Please Help – 1 AST but some tenants have not been paying?

15:53 PM, 8th June 2022, About 3 years ago 14

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We have been landlords for almost 15 years – specialising in students. There is always one AST for 12 months (we have no HMO licence and do not need one right now). We have never encountered any problems. We are good landlords, all paperwork is always in order and all repairs are done immediately (within 24-48 hours), so often our students come back after they did their working practice for a year.

Last summer – due to Covid – students’ demand was very low, and we decided to rent the house out to a group of young professionals, on the same 1 AST basis. Two of them working, two of them not, so these two had guarantors. Their AST expires on 31 July.

Since November there have been some problems with rent payments, but generally, after much chasing, the payments have been received. Since March the situation has changed and despite chasing every day and offering them to design their own payment plan – the money has almost stopped coming. We involved guarantors – one is reluctantly paying the longest debt; the other – after initial contact – got completely quiet and does not reply to any correspondence. We chase regularly, both the tenants and the guarantors. The Leading Tenant function is practically not working, all of them pay individually indeed via the leading tenant, but in “how they want and what they want” manner. We reluctantly accept that because otherwise, we would not have received any payment.

The situation with payment is now as follows: 1 tenant up to date, 1 with 2 months debt, 1 with 3 months debt, and one with 4 months debt (that one has the guarantor who does not contact us). At the moment there is zero contact with them, they simply do not bother to reply. We really do not know what to do – we have never encountered such a situation.

Their AST expires soon (less than 2 months), they are moving out and we are worried that we will be left with quite a large sum of outstanding debts, unable to recover that from the deposit. The rent and the deposit are roughly 25% below market rate – due to lack of interest last year. We are not able to write that off – so what sort of legal remedy do we have? How could we make sure that the non-payers get CCJ? We of course will not provide references, but what else can we legally do?

Any advice would be highly appreciated. Thank you very much in advance
Whiteskifreak

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Comments

Simon F

13:23 PM, 9th June 2022, About 3 years ago

You say the individuals as being behind to varying degrees, but also seem to indicate that all payments come through the one lead tenant. Sounds like you might only have the lead tenant's word for who has paid what within the group. That will limit your options.

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Simon F

13:44 PM, 9th June 2022, About 3 years ago

With the formal letter, especially in the case of a joint let, I include a "statement of account" showing the full transaction history (debit, credit and balance columns like a bank statement) clearly showing from whom each payment towards rent has been received. Then in the letter, suggest the appropriate split for contributions to bring the account up to date.

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SimonR

15:52 PM, 9th June 2022, About 3 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Grumpy Doug at 09/06/2022 - 09:46i wouldn't use the recorded delivery postal service as this generally is not considered the best way of sending notices and I would say for any correspondence to tenants re rent arrears or contract breaches as well. Write letter to all the tenants individually and get proof of postage for all the letters and if you are fairly local hand deliver them as well but get photo evidence of you doing that. If the tenants say they didn't receive the letters you will then have the proof of postage and the photo evidence of them being delivered.

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Kate Mellor

19:43 PM, 12th June 2022, About 3 years ago

I wouldn’t wait for the tenancy to end. Make sure you start the money claim while you still know where they all are! Which tenant owes what isn’t really your concern, it’s the problem of the group as a whole. Make the claim against each and every one of them including guarantors and leave the split to them to argue about. Don’t wait any longer.

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