I’m losing a tenant every 6 months, please help!

I’m losing a tenant every 6 months, please help!

17:23 PM, 29th October 2013, About 11 years ago 58

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Hi all,

My fifth tenant has now decided to leave after having been subject to 6 months of abuse and hell from the neighbour adjoining the maisonette. All four previous tenants have left after six months and have all cited this neighbour from hell as the culprit for their misery and reason for leaving. This has put me at substantial financial loss, not to mention the stress. This is my first property and subsequently my first time as a landlord. I am losing a tenant every 6 months

I have exacerbated all my options. The troublesome neighbour likes to throw his weight around and seems to relish in bullying my tenants. He is also very devious, he has filed noise complaints against each one of my tenants with the council and complains to both letting agents about the noise. My current tenant mentions that the last straw was when the neighbour abused and threw stones at his Mum while she was visiting, thus instigating my tenant to angrily shout at the neighbour who recorded the interaction on his phone. When my tenant called the Police they did nothing as the neighbour had footage of my tenant shouting.

Emails from my previous four tenants include incidents where the troublesome neighbour, grabbed Tenant A round the throat and threatened him in my property. He jumped over the garden fence and threatened Tenant B. Threats to steal, shoot, beat up Tenant C and Tenant D apparently used to come home from work and watch TV wearing headphones so as not to disturb him, the list is a lot longer than this.

Police have been called on six separate occasions by two different tenants (the others were too scared to).

I have contacted the landlord of the property direct. Their letting agent is not prepared to do anything about it giving the excuse that it is one tenants word against another. I am have now lost my fifth tenant! Is this not evidence enough that the neighbour is the cause of the problem?

My letting agent has tried to influence the other letting agent but I feel both have dragged their feet hoping that the dust will settle. My letting agent now is refusing to re-let the property due to this neighbour.

I feel like I only have two options:

1) Reluctantly sell the property or

2) Try and re-let the property by switching my current agent to the same letting agent who oversees the troublesome neighbour. This eliminates the denial that there is a problem and who causes it due to one letting agent getting to hear about all the problems at both properties without any middlemen diluting the seriousness of the allegations. The problem with this option is whether the letting agent would evict the troublesome tenant or just be happy to allow my tenants to leave and enjoy the inctreased income from the renewals.

What other options do I have?

Please help.

Mark Lintern


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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

20:50 PM, 29th October 2013, About 11 years ago

An alternative to a bribe, how about offering 50% off rent for the first six months to a Police officer?
.

Mark Lintern

21:04 PM, 29th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "DC " at "29/10/2013 - 20:38":

Thank you for your advice everyone, I have much to ponder.

Ian Ringrose

21:06 PM, 29th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/10/2013 - 20:50":

-> An alternative to a bribe, how about offering 50% off rent for the first six months to a Police officer?

Why not 50% off rent for 6 months at the end of the longest AST that the mortgage provider allows?

ian

22:12 PM, 29th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Get some silicon & apply to door frame & door if he cant get out he cant cause a problem ( not that I have ever done such a thing of course) LOL

Gilly

5:31 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I am interested in the reason that this neighbour is so problematic. Is it the Italian man or woman who is jumping over the fence and threatening your tenants? If so, why? If it is the man then maybe the woman could be approached and vice versa. I would try and get someone who speaks fluent Italian involved and visit this couple in the cold light of day, not when there has been an incident and everyone is cross.

Do they have alochol problems, drug problems or mental issues? There must be something as it is completely unreasonable behaviour and needs to be addressed - by a Doctor maybe.

You say their English is not good, however they have managed to understand the noise pollution system in this Country and make frequent reports and fend off the local Police? Something is not quite right here.

If the letting Agent manages to evict them they will live next door to someone else in society. Hope you have registered them with LRS.

Gilly

5:45 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Gilly " at "30/10/2013 - 05:31":

Sorry I couldn't edit in time - that should have read that I hope the Agent has registered them with LRS.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

8:03 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Gilly " at "30/10/2013 - 05:45":

It would not be possible to register the Italian tenants with LRS Gilly because they are not Mark's tenants. Also, he is highly unlikely to have their NI numbers.

I agree that there is clearly a deeper underlying issue with these people.

I am surprised they haven't had a dead fish left on their doorstep with a note pinned to it saying ....

"Se ancora vivi qui in 31 giorni il tempo si avrà un problema.

SIETE STATI AVVERTITI"
.

Industry Observer

8:11 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

@ Ian

As you can see from the comments and numbers still coming in, this problem is not restricted to Mark alone and has aroused great interest and requests for helpful suggestions from the P118 community.

So basically if you can't make grown up sensible adult comments may I suggest you don't make a fool of yourself and leave this thread to the grown ups

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

9:36 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I have just received an email asking "what is LRS?"

LRS = Landlord Referencing Services

They are a lifestyle referencing community. The data they hold is that of landlords and NI number and last name of tenant. Landlords search the database and if they get a match the landlords swap their contact details for an off the record discussion about tenants lifestyles.

It's a free service, ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) approved. Agents also use them. Their JV partners are Experian whose products they up-sell. They also sell advertising space and have a decent forum.

Link >>> http://www.landlordreferencing.co.uk/
.

John Daley

10:35 AM, 30th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "30/10/2013 - 09:36":

Hi Mark,

So far in amoungst the sensible solutions we have had bribery, conspiracy to commit a breach of the peace and criminal damage as solutions suggested. Not to mention two letting agents doing nothing to sort out your problem. Hmmmmm I do wonder why private landlords have a poor reputation

Personally I'd suggest that you have established a classic history of anti social behaviour. So your first call will be at the Councils ASB office, where you are going to be very firm about them taking action. You will need to construct a written story of all the evidence of this guys behaviour to support your position of financial losses as a result his behaviour. This is because you are not the victim directly and you'll have to overcome their reluctance to act.

I do think its a good idea to change agents, your current agent has been totally ineffective so bin him and put the instruction with the agent letting the other property. This gives him a financial incentive to sort all this out.

If you let the property to the Council, their charges will be very low and they will sort this out, eventually.

Best of luck !

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