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List Of Frustrations Inflicted By My Tenant While I Was Trying To Get A Tan

Written by The Landlord on 14 Dec 2011

cat fight

Holy shit, this has been the longest period of time I’ve gone without publishing a post. It’s almost been a month. What’s my excuse? I’ve been sunning myself in various locations around the globe. Alas, it’s back to reality now, and what a landfill of diarrhea it is.

Naively, I had genuine intentions of sitting under an umbrella, tapping away on my laptop and unleashing a few posts. Reality was, I ended up laying there with my shades on while drooling over exotic women and tucking my erection under the elastic waist band of my swim shorts. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted; I’m back now, doing what I do, and how I usually do it…

While I was away I had a few tedious interactions with one of my tenants. I don’t know what I did that was so terrible in my past, but for some reason Karma has deemed it appropriate for my tenant’s to always become problematic during my annual leave. Typical.

Admittedly, my problem is, I analyse every-fucking-thing. Not just analyse, but I over-analyse. Most normal people probably wouldn’t even get phased by the following, but my mind just logged it all, and drowned in frustration, so-much-so, that I’ve decided to regurgitate my ‘orrible little list of frustrations and Hollywood it up like a Diva.

Schedule of events that irritated me

1) Tenant was due to pay rent 4 days before I was set to leave the country. I silently waited until my day of departure (I figured 4 days was a generous amount of time for him to get his act together). He failed to deposit the funds. Mistake number 1.
2) On the morning of my departure, I text my tenant enquiring when rent would be paid. That’s mistake number 2. I shouldn’t have had to initiate the conversation. He knew rent was due, and he knew perfectly well he didn’t pay it. He should have contacted me first; I had given him 4 days to come crawling on his knees.

If I was in his position, I would have contacted the landlord first and supplied him with whatever sorry excuse I had managed to construde from out of my arse, and then told him when it would be paid. But I guess that’s the difference between someone with decency and an inconsiderate skidmark that enjoys sucking the blood out of innocent and beautiful people.
3) It took him 48 hours to respond to my text message. There we go, mistake number 3. It shouldn’t take someone 48 hours to respond to a text message, especially when it’s about something relatively important.

If my tenants need extra time to pay rent, i’m perfectly fine with that. Just let me know so I don’t waste my precious time waiting and chasing.

In his text he apologised and said he was paid late by his employer, and would pay me the next day. He said he would notify me with a confirmation text. At this point I was on my holiday in the Far East so I didn’t want to think about work, and also, texting back and forth was now an expensive delicacy. Either way, I responded and told him that was fine.
4) Next day had come and gone and I was still waiting for his confirmation. Mistake number 5.
5) Even though I didn’t receive any correspondence from the mute, I checked my bank online to see if he managed to pay rent. To my surprise, he paid £500. However, rent is £775. Mistake number 6. He didn’t pay the entire amount, and didn’t even bother informing me he was short.
6) 24 hours later, I’m laying on a beach texting my tenant, enquiring why the entire rent wasn’t paid. Mistake number 7 & 8; once again he had forced me to initiate a conversation he should have started, but more crucially, he had forced me to deduct time from my perving parade so I was able to chase him for rent. I told him rent was short (like the mute shit-for-brains didn’t know!), and asked him to tell me when the remaining balance could be settled.
7) Another 24 hours past and I was still dealing with a mute. Again, I decided to check my account online. Amazingly, he had deposited the remaining £275. So after 10 days of being in arrears, he had paid his rent. But again, there had been no correspondence from him (even until now). He was obviously receiving my texts. Weird.

I’m not even sure what the point of this blog post is. But I think it has something to do with the following:

I wanted to explain why I haven’t been posting as much recently.
I’m a reasonable guy. I don’t mind if my tenants need extra time to pay rent (as long as it doesn’t become a habit), but be bloody courteous and let me know what is going on. Moreover, don’t ignore my texts and say you’re going to contact me when you’re not.
The combination of ignoring my texts and paying in unorthodox amounts without informing me became tedious.
Tenants always seem to become problematic when I’m on annual leave.

So, on that note, has anyone else recently been irritated by their tenant or landlord? If so, let’s here it!

For those wondering, yes, I had a fabulous time, and it’s truly disgusting being back! x

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21 Comments - join the conversation...

Benji2011-12-14 19:49:10 Is it sunny in Blackpool at this time of year? 1

Jeremy2011-12-14 20:27:25 Benji: Can you not read? He had his holiday in the Far East, not the North West. So how was Sunderland, then? 2

Armin2011-12-14 20:37:53 Sunderland is not in the Far East. Far East, that clearly would have to be Norwich! 3

YesAdam2011-12-14 21:37:40 Just 10 Days of arrears, Can we do a Tenant swap?

lol, I hope you had a good holiday. As for frustations of them not contacting you, I think you need to lower your expectations. Its embarasing and no one wants to make embarassing calls about being LATE and especialy beig SHORT. 4

The Landlord2011-12-15 09:19:10 @Benji, @Armin, @Jeremy
You guys and your cute playful ways!

@YesAdam,

Yeah, 10 days is nothing to be concerned about, it was definitely the lack of communication and common courtesy that got under my skin! Are your tenants currently in arrears? If so, by how much?

Brilliant holiday(s), thanks :)

Ha, I suspect he went mute on me due to the embarrassment. However, honesty is the best policy; i'd rather know where I stand, innit 5

YesAdam2011-12-15 09:44:39 Id rather know too, I do make a point of saying "thanks for letting me know" a few times in a call, even if I initiate it.

Unfortunatly majority of tenatnts in low income housing are in arrears. We keep it at a minimum but landlord wants "long term tenants" rather than us putting foot down and scaring them away.

Since its coming to xmas i've had what id call some of my "best" tenants being late or prosponeing payments.

A letter going out now to a tenant who he and his mum prommissed payment 3 times and was yeaterday now in two months arrears. Late fee going his way, unfortunatly. 6

The Landlord2011-12-15 10:04:39 Yeah, I'm actually concerned a few of my tenants may deploy delay tactics through the Christmas period.

Ahh the 'late fee' penalty is interesting. Do you tie that into the tenancy agreement or through a separate contract, and is it 100% forcible by law? 7

YesAdam2011-12-15 10:42:16 Yes, its in our AST we use a customised version of the AST from the "Residential Landlords Association" so im sure they have tested the "legality" of such terms, here is the wording:

"2. Pay our reasonable costs for sending reminder letters. These will be £10.00 for each reminder.
3. Pay our reasonable costs for any cheque that does not clear or any unpaid direct debit or debit or credit-card or standing order payment. These will be £10 each time this happens."

I dont realy enforce the "fee" that often as you have to give some flexibility but make sure they know I have NOT enforced it. Its only £10 but.. 8

mark2011-12-15 13:38:10 hope you enjoyed holiday
1 dont tell tenants when you may be away.
2the tenner threat is good but dont enforce imho,suggest you may ask agent to look after property, that will scare the hell out of him.
3.the guy was not too bad ,prob felt scared /guilty ,he sounds ok?
4.great site missed your posts
regards 9

Jeremy2011-12-15 20:56:56 If you're that pedantic over your easterliness then you need Lowestoft, not Norwich.

I went to Elveden Forrest for holiday this year, so I think I'll shut up and go stand in the corner! 10

Armin2011-12-16 14:58:56 I haven't been on a holiday since 2006. Holidays are for rich people, like LL. 11

YesAdam2011-12-16 15:03:40 Armin, Get to Butlins, "All work and no play makes Armin a dull boy". 12

Jeremy2011-12-16 15:59:03 They shut Butlins at Blackpool. All the more reason to go to Lowestoft instead 13

Ali2011-12-16 22:04:24 Just come across this blog - brillant. I love it 14

Mr X2011-12-17 13:06:07 I know 3 landlords that all have a penalty clause in their agreements for late rent, one for example is 4% of the rent, which then compounds for every day the rent is late.

However my point is, the times where rent has been a day late or more, none of these have been enforced.

Perhaps it is just a scare tactic. 15

Ryan2011-12-20 10:31:15 I can only think of very few examples where the tenant has told me before hand that they were going to be late, every other time it's me chasing them! 16

pab2012-01-21 06:05:17 "The tenant(s) are jointly and severally liable for the payment of rent and a late payment fee of £20 will be made against each late rent payment."

If they're a day or so late I don't mind too much but three days or more without any communication then I'm usually pissed off enough to enforce it. Depends on the tenant and my mood mostly. If it's one of their first couple of rents though I'm always of the mind to enforce the first one to make them weary of being late again. 17

Jeremy2012-01-22 13:21:26 Hello Mr X and pab,

The Office of Fair Trading has a stance which is rather against liquidated damages for late payment being defined in the tenancy agreement.

They tend to take the view that any amount must reflect or be close to the direct costs (not overheads or consequential costs) of the rent being late.

So should a tenant ever refuse to pay the penalty amount and the issue go to court, the landlord would have a burden of proof to show how £20 / 4% / wahtever is reasonable and not just an exercise in leveraging more cash out of the tenant. 18

Mr X2012-01-22 13:26:15 Yeh that does make sense Jeremy 19

pab2012-01-24 18:59:05 @Jeremy, I imagine that stems from the debacle the banks had justifying/refunding those unauthorised overdrafts charges. Funnily enough I reserve charging interest on late rent for my commercial tenants only. Don't think I'll be changing either lease agreement anytime soon - good to know though. 20

Jeremy2012-02-01 22:59:38 Hello pab,

Yes, you're right. It's exactly the same principle. And it's cropped up again in the news with airlines charging us £25 to use a card when they're charged 50p by their banks for the same transaction.

I made an assumption (never assume!) that you are a residential-only landlord. As far as non-consumer contracts go, the OFT offers more lattitude. They make an assumption that a business deal is between parties with equal trading strength and interfere less in the fairness of contract terms. So if you ever wanted to enforce these terms, you proably could. 21