How should we handle tenants’ belongings and mould after eviction?

Speak to your solicitor about the legality of moving possessions. As far as I know you have to look after them for a short time and protect them and give them to the tenant upon their request. DO NOT let them back in the house to move things.
I suggest pulling the positions up in the middle of the rooms. Cover in plastic. Open all the windows and bleach the walls to kill the mould. Neat bleach on a flat mop does a great job.

You are entitled to move their possessions to storage provided care is taken. If you do it yourself, get someone to video it.

Reply to the comment left by Julian Lloyd at 02/12/2024 - 10:26
Regrettably, bleach does not kill the mould, only acid will kill it. I use HG Mould Spray, which is extremely effective - available in most large supermarkets.

yes there's Tort laws if I recall but I you didn't mention how much stuff there is.

But DO NOT let them back into YOUR home, no reasonable reason or expectation to do that.

Do Not simply dispose or you will be liable. No Win No Fee sols will be queuing up. Take pictures of items.

If there's not too much stuff then pack it into 1 room and tell them you will charge them storage. Set out costs, make it reasonable, be friendly, super lovely in your comms (grit your teeth).

Eviction is not an unexpected surprise event so they did have long enough but its a moot point if you are a LL. You do have a duty to hold onto belongings. I believe the threshold is once storage costs exceed value.

It sounds to me like they are being a bit spiteful and maybe will never come back or just want it all their own way. Don't forget removal people costs to move into storage.
It could come out of deposit but as we all know deposits don't cover.

You won't get your costs back either by the sounds of it but I think your charging to store, say no more than that, at a daily/weekly chargeable rate is acceptable and you can decorate other rooms around.

I do feel your pain, our tenant dumped her crap outside and inside. Had to hold onto her garbage as it was 'valuable' (old curtains) and the council removed the crap outside due to infestation and fire risks, and I got charged for it.

In future set your daily storage costs in the rental agreement.

Good luck, at least you got the property back, it took us 4.5 years to break even from our appalling DSS tenant but this month we finally paid back those costs.

Reply to the comment left by TheMaluka at 02/12/2024 - 11:25
The HG stuff is very good.
I’ve found that when tenants leave a place in this state the excess mould is due to the poor way they have used the house and when they go it does not come back. So bleach is a good way to clear that type.
HG is great for bathroom and tiles. I use it in my house.
I must be a terrible parent and a terrible landlord!!!

Reminds me of the people I evicted from a house on a s21 which for no good reason took 15 months. They were actually thousands in arrears and had really messed up the house. After the bailiffs threw them out, they claimed they would be back to collect their FULL 3 floor house of stuff. I told them it wasn't fair because I needed my team in to refurbish the house and gave them until the end of the week to arrange collection, which they agreed to on email. When I looked, most of the stuff was actually absolute zero value tat. Well the end of the week came and they never showed. I felt that they never even intended to collect it, they were just trying to make my life hard.
What they didn't realise was that I had found where they had moved to. I filled a very large van and dumped all of the mess outside the entrance of their new flats with "Property of XXXXXX" labels on pretty much everything. They wouldn't answer the door bell at the flats but within minutes they went mad over email and huffed and puffed and threatened this that and the other, so they must have seen me. Predictably, they did nothing because what could they really do? It made me feel so much better and actually put a smile back on my face after the 15 months of hell! I would take that approach again in a heartbeat.

These are professional scam artists, based on what you have described. They have already played you. Now, they are claiming that if you do your own professional due diligence and make an inventory using photographs, they will somehow find a way to sue you, as if photographing objects, which you are legally required to look after, that are in your possession, is somehow some kind of harmful thing to them that costs them money. Clearly, they are trying to play you, and they are succeeding. So, my advice, from one person to another, is you need to very quickly photograph absolutely everything in that property, and video everything throughout that property. Then, get everything moved into a local rented storage locker, and tell them where they can find it, and that after a certain amount of time, it will all be destroyed. Perhaps give them a month, or something like that. And if they feel like they can sue you, after absolutely nothing has been damaged, and nothing is missing, then they obviously are just bluffing. No court in the world would consider that you moving their property to a safe location has caused them any kind of loss. And also, my guess is that because you have used a Section 8, you could certainly counter-sue for money as well. So, in reality, no court will ever award a judgment to them, since there is no loss and no harm.

People can't just randomly say "you are not allowed to do your professional duty and job, because I'll sue you for doing so", where no loss will be incurred. They are playing you, and you are letting this happen. You need to stand up for yourself, and do your job properly. Don't worry about them suing you for any money, because they won't be able to. No court will side with them, and no solicitor will take on the case, and they don't have the money to pursue it anyway.

No loss caused means no compensation. They want to get back in and we all know it. NEVER EVER LET THEM BACK IN NOT EVEN FOR A MINUTE! THEY WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE HECK AGAIN! I don't care what a solicitor says. Mine just gave me a property and didn't realise it's illegal to live in and has no council tax band. That could cost me tens of thousands. They are human and they make mistakes. They never ever go back into that property unless bailiffs tell you they can. No. Everything gets documented and stored. They get proper notice and later it all gets destroyed if they don't collect it

DO NOT STORE IT FOR AN INORDINATE AMOUNT OF TIME. IF THEY DON'T COLLECT IT WITHIN A MONTH, THEY AREN'T SERIOUS ABOUT COLLECTING IT AND THEY ARE STILL PLAYING YOU. Don't let professional scammers play you. Ignore their empty threats which aren't based in any kind of law and proceed to do your job professionally

I think you could be just as crafty, ask them to nominate a removal company to recover their belongings and never let the tenants in. Also give them a therm in which they can do that.

Reply to the comment left by COSMIN ANTON at 03/12/2024 - 12:27
I think they would do you for harassment if you went that way. So much as look at them wrong...

You are stuck with it being your problem short term I'm afraid. You can't just dispose.
Clearly and openly set reasonable cost per day storage and once eclipsed then dispose. Give them 20 days to pay etc.

Even though others have said this, I am going to repeat it as it is so important. Do not let them back in, not even to collect their stuff. It can be handed to them across the threshold if there is no other way.
This won't work for everyone, but I found out where my tenant had moved to and I paid a 'man with a van' to load it all up and take it to their new address. The 'man with a van' charged me a pretty penny as he understood that he would be faced with outrage at the other end, but it was a whole lot cheaper than moving it into storage for ever and ever.
There are plenty of people with vans wanting to earn money that they don't care about hostile ex-tenants at the other end.