A few of you will know that I have a number of properties that I rent out, one is a student let in Liverpool and I have a couple of one bed houses in Winsford which is about 5 miles form where I live. Now you would think that the student property would be the most troublesome, but you couldn't be more wrong. The two houses in Winsford are about 16 months and i've owned them from new, they are really different as in the building was an old warehouse which has been converted and the bedroom and bathroom are downstairs and have original parquet flooring and the kitchen and sitting room are upstairs and have vaulted ceilings with exposed beams and large Velux windows. The first house I had a tenant for 12 month but he stopped paying rent after 9 month and it took 3 months for the courts to get him out. It turns out he has never paid any bills and when after 6 months the utilities companies threated to cut him off, he phoned them up with a false name, said he had just moved in and got another 6 months free. The other house we started off with a young lad who decided after 4 months he couldn't afford it so cleared off, luckily we had his deposit and re-let the house two days later after painting and decorating it. The next people was a young couple, but she couldn't keep her draws on, he found out and after 5 months they moved out, again deposit retained and more painting and decorating. The next person along was a single bloke, he paid the rent for 3 months, then stopped paying and dissapeared after 2 month a three weeks just as the court was giving us the OK to kick him out. He had removed the mains smoke detectors because he was a smoker (even though it says in the contract, no smoking) and the place was a mess. So more painting and decorating and on the 26th October we moved a nice young lady in who's copper Dad and Comet Manager Mum were going to be guarantors, got a call this morning of said young lady, she has stopped her cheque and moved out due to a change in circumstances. What really poxes me off is, by law, I have to put the deposit with an approved 3rd party to be looked after which then takes me months to get back evertime a tenant disappears, if the tenant want to leave they can give me 1 month notice, if I want them to leave I have to give then 2 months notice and then if they don't leave I have to go to court which is about another month. There's no point in me going to the small claims court to try to recover my losses because the tenants usually disappear and even if I do find them the courts let them pay back the money at about a £5 a month so whats the point and to top it off my houses arn't worth as much as I paid for them which isn't too much of a problem because I did this as a pension.
Sorry about the long moan but if I didn't get it off my chest I would burst
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Topic: Expensive mistake (Read 1523 times)