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Hi all,

Read so many posts but would like your input please...

DSS tenant moved in middle of April, rent been late every month since!! I even had to go and collect it in June!! She now owes for August, and so far nothing received this month, even though she has received 1 of her fortnightly payments already.

None of her phone numbers work now, and she doesn't respond to letters. Have tried to be fair but cannot even get in touch with her now. Went round to see her today, but not in according to friend of family who was looking after her kid.

The last letter i sent (recorded delivery), outlined every late payment received and arrears due. I set her a deadline to clear overdue amount, otherwise i'd enforce the daily late payment charge as set out in the contract. Still i've heard nothing!!!

I want her out asap as she is clearly taking me for a ride......whats the quickest way? surely i can get her for the late payments and current arrears? Also, the contract stipulates 'no pets', well it seems she has a dog and the place stinks of it!!!!

Seen advice about joining landlord association, so going to look at that, but also seen websites offering eviction service. Any thoughts or experience of these please....

Thankyou

Tel

the point which is given in your forum. is very interesting,
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johnsobers87

Mortgage Deals

Anything longer than twelve months is unusual. There is only one reason to do this and that is so the greedy agent is tied to recieving commission for the next two years. You could have left the AST to run out. This is called 'holding over' and leaves you and your tenant bound by the original AST terms. Unfortunately you did tell the agent to go ahead. I think they may have mis advised you about the two year bit to line their own pocket. You would normally only do that with a commercial lease. I have never signed anything with an agency and all has gone ahead full steam but then again I have also learnt not to trust them.

Did you have to sign the original AST?
Did you ask to see a copy first?
Does the two year deal not allow you to give the tenant notice to quit anyway? If the original AST did and this does not then you have some grounds on the basis that they have altered the deal before you knew about it.
Have you still got a copy now?
Your argument is with the agent and not the tenant. Best not to rock the boat at their end.

I have been renting my house out for the last year under a 12 month AST agreement whilst moving in with my mother - it expired end of August & i had a telephone conversation with the letting agent beginning of July to address the issue of renewal. The existing tenants were keen to stay on,looking for a possible 2 year agreement. The agent advised that this would be a good option - i agreed on the proviso that the rent was increased. The agent told the tenants and they accepted verbally.  A few days later i received a new written agreement from the agent which had already been signed by the tenants - this was the 1st time i had seen the proposed new agreement in writing. At the same time my mother told me that she wanted me to move out. I told the agent that i now had to have my house back and couldnt commit to a 2 year AST- the agent told me i was bound by the new agreement even though i havent signed anything. There is no break clause in the new agreement which is not something that i actively agreed to - am i stuck to this? Any recourse to agent for acting negligently?

Thanks for that Jeffo. You've solved the insurance responsibility query I had.

As for the others, perhaps if I was more specific you would have further thoughts?

As I understand it, the freeholder has appointed a management company. They are 'not very good' - not responding promptly to phone calls/emails/letters. But that is by the by.

Should they be enforcing the lease, in terms of possible-commercial activity cessation, and replacing building's front door, at the least? And if they don't, who does? Is it worth my while contacting the freeholder directly, given that he employs the management company?

Thanks for any words of wisdom!

Gareth

Personally I would say this one is tricky enough to warrant paying the solicitor to sort out.
It is expensive but its even worse when something has been omitted on the form and 3 months down the line you find you are back at the beginning

I would not dismiss myself but would ask them for decent guarantors. (credit check the guarantors) I would leave the AST as it should be, showing the full amount. You could add a foot note and both initial it. As for the legality of that, I am not sure but I doubt anybody could argue it wasnt legitimate if its on both copies of the AST and all parties have signed it.

When you bought the property it would have detailed in the documents your solicitor handled, various points such as who is responsible for what. It will have laid out the responsibility of the freeholder and wether or not you were allowed to trade from the premises. The chances are that you are all jointly responsible for communal areas. I own a flat where I am jointly responsible for communal areas but when there were maintenance issues I could not contact so much as half of the other lanlords involved. These situations are why we have ground rent. My premises do not and it is a real bugbear. Again, ground rent may or may not cover the problems you are having.
I would say that so long as the front door to your own flat is adequately secured, your insurance company would see that you had done all within your power to keep your property safe.
Most of your questions can be answered by the solicitor who did the conveyancing for you. As in each instance the rules are different, it is impossible to say.

Rule number 1: Always suspect the estate agents have a hidden agenda

I have had similar. I rang and made an offer. The guy laughed at me down the phone, he was extremely rude and implied I was dreaming if I thought I could get it at that price. A short while later it sold for less than my offer. I was angry but had not realised that he is obliged to put forward every offer he recieves. I had not demanded he submit my offer regardless of his opinion because I was too busy swallowing his mockery.
First off, find out if they did this. After that you should ask why your offer was rejected. This is where you have no leg to stand on as they can tell you any old crap and you are none the wiser. They are unregulated bastards.-go figure! The classic response is 'the vendor is obliged to take the offer they deem to be the most concrete and not the highest'

I did, on one purchase, get told that I need not worry about any subsequent offers snatching it out from me as they would accidentally be lost or not meet the repossessors requirements as the agent just wanted it off their books and I was a 'dead cert' cash buyer. I think they were on a set fee for the sale so dragging it out to gain money for the vendor made no financial sense to the agent.

Halifax failed to take the 1st mortgage payment from my account. They cannot tell me why this happened but now they want me to go pay cash over the counter.
I really urge anybody out there not to use the halifax as they are a bunch of idiots.
Because my money did not come through I had to leave my new hsbc account unused. I could not activate it without adding cash and after 28 days unused it freezes. I now have to get new security access which takes 5 days. My hbos account has now frozen despite having had a huge chunk of money put into it because it was being closed and moved to hsbc but couldnt go until halifax paid up. I now have 5 days of blind banking. Why cant we just go back to the days of old and carry cash, bankers draughts and postal orders?!!!