Help for landlords with problem tenants

An introductory article written by Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action, explaining how he got in to the business of helping landlords with bad tenants. This is Paul’s first article in an eBook series. A list of future articles coming soon is featurd below.

Since the age of 16, I have been working within landlord and tenant law in some form or another. Initially as a Legal Clerk, I then became involved with Process Serving as a Certified Bailiff and Private Investigation.

The key moment was in 1999, when my soon-to-be business partner asked me to help with a problem tenant case. At the time, his 3 bedroom property in North London was occupied by illegal immigrants. His lawyers were asking for £2,000 on account and couldn’t give any indication of how long it would take or how much it would cost to remove his problem tenants.

Amazed by the work that I had done for him in removing these tenants we set up Landlord Action together in 1999. The organisation was founded on the principle of providing a fixed-fee service to landlords and letting agents who have problem tenants, in direct response to solicitors who charged too much and took too long. Since then, we have been involved in over 18,000 problem tenant instructions nationwide for landlords and lettings agents.

Our focus is purely to help landlords. We set up a free telephone advice line service for landlords and agents who are experiencing issues with tenants. Since 1999 we have become the landlords Samaritans, dealing with their problems and their bad tenants.

We are now considered the authority when it comes to tenant eviction and rent recovery services. We are often featured in national and trade press, commenting on landlord issues, and we have featured in over 10 TV programmes, namely Tenants From Hell, Inside Out and BBC Breakfast Television to name a few. However, one of our humbling achievements has been winning the award for Legal Services at the Landlord & Buy-To-Let awards for two consecutive years.

I have also given over 400 talks and seminars over the years to landlords and property professionals around the UK. My main talk, How To Avoid A Bad Tenant, has been very popular over the last few years. To see where I am speaking next, you can have a look on our seminars page here. And, on the 21^st April, I have organised a no-nonsense seminar on Buy-to-Let: How to win in uncertain times, where respected commentators Kate Faulkner and Sarah Walker will also be speaking.

Because helping landlords is what we do, when Mark Alexander asked us to contribute to this blog, we were more than happy. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing a series of blogs where the focus will be dealing with common problems that many landlords face.

I am always available to answer any specific questions landlords or agents may have. However, if you have an immediate tenant problem, speak to our team on the advice line: 0333 240 9771.

Paul’s articles will cover the following subjects over the coming weeks:

1. You are here | Help for landlords with problem tenants – How we help landlords
2. | The most underrated advice in buy to let – Some tips on avoiding tenancy failures
3. | Beware of serial bad tenants – A case study of a professional bad tenant
4. Coming soon | Dealing with Letting Agents – Letting agent vs. Self management & what to look for in an agent
5. Coming soon | Pre tenancy check list – The essentials before you let
6. Coming soon | The 3 dangerous types of tenant Part 1 – Professional bad tenant
7. Coming soon | The 3 dangerous types of tenant Part 2 – Illegal subletting
8. Coming soon | The 3 dangerous types of tenant Part 3 – Squatters
9. Coming soon | Avoiding bad tenants – Easy, free things that all landlords should be doing to avoid problems
10. Coming soon | Beware of Property Investment Sharks – The essentials investors should do to avoid being scammed

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