Vile tenants ganging up on me, please HELP!

Vile tenants ganging up on me, please HELP!

11:39 AM, 18th May 2015, About 10 years ago 46

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Long story cut short … the last tenant (A) to move out of one of our small portfolio of 5 houses failed to pay her rent for the last month, left some minor damage etc etc and so this weekend we claimed the full amount of her deposit back from the DPS. Vile tenants ganging up on me, please HELP

Her response was to send me a batch of obscene texts and Messenger messages and then, worse to post a vile message across local social media – naming me as a thieving landlord who doesn’t arrange repairs, leaves the property unsafe etc etc – and describing our property (which she lauded on the same social media sites when she moved in as being ‘lush’) as a dangerous s**t hole.

She (tenant A) is blaming all kinds of supposed damage to her property, accidents she apparently sustained and her daughter’s ill health on the house – well, you get the picture of the weekend we (well me really, as this was all aimed at me personally) have endured.

By yesterday evening she (tenant A) had made contact through Facebook with the last tenant (tenant B) before her – who left the house in a disgusting condition btw and also forfeited the majority of her deposit, and believes she (tenant A) has ‘confirmed’ with her (tenant B) that the repairs that she (tenant A) is now claiming weren’t done were left over from then – which is an easily demonstrable lie as we have receipts and communications from both of them detailing what issues had ever been reported to us, and when each was dealt with.

I suppose apart from the vile personal attack the main thrust of tenant A’s argument is that a ‘roof leak’ was not dealt with. There WAS a leak through the roof that damaged the upstairs landing ceiling in the house in 2013, so a year before tenant A moved in. That leak was eventually located and traced to the neighbour’s chimney and fixed. The neighbour in question paid for 50% of the repair.

Tenant A caused a leak in the bathroom which damaged the kitchen ceiling (which has now been repaired and we didn’t charge her for that) and they are both now screaming all over social media that the 2 unrelated leaks are the same and were not dealt with.

She (tenant A) also seemingly now believes that the first month rent she paid us (in advance) entitled her to assume that would not need to pay for the last month she was living in the house – enabling her to allege (on social media, so the world and his wife have suddenly become legal experts advising her how best to ‘bring me down’) that I have stolen her first month’s rent money that she paid ‘up front’ (and which she is now saying I told her would be lodged with the DPS with her deposit – obviously untrue.)

Our Tenancy Agreement clearly states that rent is due each month in advance. She (tenant A) was given a receipt for the initial cash payment she made (deposit + first month’s rent) and her other rent payments have gone straight into our bank.

To make matters even worse (if that is possible) our next prospective tenants (tenant C) who were due to move in early in June, have seen all the nastiness emblazoned across Facebook and have decided they don’t now want to live in our house for fear of this last nasty piece of work (tenant A) taking repercussions against us by damaging the property – and so they have withdrawn and they have requested their deposit back (which I have just repaid)

My question is this: what do we do next??

All constructive feedback with me much appreciated.

Thanks

Denise


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Luke P

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15:25 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

I'm not sure which part of the country you are in, but that is standard-fare for council houses here in NE Lincs. Most are rented with the carpets removed (even if they were brand new and laid the day before the previous tenant left) -it's 'the rules'.

Yet the same council have the cheek to serve all manner of notices (misinterpreting the rules) on me for much smaller issues.

AnthonyJames

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16:10 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

If you think being a landlord makes you unpopular with certain people, try being a property developer!

In ten years of renovating and developing houses in infill sites, I have never known a middle-class neighbour approve of any changes to anything, if it's within a quarter of a mile of where they live. My architects and I could bring forward the most beautifully designed house in the history of architecture, on the site of some rancid two-bed bungalow built of concrete in the austerity years after the Second World War, and there will still be neighbours complaining about the loss of local heritage, the potential for overlooking into the end of their garden 100 metres away. and the vital need to preserve some half-dead conifer which reminds their 40-year old children of past Christmases.

Of course if you are offering to buy their house or some back garden land at a ludicrously inflated price once you've secured planning permission, it's a completely different story - with all the expense and risk of failing to secure planning being borne by the developer, of course. The landowners will take your money, all free of CGT because of principal private residence relief, but they will never once put their hands in their own pocket, for example to clear a chaos of vegetation from their land so it's in a fit condition to present to the planners.

On the topic at hand, this may seem an obvious question, but have you changed your locks? I don't want to sound paranoid but I would be doubly careful about security at the moment. When a psycho tenant is in the mood you describe, they can be capable of all sorts of things, from break-ins to arson.

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16:14 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

All locks were changed on Day 1 (as we always do tbh) and we are looking in regularly on the property too

AnthonyJames

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16:19 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Luke P" at "19/05/2015 - 15:05":

Luke, my all-time favourite "dumb tenant" story is the time one of my postgraduate students complained that the vacuum cleaner in one of my houseshares had "stopped working". I travelled down to the house to check it out and, yes, the cleaner had very low suction. This was because the dust bag had not been emptied. To be fair to the tenant, she did blush a very deep scarlet when I pointed this out. It was her mother's fault apparently, for doing all the housework at home and never showing her how things worked.

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16:27 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

My brother - who has since given up all aspirations to be a landlord - received a call while he was in Beijing from the young female teacher who was renting his house at the time to ask if he would pop round to change a light bulb for her that had blown!

Lorraine Steele

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18:45 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

There is a website where you can add bad tenants details to, prospective landlords can view this and decide whether or not to take a tenant. Might be a good idea.

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18:47 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

do you have a link Lorraine - although one would hope any new landlord would contact us seeking a reference?

Andrew Holmes

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20:03 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

If you have legal protection on your landlord house insurance it may well be worth approaching them for advice. You can also call in and speak to someone at your local police station regarding the harassment in connection with the texts on your mobile phone.

Regarding the allegations from the tenant, my experience is that they will stop as the tenant "burns" their anger out. Do not reply to anything via face book or text message, if the tenant has questions they want answering they can do it in a decent and adult manner and write to you. I use to have an ex tenant that wanted instant answers to their questions and allegations via text, i told them to put it into writing and never heard from them again, they are lazy so they will not bother.

Remember you have the evidence and it is up to the ex tenant to bring the case to you in a constructive manner, if they do not then that is their problem and not yours.

And as previously said, do not friend tenants on face book and let them into your lives, some tenants will take advantage and see this as a weakness and use it against you, it is buisness and not pleasure.

Lorraine Steele

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20:07 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

http://www.landlordreferencing.co.uk
It's a free site, apparently

Jay James

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20:08 PM, 19th May 2015, About 10 years ago

Is the property currently vacant?

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