Tenant not paying rent and not answering any of my calls - please advice

[geek84]

Hi Folks

My new tenant moved in to my property a few months ago. She doesn't work and is claiming housing benefit. However, she tells me that she has only received 5 weeks rent from the council (she has actually given me 5 weeks rent). I have tried to get in touch with the council about this but they say that they cannot discuss the tenant's application with me.

I have tried knocking on the door of my property where the tenant is living and phoned her on several occasions, but she does not answer the phone or open the door when I go round, although I know for definite that she is inside the property.

Can someone please be kind enough to advise me the best course of action to take.

Thanks in advance for your response.

[Grampa]

You need to get on top of this situation asap otherwise before long you will be owed 1000's and no near fixing the problem.

1 Write to the council asap and explain that your tenant is 2 months in arrears (if she is) and request all further housing payments are to be made directly to you under regulation 95

2 Serve a section 8 as soon as 2 months rent owning

3 serve a section 21 as well.

4 chase your tenants guarantor if there is one. If not why not.

Make sure any notices you serve are done correctly and you get proof of service.

[geek84]

Hi Grampa

Many thanks indeed for your reply.

How do I prove to the council that the tenant has not paid me rent? Do I need to show bank statements etc?

If I request the council to pay rent direct to me, is it compulsory that the council grants my request?

What is a section 8?

What is a section 21?

The tenant has signed a 'landlord & tenant' agreement. But how do I find out if it is a 'standard agreenent' between a landlord & tenant i.e. it covers all situations/circumstances?

Thanks in advance for your response..

[Mortitia]

Geek - what date did the tenancy start? Section 21 cannot be got within the 'fixed term' ie 6 months (usually).

You may well need to show bank statements to the council or make a declaration on paper that no rent was paid.

Where did you get the tenancy agreement (also called an AST) from? They are usually all pretty similar.

A Section 21 notice can be a form or letter telling tenant that you require possession of the property by court order if necessary. You need to give 2 months notice on the form or letter from a rent due date and the notice must end at the end of a rental period. So if tenancy started on 6th of the month the rental period will end on the 5th. You need to get proof of service of this notice. Section 21 if done correctly will guarantee possession.

A Section 8 notice can be used within the fixed term and again in the from of a letter once the tenant is 8 weeks in arrears. In the back of your agreement it will state the grounds for using a section 8. Read them - rent arrears is one.

You need to read more about these yourself and take action or your tenant could be there months and you get no rent.

Mortitia

[Grampa]

A section 8 and section 21 has certain precribed wording on it and although you can write them out, if you miss something out it will be invalid.

It appears you are very new to letting and I wouldnt advise doing it yourself.

I suggest you join https://www.landlordsguild.com/ and speak to Adrian who runs it. You could call up first and speak to him before joining.

[geek84]

Good morning Folks

Thanks for your replies, so far.

The problem is rhat the tenant seems to living somewhere else at the moment(she gave me the address & I actually visited her last week). She said she will be moving into my property in the next week or so, after she gets custody of the kids. She was not prepared to hand over the keys since she is adamant that she wants to move in.

However, as you know, she has been living there for almost 2 months and not paid a penny! Another problem is that every time I phone up the Housing Benefits they say thst they have not received any application from her (she told me she made the application for HB before Xmas). When I asked her about this (last week), she said there was a mistake in the paper work & she had to apply again. She is not prepared to give me the date or the reference number of her application and said she will sort it out.

If she hasn't made any applicatioj then can I still get the HB to pay rent direct ot me after 8 weeks?

Another twist to this story is that I met a solicitor (a friend of a friend's) who said I cannot change the locks since that would be against the law & she could take me to court). I did explain to him that she has signed a short term tenancy but not paid a pennmy up to date.

I'm so confused about this. Can someone please be kind enough to advice where I go from here?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Bradley]

Good morning Folks

Thanks for your replies, so far.

The problem is rhat the tenant seems to living somewhere else at the moment(she gave me the address & I actually visited her last week). She said she will be moving into my property in the next week or so, after she gets custody of the kids. She was not prepared to hand over the keys since she is adamant that she wants to move in.

However, as you know, she has been living there for almost 2 months and not paid a penny! Another problem is that every time I phone up the Housing Benefits they say thst they have not received any application from her (she told me she made the application for HB before Xmas). When I asked her about this (last week), she said there was a mistake in the paper work & she had to apply again. She is not prepared to give me the date or the reference number of her application and said she will sort it out.

If she hasn't made any applicatioj then can I still get the HB to pay rent direct ot me after 8 weeks?

Another twist to this story is that I met a solicitor (a friend of a friend's) who said I cannot change the locks since that would be against the law & she could take me to court). I did explain to him that she has signed a short term tenancy but not paid a pennmy up to date.

I'm so confused about this. Can someone please be kind enough to advice where I go from here?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Try onlet.co.uk, they were really honest and helpful when I spoke to them, free paperwork, free legal advice etc, you can only ask. I am no expert here but it seems that you could do with someone with more knowledge than me

[Grampa]

You posted originally on the 1st December and are nearly 2 months down the road and no further in resolving the problem and owed another 2 months rent.

Bite the bullet and join https://www.landlordsguild.com/ You could have the correct legal notices served by the end of the day for £80 and all the help you need for the setting up of the next tenancy

As I stated in my earlier post "You need to get on top of this situation asap otherwise before long you will be owed 1000's and no nearer fixing the problem".

[Mortitia]

Bradley - have you got some financial or commercial interest with 'onlet'. I cannot for 1 minute think that an online agency could sort this one out.

Members - Is Bradley a Troll? Discuss

Mortitia

[Melboy]

Bradley - have you got some financial or commercial interest with 'onlet'. I cannot for 1 minute think that an online agency could sort this one out.

Members - Is Bradley a Troll? Discuss

Mortitia

I think Onlet have access to a legal department Mortitia but payment is requested if they act for you which is to be expected.. I would like to think that Bradley is not a troll acting for Onlet.

[geek84]

Hi folks

I’m just giving you an update on my situation and would like further advice from you kind folks out there, in terms of what I need to do next-

I have now found out that my tenant (who signed a short term tenancy agreement in November 2012 and has never paid any rent or deposit, and had assured me that she had put in a claim for Housing Benefit), had in fact never put the claim to HB, and hasn’t paid a penny towards the rent or deposit up to date.

She has in fact only put in her claim for Housing Benefit from the end of January 2013. She now claims that ‘something went wrong with the first application’ and that I should now get some sort of rent payment within the next 4 weeks. Do you think that is possible?

Assuming that I do get the rent payments from January this year, what about the period when I didn’t receive any rent – November 2012 to January 2013. Is it worth approaching the HB people and showing them the short term tenancy agreement in an attempt to persuade them to back date the rent due? Of course, they might say we only received the application in January this year, so we can’t do that. If that happens, should I go through the courts in order to obtain the rent covering the period November 2012 to January 2013? Of course, in that case the tenant might say to the courts that she has not got enough money/savings, so cannot pay up or the court may give her some ridiculous order to pay off £2 per week to make up the rent arrears. If I decide to take this route, how long would it take and would I incur any costs?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Melboy]

Not only is your tenant not paying you rent she has lied to you about her application for HB. You still want to take her on? I wouldn't. You could be leaving yourself open to a whole lot of trouble in the future with this tenant.

I don't think HB applications are back-dated for payments.

[Carryon Regardless]

Why are you expecting HB to pay you direct ? That's only usual when you have informed them of 8 week arrears and claim for payments to be made to you.

I would assume payments of HB, if any, are to her and will be spent on cider. I don't see a good future here.

[bdh198]

The answer is simple. If you haven't already done so, serve the appropriate notice to have her lawfully evicted from your property. Get her out and start again with a new tenant. You're unlikely to get any rent at all, so cut your losses and treat it as a valuable learning experience. She's lied to you and is taking advantage of your goodwill and naivety.

When you start looking for your next tenant make sure you do thorough checks to ensure that they reliable. If in doubt, don't let, or at the very least get a decent guarantor.