Help a poor landlord will ya?

November 4, 2007 6:03 PM

The tenants that I had in my house in London trashed the place and ran out on me leaving me seriously out of pocket. I'm in New York and poor. Anyone had any experience of chasing these things through the courts from another country?

I moved to NYC to marry my US-ian wife, leaving my place in London in the hands of a letting agent who rented it out. I'm not the big scary profiteering landlord. The money I take in rent doesn't even cover the monthly mortgage payments let alone the letting agents fees and in the US I'm at college so money is pretty tight. Any requests for fixing up or replacing stuff I've ever had from the tenants, I've dealt with quickly and without argument. Now I'm out a months rent and the security deposit (another months rent) with the house needing pretty major patching up due, in part, to their kids scribbling on everything (walls, carpets, furniture) and then, seemingly, to the families total lack of respect for other peoples stuff. The time it's going to take to get the work done means that I'm going to be out another month or two's rent. They seem to think it's OK for me to pay all of this (c. $4k in rent and deposit + another $4K in lost rent due to the damage they caused) so that they can buy their family house. I want/need my money back but there's the added complication that I now live in New York.

The letting agent is worse than useless and the contract I have with them doesn't seem to assign the agents any responsibility in this situation. I was insured but apparently that only covers non-payment of rent while renters continue to live in the house. Now I have vacant possesion I'm SOL. I have a forwarding address for the tenants but it's not where they live, just a mail drop for them.

So Mefites, anyone had any experience in trying to do this stuff remotely that they can share with me?

Is it so complicated and expensive that I should suck this up despite it feeling very wrong?

Is there a way to do this and succeed?

posted by merocet to law & government (22 comments total)

Look, you hired the property management firm to take care of this kind of thing for you. The contract should cover damages--their contract with the tenants. Hold their feet to the fire on this, they don't get to shrug their shoulders and say "oh, well.." to you, the client, when they let these people get access to your house. Hold them (the property management firm) responsible! That is why you hired them, to save you the hassle of being a long distance landlord. They need to go after and collect from the deadbeat tenants, or they need to reimburse you. They don't get to collect fees and commissions and then stick you with the problem. You should not have to pursue these tenants yourself. Presumably the PM firm had a contract with them and screened them so they should have the contact information to chase them down for the money. Don't let them pass the buck to you, you tell them to get you the money or reimburse you directly, you don't care which one it is.
posted by 45moore45 at 6:12 PM on November 4, 2007 [7 favorites has favorites]

Why was the security deposit refunded? Covering damages like the ones they caused is exactly the point of a security deposit.
posted by necessitas at 6:22 PM on November 4, 2007

I have little advice, except that way back in the day when I was a wee toddler, my mom used toothpaste (regular kind -- not gel) + toothbrush to get crayon off the wall. Apparently, Mr Clean Magic Eraser also works. It might save you some small amount of headache, and some amount of money.

If the agent won't help, hire cleaners and make the letter send you pictures after it's done. Then find a way out of that contract.

I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. Good luck.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 6:49 PM on November 4, 2007

For $8,000 (£4,000?) it would be well worth hiring a solicitor for this. Seems like it would be a pretty simple case on the small claims track from your description. You could probably do it if you were in the country but there are too many things that would be easy to mess up doing it remotely.

The alternative is that you can wait until you come back. The statute of limitations for most civil stuff is six years in England and Wales.
posted by grouse at 6:52 PM on November 4, 2007

Did the letting agents refund the security deposit? If so, you should be able to get it back off them but research carefully on how. In Ireland, you cannot do the work yourself except under very annoying circumstances.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:27 PM on November 4, 2007

DarlingBri: The letting agents didn't refund the security deposit, that's a bit of a red herring. If you discard the security deposit idea then the tenants just didn't pay the last two months rent instead of the last month, and I have the security deposit. It's all equal since securiy deposit=a months rent.

45moore45: The contract with the letting agents is just for them to find tenants and look after the management of the ongoing let when the tenants are in it. There is a seperate rental contract between me and the tenants. This is why the agents are not responsible for the money owed. It sucks but that's the way it is.

Thanks Grouse, I'll look into the solicitor thing and see what I can do.

Any more experiences/advice gratefully received.
posted by merocet at 9:40 PM on November 4, 2007

possibly barking up a wrong tree, but just occurred to me: could you possibly offer a rent break for a limited period to a new tenant willing to do fix- up? maybe a month free or something? could lead you to a tenant with some degree of pride in the place.
posted by patricking at 10:46 PM on November 4, 2007

IANAL. First you need evidence of the damage and size of your loss etc. Do you have an inventory at check-in/check-out, or anything else? Then, sitting in NY, you can file a small claim online. There is a fee but that will be much cheaper than involving a solicitor. But you'll probably need an addreess for your ex-tenants.
posted by londongeezer at 10:47 PM on November 4, 2007

Moneysaving expert have excellent and hugely popular uk related forums ~ and a lot of ppl who could helpl you with this.
posted by browolf at 12:04 AM on November 5, 2007

Lawyer up.
posted by tehloki at 12:42 AM on November 5, 2007

The small claims court is a possibility for claims <>
Look at the clause in the contract which specifies the penalty if they move out early. It is probably about 1 month's rent. If they paid a month's rent in advance when they moved out, they probably don't owe you much more.

Now add up the _realistic_ cost of your renovations. Don't exaggerate, for example by stating the cost of a brand new carpet just because there is a crayon mark in the corner of a 10 year old carpet. Subtract something for 'reasonable wear and tear', and then subtract the security deposit you have already retained.

Now search through the contract for any clause that states that the landlord can hold the tenant responsible for lost rent due to damage. I doubt you will find one. This probably means you will just have to eat the 2000 pounds lost rent.

I suspect that adding up the above figures will give you a value substantially less than 4000 pounds. You'll need to decide whether it's worth suing for this.

While you consider the above, don't forget that it is in your interests to get the place fixed up and back on the rental market as soon as possible. A few months' rent will easily cover the costs of the damage.
posted by beniamino at 1:06 AM on November 5, 2007

should be "claims less than 5000 pounds"
posted by beniamino at 1:06 AM on November 5, 2007

There's no small claims court in England, only a small claims track of the county court. If you do everything right, you'll end up on the small claims track and even if you lose, the defendants will have to pay their own legal fees. But if you mess up on procedure, or the judge decides you have acted unreasonably, then things can get expensive.

I wouldn't want to scare you away from taking a small claim to court yourself—after all that's part of what it is designed for. But if things went to a hearing you'd be at a big disadvantage without someone representing you in person.

You might want to tell your solicitor you want to do this as inexpensively as possible and that you're willing to do whatever part of the work you can to reduce costs.

Just because there is no term in the contract saying that they owe you for damages doesn't mean that they don't. An important factor may be how much you do to mitigate the damage, that is cleaning up the place and putting it back on the market as soon as possible.
posted by grouse at 1:53 AM on November 5, 2007

Seems to me the management company failed to maintain the on-going let. I saw plenty of places that required routine inspections during tenancy when I lived there. Such an inspection would have revealed the damage before they moved out. Just a thought.
posted by Goofyy at 2:15 AM on November 5, 2007

+1 to assigning blame to the management company. My parents recently had a very similar issue with a flat that they own, They insisted that the management company were responsible, even as the company claimed that they were not. Eventually the management company paid for most of the repairs/redecoration and some of the consequential rental loss. You need to be persistent with them.
posted by Jakey at 3:35 AM on November 5, 2007

the tenants just didn't pay the last two months rent instead of the last month, and I have the security deposit.

OK but you also said you have insurance that will cover their non-payment of rent, right? So can you not use the security deposit to have repairs done and basically break even?

If you have a friend or relative locally who can look after this for you, it would save travel expenses for you, too...
posted by DarlingBri at 5:43 AM on November 5, 2007

I would think the first order of business would be to pursue the two months rent they didn't pay. In the US, you're not allowed to skip the last month's rent even if the landlord is holding a month's rent as security.
posted by electroboy at 7:18 AM on November 5, 2007

I'd go after it all at once, frankly. If you're hoping to get a settlement then you want to start by asking for everything. If you want to sue then you'll already do most of the work just to bring the contract claim; you might as well throw in the damages.
posted by grouse at 7:25 AM on November 5, 2007

I was half-listening to today's Money Box Live on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon, which was on Renting and Letting and I think it covered some of your issues in some detail, particularly some dos and don'ts concerning pursuing non-payment and (very briefly) some issues to be aware of if you're letting a property from abroad.

There's a link to listen to the programme on the link above or they'll put up a transcript in a couple of days' time if you'd prefer.

You'll need to check but they mentioned that the deposit issue depends a great deal on whether the tenancy started before or after April this year, as the legislation changed dramatically.

Best of luck.
posted by dogsbody at 8:46 AM on November 5, 2007

There's also some useful links here
posted by dogsbody at 8:48 AM on November 5, 2007

IAAL, IANYL, TINLA.

Get a lawyer ... If the family are going to buy a new house you can certainly make theirl lives very difficult (how do you spell "pay me back my debt or I foreclose on your new house").

Tell the letting agent to organise with the lawyer and split the bill with you or else you will 1. pull their contract and give it to their competitors, 2. but up a big ass website telling the world how shitty they are and 3. sick your lawyer on them as well for non-contractual negligence.

Good Luck.

J

P.S. sack the letting agent afterwards anyways for being slack bastards.
posted by jannw at 9:28 AM on November 5, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

IAAL and I used to do debt collection work (for a funeral company, of all things). IA, of course, NYL.

Before you do anything else, you need to establish that you can track and trace these people because if you can't, you'll be spending money fruitlessly trying to get papers served on them.

So the first thing to do is find their new residential address and full details where they work. If one or more of the tenants is in stable employment and you're able to get judgment against them, you can, if they don't pay up, ask the court to make an order deducting money from their salary to pay you.

If they're renting from someone else and could skip out again, and/or doing casual or short-term contract work, the chances are you'll find it hard to pin them down.

Oh, and for those of you in the US, the letting agents' behaviour is standard here - all they have to do is find a tenant usually. Yes, it stinks, but that's how it works here. They're letting agents, not managing agents. Managing agents charge a fortune to manage properties, and for a one-off rental, it wouldn't be cost-effective to employ them.
posted by essexjan at 10:38 AM on November 5, 2007