Landlord Action in Spotlight - Avoiding the professional bad tenant

Spotlight NLA 1 November 2011

At Landlord Action we’ve seen a rise of the professional
bad tenant abusing the court system so they can stay in a
landlord’s property for as long as possible rent free.

Professional bad tenants will try and offer more than a month’s rent in
cash in advance and only provide the landlord with limited referencing
information. Our advice is to have a strict procedure with regards to
referencing any tenant and do not rush to get them into your property
as it may be to your peril.

The process of eviction can be a very stressful time for a landlord
especially when they’re struggling to make mortgage payments. If the
tenant is two months in arrears the landlord must serve a section 8
notice which gives the tenant 14 days to pay up or vacate.
If they fail to do so then the landlord has to apply to the court for
a hearing date before a judge to obtain possession, money and
costs orders.
Again, if the tenant is obstinate, then the landlord has to apply to the
court bailiffs to set down an eviction date, which can take 6-8 weeks,
meaning that if your tenant is determined to stay then the process
can take up to five months.

We advise all landlords that they need to be mentally prepared that
they may not get almost half a year’s rent payments and they must
make sure that their finances are in order so that they can weather
the storm.

Since the start of trading back in 1999 we have now dealt with
almost 20,000 instructions for landlords and letting agents all over
the country. It’s fair to say that we have seen most things that go
wrong with tenancies. Our advice to landlords is that your property is
your pension and you need to run it like a business.