How To Be A Shit Landlord

1. Be a treehugger, don’t use a Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement.

2. There’s no room for empathy- you don’t want to hear excuses. You’re running a business, not a charity shop.

If you’re a shit-fuck and ignored point #1, then redeem yourself by putting the following into your tenancy agreement:

1.1: I don’t want to hear excuses. You will not give me any. Ever.
1.2: I am running a business, not a charity shop.

3. Reserve your precious energy; don’t waste your time making quarterly inspections. All problems can be settled after your tenant has moved out with…
the security deposit
and a
baseball bat.

4. There should never be any immediate rush into making repairs. You’re already giving your tenant a place to stay. If you give them too much they’ll eventually expect you to lick the gum off their shoes. As long as you have hot food and water, nothing else really matters.

5. How often do properties actually burn down or randomly topple over? Building insurance is pointless. Kind of like that guy from Wham. Not George Michael, the other one, which did nothing. What’s his name? Bambi?

6. When a tenant calls, it’s NEVER good news. Ignore the call.

7. If rent is 24 hours late, hand out both Section 8 and Section 21 like candy. Most tenants are clueless, they’ll be scared and most likely cough up the doe.

8. Reference checks are as reliable as a chocolate teapot. Fuck ‘em.

9. Giving tenancy to someone with a bigger physical presence than yourself is suicide. I only recruit scrawny nerds or elderly women so I can lay the smack down if they cross the line. Physical violence and threatening antics are always reliable tools if you want to walk down the road to victory.

10. Don’t be afraid to throw your weight around. You’re THE LANDLORD- overshadow your tenant with your menicing authority.

11. Replacing the locks is like having abortions- the best form of pest control.

12. If you like chavs and want to support their cause, then declare your earnings to the snake-oil taxman. Otherwise, be a man and keep the moolah tucked under your mattress.

13. Don’t bother using a Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme. Use the money on a long deserved holiday, or something as worthwhile, like a wicked Pioneer basebox for the boot of your car.

14. At the end of a tenancy, pick up on every motherfucking glitch like a hawk so you can hold back some, if not all, of the deposit. If you look hard enough, you’ll find enough damages.

15. Don’t be scared to dish out Notice Of Rent Increase Forms, especially to long term tenants that are reliable and in their ultimate comfort zone. They’ll most likely pay the new shiney rate since they’re nicely settled in.

16. Following on from point 15, capitalizing on profit should be the bread and butter aim for all landlords.

17. ALWAYS assume the tenant is completely oblivious to their rights- because that’s usually the case, and you’ll consequently save a bundle of cash. With that in mind, forget Gas Safety Certificates, Energy Performance Certificates, and the alike.

18. DSS tenants are the holy grail of tenants. Embrace them like newly born children embrace the nipples of their mothers’.

19. You’re paying the mortgage; you’re keeping the rain off your tenant’s head, never forget that. You owe them nothing.

20. The property your tenant is in is YOURS, not theirs. You can enter and leave it as you please.

21. Start a blog and start bitching about your tenants for fun.

Add to the list, please…

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Talk / 15 Comments

Jools wrote this on 2009-06-15 19:35:11 Why add to perfection! 1

Dan Harrison wrote this on 2009-06-15 19:43:34 Pure genius. Maybe a whole book dedicated to the joys of being a landlord. Might be a way of helping you get to that mystical £300k you were on about. :)

Dan 2

The Terminator wrote this on 2009-08-10 09:38:10 22. Name and shame all tenants with arears. Leave a homemade lost cat type note on nearby lamp posts.

23. Send all of the ajoining houses a letter stating; If you have lent any item recently get it back now as your neighbour will be publicly evicted on such and such date.

24. Record their vehicles registration numbers and phone them in to crimewatch everytime a pervert is being hunted.

25. Make an excuse to enter the loft and shit in the water tank.

26. Sell your house and don't have the stress from all these cunt's. 3

sycorax wrote this on 2009-10-27 22:06:32 27. Insert a clause saying: 'Stinky bag ladies with mental litter-hoarding fetishes are not allowed to rent this property, and, if discovered to be in breach of this clause, will be beaten with a dead cat until they cry.' 4

shafted tenant wrote this on 2009-11-02 22:12:40 hahahaha brilliant are you sure your not a landlord yourself im crying with laughter. 5

sycorax wrote this on 2009-11-02 22:21:39 humph. 6

The wolfman wrote this on 2009-11-25 14:12:43 Ring the police and tell them its a cannabis factory at the property then sit back an watch the riot squad raid them they soon shit themselves then!!! 7

maria wrote this on 2010-01-12 11:39:09 Pity that tenants have to bear already most of these... 8

Landlord and tenant wrote this on 2010-01-29 09:35:49 28. Be a twat a don't tell your tenants you are planning on selling in six months time. Of course there's no need to apologise when you do this as your tenants are worms.

29. Just turn up at any time and knock on the door to ask the tenant questions. I mean you have a day job so it's OK to disturb your tenants on a
Sunday morning.

30. Don't check your bank account properly so that you don't realise that you were paid six days in advance for your rent, and then ring the client at 10pm on a Sunday evening to complain. And of course when you realise you've made an error there's no need to apologise as your tenants are no more than worms.

39. When it comes to checkout, attempt to charge your former tenant for the incompetence of your electrician who can't reliably install spotlights so they fall out the ceiling.

Some landlords have special needs.

I'm an accidental landlord, but my tenants are fine; like you they have become friends of a sort, and if I'm in the area I'll pop in. I don't need to make appointments for inspections, but to be honest the house is tidier and cleaner than it ever was when we were there with our kids. Don't have kids if you want to see carpet.

The landlords that I've dealt with though seem to be on some kind of power trip; they don't seem to understand the old adage of "don't bite the hands that feed you". In general I don't like people much, but landlords rarely qualify as people. Still, got a year to go before I can exit on my mortgage without penalty, and then I can build a nice house. All that said, I'm a decent sort I think, and I don't doubt there are others that are too.

I have to query point 8 though - reference checks aren't worth shit! Are you agreeing with that or saying that you should do them?

Even in business reference checks are rarely a good indication of the current state of affairs. In context a problem client is likely to be offloaded at the first possible opportunity, so a good reference will be forthcoming. Moreover giving a client a bad reference opens you up to problems with the data protection act, and potential lititgation (especially if you have a tonne of cash and comprehensive legal insurance as I do). 9

Dr Reece Walker wrote this on 2010-01-31 19:27:07 I own a four bedroom house in Stratford and I rent it out to individuals. I offered one of the rooms at a heavy discount to a friend whom I trusted, who manages the property on my behalf; all the tenants' leases etc are in his name, he collects the rent, issues receipts, carries out inspections, organises repairs etc. That makes him a resident landlord which means the 'tenants' are licencees, and have, quite frankly, bugger all rights. I don't exploit this situation but have made it clear; you pay your rent on time in full, and life will be a bed of roses lined with more roses, with some roses on top. Late or short with the rent and when you get back from the corner shop, your key won't fit the lock. He has evicted two layabouts for non-payment so far and there has been no comeback. One went to Citizens' Rights and when they were appraised of the true situation they told him the facts of life ... find another place to stay. We can't help you. Nobody can. End of story. 10

shafted tenant wrote this on 2010-02-01 10:50:39 Not really end of story Dr Reece as what we are all trying to point out to shit landlords is that fantastic tenants such as our selves who pay our rent on time and bend over backwards to accomodate shit landlords get treated like well shit really, I am a landlord myself and wouldnt resort to some of the tactics previous landlords have with me to try and squeeze any ammount of money out of me. End of story 11

Hez wrote this on 2010-02-10 18:07:20 I have NEVER once yet met a decent landlord, they are all CUNTS. im a war widow and have a 6 yr old and my current landlord seems to think its ok that i have had no hot water or heating for a month, and that my sons bedroom ceiling has started leaking when it rains, or that when i first had a shower here the kitchen ceiling fell down, and a thousand more things besides.

im moving to a house rented through an agency which HOPEFULLY should be better at dealing with repairs (or even, DARE I HOPE, have things done properly so that nothing has a reason to break) and im taking him to court because he hasn't registered my deposit in a dp scheme. so he will have to fix everything before letting it out again, lose rent in the meantime, possibly pay me 3x the deposit back and find a new tenant. thats the way to do business!!! how much money will he have lost out on by then? ARE LANDLORDS RETARDED?????? he's shot himself in the foot, lost a load of money, and made me miserable. infinite wisdom that they posses. infinite i tell you 12

Yabba wrote this on 2010-02-16 09:58:45 Yep some landlords are retarded!!! Ours certainly is!! Rent was late, we needed to apply for HB but landlord refused to give us a tenancy agreement to do so. We went out. The idiot changed the locks. To cut a long story short by the time the plonked went to bed he had a court order telling him to let us back in immediatly and a lovely injunction to go with it!! All this was hand delivered to him by the bailiff and he has to pay for the privillage plus pay us compensation! Loving the justice!!

Landlords think they are God, outs learned the hard way that he's nothing more that a first prize idiot!!!

NB landlords please not taking the law into your own hands is neither big nor clever and will seriously damage both your health and bank balance!! 13

securityLord wrote this on 2010-03-11 18:46:05 All Landklords are money grabbing arse holes. I havent met one decent Landlord. Sorry Mary and Joseph there is no room at the inn, unless you run around while I sit on my pedestal and pay me all your money. 14

Bad Harry wrote this on 2010-03-12 01:47:13 40. After 2 mths in arrears, let yourself in - sleep in their shitty bed - and when the tennant sneaks in at 4am to get his crap stuff - tell them that their sence of entitlement is misplaced and they can FUCK OFF. 15