A landlord lets in a ‘hippie’ type family as he is anxious to have tenants in his empty property and the family say that they are desperate for accommodation. He is not entirely happy about them but feels that letting them in will be better than leaving the property empty.

Once in, they proceed to redecorate the property, painting the walls black and all the radiators dark mauve. Numerous complaints are received from neighbours about their behaviour and loud music at night. There are several incidents when the Police are called out and it is suspected that they are taking drugs.

They pay one month’s rent in advance but fail to pay any further rent, and the landlord has to issue proceedings for possession to evict them. This  takes four months by which time the rent arrears have risen to several thousand pounds.

The night before the bailiff is due to come to evict them, they have a party, during the course of which several windows are broken, and other damage is done to the property. It is left in a filthy state with rubbish in all the rooms. Much of the furniture has been either broken or stolen.

The landlord is left with a property which needs several thousand pounds work (including re-decoration throughout and replacement of almost all the furniture) to make it fit for re-letting, a bill from his solicitors for the eviction proceedings, and no chance of recovery from the tenants who have disappeared without trace.

Blog Post from Landlord Law

Central Housing Group’s ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme provides professional assistance to landlords in addressing the various types of tenant-related issues highlighted in this article. Our friendly, professional and comprehensive management service offers regular property inspections (including the regular use of digital photography for monitoring purposes) and, in accordance with the terms of our contract, (in the absence of holding tenant deposits), also provides landlords with our assurance that we will rectify any and all wilful tenant damage.

Our ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme and management service also provides landlords with the peace of mind that they do not have to deal directly with tenants when they break the rules and can instead rely on our experienced and professional team of staff to effectively deal with all tenant management issues.

See details of our Guaranteed Rent Scheme here