listing on rightmove? that's so retarded. renting is not a lottery. buying in shit areas and renting shit flats is a lottery, indeed.
Some lie and use fake documents.
First thing is to notify the insurer. They will have their own process. The insurance usually covers legal as well and they may have a preferred supplier they use. Let them dictate legal steps. That is what they are paid to do. A legal letter might motivate the tenants. If not then at least you have the insurance and let the lawyers do their thing. Just chase up so you know what’s happening.
Good luck! Don’t let it put you off. You did the right things. We just live a world of assholes.
I would 100% be at that Agent’s door tomorrow and demand an emergency inspection. Something is really off.
I don't see how renting out a property could be good for ones finances and metal health.
Exactly my thoughts. Why do people subject themselves to this? Why not just invest the money in stocks/bonds?
This is precisely why landlords are leaving the market, and as a result increasing the demand for rental properties and therefore rents go up for the tenants. It's lose-lose.
Contact Mark Dawson at AST Assistance ltd. He's an expert in these things and gets mentioned a lot in the UK Landlords group.
Wishing you the best of luck
this is why you do your own due diligence
smash couple of windows, they'll be out by Dec
Welcome to the world as a landlord . I assume you have a deposit in a scheme ? Personally I’d pay a solicitor to write a similar to letter before action , so you show you mean business .
Jee thanks. I thought I was renting my place not opening up a free use shelter.
They opted for the Reposit option.
They’ve been sent a stern letter by management with a one off offer telling them they’re behind, to pay what they within 48 hours with no charges and they can leave (what I want tbh). They’ve also spelled it out failure to do so may include interest, CCJ and formal claim for possession.
Why would they pay what they owe and leave? It should be "pay what you owe and we won't evict you" or "pay nothing but leave now" (or more likely, "I'll pay you X so you'll leave".)
So they can stop acquiring debt.
They're presumably not paying you because they can't. So they're likely already in debt and likely don't care about acquiring more of it.
I'll be frank, don't get your hopes up that they'll pay you anything substantial, ever.
Debt owed for rent doesn't show up in credit checks so it's like the least important debt someone can have. I got a CCJ in 2021 for prioritising my rent over my overdraft payments and hilariously now I can't find a place to live despite clearing 100k last year because landlords won't rent to me.
It’s such a stupid system. How can it be that rent isn’t on a credit report. Just shows the system is designed to protect the bank.
I believe that is human rights lawyers territory, would help ease a lot of the friction in the rental market in my opinion, especially if pricing could be done based on likelihood of paying. Would give incentives to landlord and tenant to do the right thing.
Have you tried clearing the CCJ?
If you pay it off you might have more luck renting as you no longer have a record of making your previously landlord go without. At least if you settle it you can show that you only made them wait 5 years for payment rather than full middle finger treatment.
Getting a CCJ doesn’t mean you’ll get your money OP, this absolutely sucks but your focus should be getting them out of your property with the least amount of cost to yourself.
Forget the unpaid rent this is going to cost you a lot of cash to get them out and time.
I’d post in legal advice uk for better legal advice
Will do thanks.
How on Earth do people do this so brazenly and the government enable such behaviour is bizarre.
Because it saves a lot of cash for them by massaging homelessness figures
Also plays well into the evil landlord narrative when they follow through on evictions
You have rental insurance that should help.
My reasonably positive story for you
I had a tenant decide not to pay after a year of paying. I had landlord insurance and had gone through an agent and although it was stressful, if cost me nothing to get them served with the correct form and taken to court.
They didn't turn up to court and were gone the day after the leaving deadline.
I got the bulk of the missing rent from the insurance and was awarded the deposit against the state the flat was left in.
He had a guarantor. His mother. Apparently when contacted she just didn't reply so no effort was made to chase her.
This is why I prefer the illegal way of tenancy. Cash in hand, and remove by force
Funnily enough I've never known a landlord operate this way that wasn't a complete bellend.
By any chance are you also the sort of landlord to let yourself into your properties being rented by tennants without permission, and demand ridiculous payments for things they're not liable for?
I’m the the kind of landlord to do everything by the book. No extra fees.
But if you ain’t paying, you ain’t staying!
Plenty of people can be paid a few bob to happily “evict” tenants by applying a little pressure.
You see that last sentence there? You're not doing everything by the book.
As the comment above said, pay someone to do a in hours courtesy call to your tenants place of work. I’m sure it’ll be sorted before end of the week
Yes let the tenant take you to court for harrassment and you'll get a date much quicker than if you sue them for non payment/damage/harrassment.
They probably won't as they were crooked from the get go. Bear in mind harrassment and illegal eviction are criminal offences that can see you barred from any licensing schemes, scuppering your investment in order to play hard man.
❄️
This is the only answer worth reading in this thread.
"Any experiences with rent protection and legal cover?"
Who has provided you with rent protection/legal cover? the management company?
Nope took it out myself through Alan Boswell. It’s by Aviva I believe
Right, grab all the paperwork that you got and follow it to the letter. Was there a criteria in the insurance for the tenant to give 1 months deposit?
Deposit or deposit replacement scheme as per fine print are fine.
Inform your insurer ASAP. Some of them will even serve the eviction notices and provide a legal helpline
Check the small print of the rent protection cover ASAP. When I looked into getting this none of the policies were worth the paper they were printed on.
do we have stats for how many claims landlords make in Uk each year? if its a lot, surely courts should reduce the 2 months arrear requirement..
Issue the s21 asap,to start the clock. Even if they do eventually pay, every month will be stressful worrying if they will pay and then chasing them. Management agreements are a waste of time as they will not do much apart from a few phone calls and letters. For future reference, be wary of and deposit schemes, it just exposes those tenants who can’t afford rent. . Hopefully your rent protection kicks in.
You can’t issue a section 21 in the first 4 months of a tenancy.
Pity.With the current laws and incoming reforms, there is no surprise rentals are through the roof.
A section 21 is a no fair eviction so would be the incorrect tool in this situation anyway, so I’m not sure how that is relevant.
Well I'm definitely going to get rent protection!
Do you have a holding deposit from the tenants? At least to tie you over
This sounds like my ex tenants they didn't pay their second month rent either. You state first month but this is incorrect as the tenancy can only form after paying the first. I wouldn't get hopes up this is going to be a s8 eviction. Wait until the day they miss another month then they will be 2 months in arrears then I think from the next day you can start sorting out forms for a s8.
Hello. Not a good experience I feel sorry for you.
A friend of mine had similar issue with his property and he used an agent to sort it for him. It took him bit of a time but he got it cleared.
Not all agents are idiots but some definitely are and only money grabbing. Looks like you got one of those ones who just wanted their fee.
S21 is on the way out and no use. S8 but it's just one month arrears.
Its a pickle and I'd suggest in future use a decent agent.
Did you meet the tenants? What’s their monthly rent amount? Where is the property?
I had squatters and got a few mates to go squat in the house with them. Don't kick them out. Just stare at them and make them feel so uncomfortable they leave on their own.
This is why I gave up being a landlord.
As well as the usual tennant who couldn't change their own lightbulb, or use a cleaning spray. And felt entitled to everything.
Good luck to them once large corporations take over all rental housing.
Go and visit them in person and have a chat. All the legalese in the world is unhelpful. Be a human. Speak to them and find out what the problem is and how you can help. This will achieve more in learning eviction process inside and out.
But in a nutshell s8 under grounds 1,8, 10 and 11 once they are two months in arrears.
Also check the references and you could add ground 17 to the list if the references were fake.
Sounds as if you got an estate agent to choose you a tenant (a mistake).
Sounds as if you decided to swim against the tide and become a new landlord in 2025 (What was the good reason to do that?)
Sounds as if you decided to get landlords insurance and imagined that would help you a great deal -- instead of choosing tenants with ample cash savings and if not then guarantors (not a good plan in 2025).
To answer in the same order
Yes plenty
It may take up to a year depending how well your agent did their job (sounds not a good job so far)
S21 is not applicable at this point in your tenancy. S8 might work but you will need to wait at least another months until they are two months in arrears
Forget getting your money back
Rent protection insurance is largely a waste of time. There are many get-out clauses and limitations, and it makes people choose tenants they should not choose because they feel magically "protected"
Had to rent it as I was moving cities and wanted the passive income, as would most I’d be assuming.
I’ve paid for rental protection and legal cover as optional extras. At this point I’m hoping this covers me and as you’ve said they won’t try to pull a fast one on me.
How could I forget about getting my money back? I’d go all the way including CCJs if I have to. It’s beyond reason to me how someone would choose to pay or not pay rent, and this not be a criminal matter…
Any tips going forwards?
You got good advice in your last thread when you were deciding what to do - which was that you should sell it. So it is not true that "as would most"
Where are you living now - and how are you recovering the duplicate stamp duty?
"Passive income"???? there is nothing at all passive about it (as you are about to discover) nor is there likely income and more likely a loss (and definitely so in comparison with in a passive S&S fund) unless you are in a very niche part of the rental market and also very clever and lucky.