Originally Posted by
rockinrobin
We're in the final stages of getting rid of a tenant that hasn't paid rent for months.
She boasts round the estate that she's spending the rent on takeaways, but then makes a complaint to the local authority tenant relations officer when we handed her an eviction notice in public - no discussion, just handed her the notice while she was stood by her boyfriend's back gate with nobody anywhere nearby.
She claims to have been hundreds of miles away and not reading warning letters while posting on facebook from her (OUR!!!) back garden.
She invents 2 witnesses that claim we entered the flat while she was out, and the TRO investigated causing us loads of hassle, despite being able to prove that I was in the middle of a driving lesson and my wife was in surgery.
Get her near a court date and she makes a complaint to muddy the water.
We can't go into the property and change the locks, despite knowing she's left, as there are still a few possessions in there and we've been advised by the TRO that they would support a prosecution for illegal repossession if we did that. We can't even ask her when she intends to hand back the keys as that would be seen as hassling her to leave and, again, could ead to a prosecution.
She should be out tomorrow, so I'm expecting to find the flat in a sh*t state. The only good thing is that she claims to have moved from Pembrokeshire to Portsmouth and won't give her forwarding address, but some of her neighbours are so disgusted by her behaviour that we've been given a new address for her a few miles away.
Add that to the rumour that she's stolen the fridge and caused a lot of damage while removing it, and I can see us making a statement to the police for theft and criminal damage. We might not get the rent she owes, but if we can get her prosecuted then at least that's something.
Having said all that, we've got 3 properties we rent out and she's the first problem tenant we've had. The only problem is that any profit we've made on that flat in the last couple of years has been wiped out in six months.
When you get a good tenant the returns can way exceed what you get from the bank, but when you get a bad one then the stress and hassle really make you want to chuck in the towel.