blonde poker forum

blondeite, a good friend of mine, wishes to remain anonymous in case his employers however unlikely see this

"I work for an Estate Agents that also does lettings.

We have a tenant who has struggled to pay her rent for just over 3 months now. Don't want to give reasons or justify whether it is right or wrong that she hasn't paid, i know better than anyone that if you don't your pay rent/mortgage then you get what you deserve etc.

But there are ways of handling these situations... proper channels to go through etc.

Anyway, my company that i work for has decided to take matters into their own hands and are planning to do an 'illegal eviction' which basically involves smashing the door in, changing the locks and throwing the tenants belongings in the street.

This is a very cruel & naive way of doing things as i'm sure there will be a backlash from the tenant involving solicitors etc.

Thats not what i'm really concerned about as my company know the risk and will plead ignorance that they had anything to do with it.

Anyway, my point is do i warn the tenant? Do i stay out of it and go along with the 'I know nothing'


Help me decide please as time is running out"

grass anon

agreed with Dewi.

Get all the info of who's authorised it, and who will be taking part, and hand it to the police anonymously.

1) warn tenant
2) find another job with reputable company

Agree with all of above.

I doubt you'd be able to warn police or tenant anonymously.

Put your name to it, and expect the sack

get down the job centre pronto, proud that you selflessly did the right thing.

There are moral & legal implications here -- however I personally would warn the tenant via a sneaky letter through the door at 3.am. The tenant could then alert the police about the impending action in order to take her case through the proper channels. However she has no leg to stand on really but if she is honest but has a cash flow problem there are agencies to help, but it is very difficult to remove a non paying tenant. It could take ages (months even) so bully boy estate agents are making a move -- Give her a bit of assistance in order to call their bluff and if she is genuine give her a bit of breathing space...

Although the loser here is the owner of the property as well -- so its a toughy....

An Estate Agent employee with a conscience -- priceless

Sorry but if you don't pay you don't play, the law is very bad when it comes to evicting unwanted tennants.
If the house is on a buy to let mortgage then someone is carrying this person unfairly, it's not like eviction means living on the streets there are hostels etc. to go to.
I know this seems callous but for every action (or non action) there is an equal.............

Two wrongs don't make a right.  Question is...who is more or less wrong in the grand scheme of things?

Tenant owes money and is wrong, regardless of reasons....BUT

Landlord wants money and is willing to take illegal steps to re-gain control of property. 

There is a legal system in place.  Rob Yong is a perfect example of doing things 'right'...and the estate agent is no different.  Any other way is wrong...FULL STOP.  Yeah it'll take months and the Estate agent may well lose money during the process...but so do other people when they do things 'right'.  Karma has a way of biting you in the backside...at the very least, warn the tenant...then it won't be your backside getting bit. 

As a finance person I agree why the agents want them out, but as laxie said 2 wrongs dont make a right, if the agents were good they would have started the legal process already IMO.

 ;iagree;
We know this type of thing goes on and on the odd occasion (extreme circumstance) maybe even be justified but,
Do u really want to work for a company that has these Morals ? They should do things the correct way.
As an employee of this type of firm think how they may treat you if something goes wrong.
The law is very favourable to the tenent which is unfair but they should follow the rules.
I wouldn't go to the police but i think your justified to warn the tenant in which ever way you think is best for yourself.
But I would defo be looking for a new job.

In my view the answer after 3 months is no.

3 months is a good amount of time.
I'm involved in renting properties and hate the way the law is set up and as I said this type of action is sometimes justified.
The problem is we don't know the details or the efforts made by this company or tenant to sort things out.
This should be the first course, come to some sort of agreement regarding payment of arrears or time scale for moving out but make sure they know the consequences of ignoring the problem, not smash the door in and empty belongings.
If the tenant ignores this reasoniing then maybe its justified.

inform the police

There is a way to deal withthese things and the processes involved are there for a number of reasons, primarily to protect the tenants rights of abode, and the landlords rights as the owner.

People fail to pay rent/mortgage for a number of reasons but if it is due to circumstances beyond their control, then a degree of sympathy and assistance from local authourity will be available.

As with any agreement there is an element of risk on both sides, however the Landlord is always going to be the one who absorbs the greater degree of risk, which should have been considered when embarking on a career as a landlord.  Stocks and shares can go down as well as up, and a landlord may not have a tenant or worse may have a tenant who cannot pay, it goes with the role you gain nothing without an element of risk.

Personally I wouldnt go to the police, I would be more inclined to have a chat with the local press, would probably put you and a number of colleagues out of work if it hit he papers, but that would create an opportunity for you and your mates to set up your own agency.

I'd tip off the police anonymously, and look for another job.

It is a tough one, and a situation my one of my firends has been in.

After a couple of months my friend was missing the payments and this led to the mortgage company getting in touch and it was a close call that they nearly took his house off him, and he has a wife and kids. He had to resort to the bully boy tactics. I don't think he wanted to do it but was left no choice. That is the other side of the coin...

Two wrongs don't make a right. But if they can't pay, it is not going to help the owner. If you miss one payment you should be on the phone, and really make sure that they make the second payment.

If you warn them you are doing the right thing, if you don't you are also doing the right thing (the owner may be in financial difficulty because of this person)

I would speak to your employers directly and try to advise them that this is not the best course of action. They probably don't want to go down this road but feel they have no alternative. Offer to take on the case yourself, arrange a meeting with the tennant as a representative of the company and attempt to organise some form of amicable payment deal.

This way you can indeed "warn" the tennant about this probable eventuality and if you get the company an acceptable solution you will get a shed load of kudos. If they aren't interested then you have at least tried to do the right thing.

 ;iagree;

How can both options be right, these people are acting like thugs, if they carry out this threat then they are criminals, the same as any reputable mugger or robber.

This comes straight out of the Victorian age.  I really dont believe that any estate agent 'reputable or not' would carry out this action, as once the police got involved, and they would, the press would have a field day.  No estate agent is going to jeopordise their entire business for the sake of the 12 - 15% management fee.

They are not robbing the belongings. They are simply taking it and moving it to somewhere else. The person who is renting the property has lost all rights to be there.

You will find that after 3 months of non payment of rent that the person will stretch this out for as long as possible and it could be up to 12 months, and then wlll in general cause damage to the property, and with no comeback on the tenant.

If the tenant has a family and especially children living there, well that changes things again. It is a hard one to call.

As said earlier the owner does take the major risk and this is known before hand, but I could understande why the owner would want the tenant out.

I am not saying it is right, but I can understand it if its done.

& claim unfair dismissal

Tell Police, Local Council AND the Tennant.

And your Boss!!!!

1. Tell police
2. Find a new job
3. ????????????????
4. Profit!

So you mean to tell me that, simply because someone has lived in someone's property for a length of time, that gives them the right to continue living in that property without paying any rent?

Really?

If the landlord came round to chuck me out in those circumstances I'd consider myself lucky to have had three months living expenses gratis.

BTW, if you read the thread properly you'll see that Chiprich has only been in the cupboard less than 24 hours - sending blokes with baseball bats round to turf him out seems a bit premature.

I agree - I'm a landlord and have had people really take the mick out of me because I haven't been hard enough with them.

I wouldn't want anyone to come to any harm but I also wouldn't want them living in my property anymore. Even in difficult circumstances they could have offered to pay something as a goodwill gesture, whatever they could afford - but as far as I can see they haven't even done that - not good enough imho. Sorry if they have but I dont have all the info.

I would ask why the landlord/agent hasn't addressed this lack of payment before? This is a failing - if this had been done correctly then the action the agent is attempting shouldn't be necesarry as the law should have already taken its course.

Difficult one to call but I agree with Andrew T that the tennants are lucky to have this time rent free.

This opinion is coloured by the fact I have had to endure threats and damage to my property by a drug dealer who rented one of my properties - and passed all the credit and reference checks with flying colours. Once I legally evicted him he caused damage to my own home and made threats and he is still on the wanted list....

Tennants - hate them.

I got illegally evicted once, long time ago, wasn't fun.

Deserved it though, I say chuck their stuff on the street.
Unless it's raining that day, don't lose any kip about it.

yeah i don't understand this, why get involved for what £100-£200 a month? I can understand the landlord getting upset if he's having to pay the mortgage with no money coming in but there seems to be no upside for the letting agent by getting involved here.

Im on the harsh side of things here. Let them kick her out.

Send Bolty round with his Remote Control.

fucking wrongens, lowlife landlords, let them do it, i hope shes got a boyfriend and hes got a crash helmet and baseball bat because if that happend to my missus i'd be turing up a few days later to smash them and the office up.

edit- just seen tikays post, of course i'd prefer a remote, for this job i might even go in with 2 or 3, get a little remote holder and look proper, i'll get one of those deluxe universal turn outs as well i think.

fu**in hell i'd love you as a landlord, ex police officer who "hates tennates" i mean what chance you got!

This is like a poker hand thread where the poster just tells you that he has AQ suited and what should he do after an early position raise.
Missing out game history, blinds, stack sizes etc etc.

What is the real case here? Have the letting agency tried to reason with her and met silence and or abuse?
Is she an obvious waster?
Has she been a good long term tenant who has hit a bit of trouble?
There are an equal number of bad landlords and bad tenants around the country.

I would form an opinion on whether she "deserved" eviction and base my actions on that.

If you're not paying the rent, how can you not 'deserve eviction'?

If I hire a car and then keep it past the end of the time I've paid for, how can it be a matter of debate whether I'm allowed to keep the car or not?

I'm way too soft believe me - EX copper is the important bit - I only wear the uniform as a special treat.

yeah, but did you keep the handcuffs and the truncheon? :)

Please you two behave.....I blush ever so easily

you two?  My face is up here snat *points*

Are you Welsh?

when someone mentioned something about tank leaning to the right i assumed you'd been hoisting gear from your job and the wieght of the aformentioned missapropriated loot concealed within your coat  was giving you a bit of a limp but after reading your post on this thread i realise they were talikng about something else.

Funny you mention hoisting gear. That's kinda why I was evicted.

My flatmate lost his job (stealing shit) and started to just pretend to go to work every day. He wasn't passing the rent onto the landlord.
Proper pathological liar he was, quite scary.

pathological liars are prospective literary geniuses lacking direction and it's very rare in life for someone to be genuinely interesting without evoking a certain amount of fear in others, your pal is a hero

Hope you 'Tanked' him good and proper.

Two truncheons, 1 set of handcuffs (standard issue) and 1 key.......which is attached to my whistle which I've lost....... ;D

Hi All,

I was the 'blondeite with a dilemna'

Thanks for all your views etc. The problems i had with this were the agency didnt do its job properly in trying to recover the arrears and serving the correct notice until it was too late.The lady that deals with this kind of stuff was more interested in a quiet life than doing her job properly. Then we got a new owner whose attitude was if they dont pay they dont stay, which is fine but there are ways of doing this and it was a kneejerk reaction made mainly because of the previous failings of the agency.

The plan was to force entry to the flat and remove the tenants belongins and leave them in the street for her when she returns home. Because of the shifts she works this could well have been at 11pm at night and i dont think (regardless of rent arrears) that this would have been an acceptable thing to happen.

As it happens, i went round to the flat the day after this post to warn her what could happen but she had already left and had taken her belongings with her.

i am no longer there so am free to say thank you all for your views and to Richard for posting it for me.

Vince

So I guess the landlord won't get the money that he's owed?

Hope it didn't get awkward for you Celtic, and I think you did the right thing (with regards to going to warn them)

Nope. However if we went through the proper channels and got her evicted then we would have got judgement on the arrears and she would have had to pay them back. Admittedly it would probably have been £50-£100 per month but would have been better than nothing. Illegally evicting a tenant never gets the arrears back.

Wasn't saying the illegal eviction would have helped.  Just that the woman technically 'stole' from the landlord.

My mum works as a Revenue Officer for a housing association (she helps people find ways to pay, but if they don't she get's rid of them) - she was distinctly unimpressed when I relayed how you're ex-employers were acting.

Not particularly from a moral point of view, mainly from the business point of view, "what's the point when they could do it properly, get rid of the tenant and get the arrears?" She was genuinely perplexed as to why they could be such idiots about it.

It sounds like a good company to be out of ;D, good luck on finding replacement employment  :)up

Absolutely Kin, and that is totally wrong. But she was allowed to get away with it.

Cheers Jon

It was a kneejerk reation by the new owner of the business to placate the owner of the property as she was unaware that the tenant was 4 months in arrears because the agency hadnt told her.... The owner of the property had nothing to do or knew about the planned illegal eviction, and the owner of the business didnt realise that she wouldnt be able to recover the arrears by doing this, who was really winning here???

N1, i'm well pleased for her, gl to her, i hope it was for a nice few quid as well.

Why?

12

coelacanth

Fair play to ya, i'd have "popped" round and seen if i could help her "sort" her debts out too :D

I'm going to need to rent a place soon and I've been told that because I'm an internet poker layabout it's might be difficult finding a nice place. Can any landlords, letting agents or poker players who rent give me any advice? I haven't rented since I was a student 15 years ago and I haven't had a proper job for 3 and a half years.

Paying 6 months rent up front persuades most landlords.

If you don't want to do that then bank statements and your own accounts will help. Smaller agents and private landlords are easier to deal with than the larger agents, who tend to treat Homelet credit checks as the main assesment means.