How can I get my rent arrears?

Reply to the comment left by SteveFowkes at 21/04/2023 – 12:15
You can but it’s only the writing off of the debt, i.e. the money you never had, there is no advantage.

Serial debtors rely on landlords not to follow up. This makes it easier for them to rent again so all landlords should take action, even with low expectations or the cycle will just continue.

Make sure you have their personal details correct – particularly if you let through an agent or used a third-party referencing service. This will help with later tracing.

Once you know where they are, you could send in bailiffs, or go straight to the money claim and CCJ route. For a Money Claim the rules changed a few years ago: before you make the money claim, you first have to serve a pre-court action letter offering the debtor the chance to resolve without going through the courts.

Just to give a reality check on what getting a CCJ actually means. In short, very little sadly. Sorry to say, but it’s unlikely you will get your arrears back. We had one awful experience and sincerely hoping it will be the last. Got tenants in, passed all checks. Only it turned out they applied for our tenancy knowing prior CCJs were coming, but not yet visible on searches. Two months into the tenancy they stopped paying completely. Took us 6 moths to get them out (this was way before the current court backlogs), with the arrears and damage they did to the property, we have court orders in excess of £10k. In the past four years, we’ve had £300 paid back. They continue to move, for some reason other landlords keep renting to them despite both now having massive CCJs. Privacy laws these days mean you can hardly do any tracing. Through occasional social media, we know they go out, travel, got themselves a pure bred puppy. Not a care in the world, no doubt knowing that CCJs expire if they can only hold on for another couple of years. The laws around recovery of private debt are shambolic!

You probably have little chance of getting the rent you are owed. The only chance you may have is when they are evicted and provided you have been awarded the rent arrears by the court, is when the bailiff turns up he can seize goods to pay them off. Even then he may not do this, I did this when evicting one of my scumbags and luckily the bailiff was able to seize his car which more than covered the rent arrears. However you are unlikely to get the money

Write it of as if they couldnt pay the rent their not going to pay you and your just going to be paying out more monies at least you have the property and you write this of to tax

Reply to the comment left by eagle view at 21/04/2023 – 12:10
If you use “cash basis” you cannot deduct income which you are owed from your profits.

Reply to the comment left by Susan Bradley at 21/04/2023 – 11:42
Ha ha! That’s exactly what a couple did to me some years’ ago. She was so chatty and friendly, he worked at a local big name merchant. They had one toddler. Within a week of moving in to the upstairs flat (I was still working on the ground floor one) she brightly and happily informed me that what they really wanted was a Council home, and intended to put their plan into operation immediately. I soon had a letter from the Environmental Office regarding complaints of dampness, mould etc.
From then on, she clammed up. No windows were ever opened, and net curtains in the main bedroom were stuck to the inside window glass with a cat desperately trying to see out.
I kept the Officer at bay with various small repairs and insulation (at which the tenant laughed} until I was able to serve the lifesaving S21 after four months. Of course, they didn’t leave, since this would have been seen as “intentional homelessness”. She virtually told me what I already knew: I would need a County Court Possession Order. Fortunately, it was possible to do an Accelerated one online, although still quite a long process, and entailed employing a Bailiff to make sure they had gone.
They ended up with quite a nice Council house nearby! The husband even had the cheek to threaten me afterwards with a solicitor’s letter for “withholding” their mail, which I had put straight back in a pillar box marked NFA (No F-cking Address). So at least i had a mini last laugh!

Good Luck! I recently went through an 8m + eviction process, bailifs etc. Thousands owed in unpaid rent. Got a CCJ and an attachment to earnings – he prompty became unemployed. He basically sent a letter saying I have nothing, whatch gonna do about it!

Reply to the comment left by zoe at 24/04/2023 – 01:29
Karma comes –

I had a phone call from an unknown number
“You bastard”
“How did you know my parents were not married?”
“I lost a good job because of you”
“How?”
“Because you gave me a CCJ”

– in unexpected ways.

I alway give non payers a CCJ as it really does shaft them. Also, as you have up to 6 years after the CCJ is issued to collect, often people will have recovered their finances by then. Get a tracing agency (I use SHCE sheriffs) to find their new address and get the CCJ transferred to the high court (currently £77) and get the sheriffs to try and collect. I did this 5 years after a CCJ was issued and the guy now had a good job and a car, which was promptly clamped by the sheriffs. Got my money back.