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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Housing Minister calls for Quicker Eviction Process

The Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, has recently revealed that he plans to speed up the eviction process of troublesome tenants. Social landlords can at times encounter nuisance tenants that repeatedly behave in an anti-social manner. Evicting such tenants can become a long, tiresome, and costly procedure through the court system, and it often takes month to get results. Under new proposals by the Housing Minister, this process will be significantly improved and authorities will be able to take into account any previous convictions for anti social behaviour, and therefore evict repeat offenders more quickly.

Graham Kinnear, Managing Director at Landlord Assist, has said: “At Landlord Assist we have seen a significant increase in the number of landlords complaining about the anti-social behaviour of their tenants, and disillusioned about the costs and length of the process involved in terms of getting the tenants removed.”

He went on to add: “We’ve always thought it to be wrong that under the current system landlords have to wait a substantial amount of time to remove offending tenants whilst they themselves are able to remain in the property. Whilst evicting tenants should always be the last resort for landlords we fully support any measures that help to speed up the process in cases of repeated anti-social behaviour.”

The changes are due to be introduced in a Home Office Bill at some point over the next 12 months.

Whilst anti-social behaviour is of course a nuisance, many landlords are also faced with theft and malicious damages to their property. If you have a tenant that behaves in such a way then it is absolutely vital to make sure you are covered by landlord insurance, as you may be at greater risk due to the unfortunate nature of your tenant, or as the case may be, tenants.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Law is such an ASS that the tenant doesn't even need to be there to prevent me taking possession of my own property.

My tenant it transpires is something of a 'loner' (no known relatives, associates and no known employment) and has transpired has some mental illness problems and is an alcoholic.

He originally came from London after the sale of his property and wanted a 6 month tenancy whilst he sourced a new home in the area, paid 6 months in advance and all arranged by his solicitor through my lettings agent. The solicitor knows nothing of him since the property sale concluded in February.

I know but have no proof he has been in prison in the last 6 months and various police forces want to re-arrest him on sight.

But due to data protection, details are restricted.

He has not been seen at my property for +2 months and there is very little in the way of clothes but he has left loads of loose letters/docs, soiled bedding and bed, mouldy food in pans and crockery, heavily soiled armchair and a great deal of mess including damage to my property. Only items of any value are his TV and skybox. I cannot believe that his total possessions have any value and only a cost in moving them, storing them and then disposing of.

I believe he is in either Bulgaria or Romania (no details) to avoid being re-arrested. His crimes are serious but not sufficient for the police to extradite.

So I have no contact or means to 'give reasonable notice' to.

It seems so totally unreasonable that I have such an onus upon me, with all the risks of the weight of the law coming down on me, when he clearly has no reciprocal responsibility and can cause so much cost and grief to myself.

I have this week submitted N5B following on from my original S21 notice to the courts and now await that lengthy process to get formal re-possession of my own empty flat, probably months plus the cleaning up, clearing out and storage of his possessions, which you I understand is min 3 months.

There is his deposit (1.5 x months rental) but this no doubt will be a struggle to get without him around to co-operate, plus will in no way meet my overall costs and losses which I expect to be around min £4k. Of course I cannot afford this because I still have my own ongoing costs and commitments.

What other business has to contend with such a ridiculous bias to one party?

Paul Barrett said...

Unless you can come up with the resources to pay any mortgage you WILL have your property put into receivership or repossessed.
I am going through a similar situation and so far the bitch of a non-rent paying tenant owes me £6650.00 in rent arrears and court costs.
It has taken since 1.3.11 which was her 1st missed rent payment to an eviction date of 8.9.11; and I have followed all the correct processes.
I have had to go with the proverbial begging bowl to my parents to retain ownership of my flat.
The mortgage companies are not the slightest bit interested in our predicament.
Don't pay mortgage and lose property.
You can't even obtain Rent Guarantee Insurance on most tenants as even though these policies are great value for money; they have such a ridiculous and onerous requirement for tenants to earn gross 2.5 times the annual rent that very few landlords would be able to take advantage of such policies.
My tenant would have to earn gross £28500.00 for the monthly rent of £950.00!!?
My normal tenants dont have any issues paying rent though.
Even if these RGI companies used 2 times annual rent in my case that would leave the tenant with net income of about £750.00pcm.
I dream of having that amount of net income left once my mortgage is paid.
Consequently landlords need to put aside or have available about £10000.00 per tenancy just in case the tenant stops paying as it will take 7-9 months to evict them.
Most tenants know that they may live rent free for that period and that they can steal and sell items within the flat and they will not be arrested as the police consider such thefts; criminal damage etc to be CIVIL OFFENCES!!!??
A fast track eviction process should apply to ALL landlords not just the social landlords whose pockets tend to be little bit deeper than your average private landlord.