I'm still quite young and experienced, so please advise me if this is just the way things are, or if perhaps something can be done regarding tenant and landlord law. Now, I know posession procedures are just part and parcel of the BTL world, but surely something can be done here?
I am trying to gain my property back through the courts at the moment, and I am amazed at how many rights this tenant (who has been totally in the wrong) has. My tenant, who obviously passed all my credit checks, all my reference checks etc, has now gone 5 months with no payment. In my eyes, if there is no payment, she should be out, and the owner of the property should be able to gain access and re-let. But no, the tenant, who breaks the so-called contract of law, gets another two months while the landlord deals with the complications of what forms to fill in and the critical timings of them.
But at the end of this, as many of us know, the tenant just sits tight, and it takes another 4 weeks or so to go to court. The tenant doesn't even turn up. Brilliant, the landlord gets awarded posession in 14 days and all costs bla bla bla.
I say bla bla bla cos it seems to mean nothing. Again, at the end of this notice, the tenant still sits tight and tells me her rights!! Someone who has not paid for 4 months is telling her landlord to get lost because the baillifs have to remove her!! So, another call. Another 2 week wait for a date, which in turn is 10 days later still. Unbelievable?? Not only that, the solicitor then tells me of the success rate of actually getting back what is owed to me?? I can't believe what I'm hearing.
So, the landlord pays for the mortgage, the legal fees, deals with the stress etc while the tenant lives rent free, happy as can be, in a luxury flat knowing full well she is entitled to because the Citizens Advice Bureau has told her so and the local council wont give her a roof over her head until she is technically homeless. What would the CAB advise me if I, a fellow citizen I think, went and asked for advice??
So, please shoot me down if I am being young and naiive?? Or not taking the rough with the smooth?? But please, someone out there tell me there is a big bunch of landlords somewhere challenging the system to be fairer and give the landlord some more rights with regards to their own hard earnt property and business?????
There seems to be this consensus that the owner is rich, and can deal with it. The tenant may be bang out of order and breaking the law, but she will be left homeless, so lets give her more rights and encourage her to perhaps to it again and again. Yet again, I am baffled how it is the dishonest in this world who seem to go without punishment!?!? I was thinking earlier: technically, the taxes I pay go towards someone requiring accommodation for whatever reason. A person like my tenant perhaps?? So that makes me paying for her accommodation, twice.
If there isn't a super-landlords group challenging the law, can we please form one?!
