We rented a property to 2 friends of ours who were in dire straits?

No good deed goes unpunished! 🙁

Sadly you’ve learnt the hard way about letting to friends and acquaintances. Not something that’s really done.

It’s good that you say they have an AST, but you may realise that enforcing this particularly difficult in the current climate. They will be jointly and severally liable (one tenant) but if one stays put, getting money out of either of them may prove a challenge.

Have you done the proper pre-commencement compliance? I hope so, because that does, at least, enable you to serve a s21 notice (although that’s not quick at the moment).

The electrics bit is worrying as you have a legal duty to have supplied a safety certificate to the tenant – did you?

The best thing you can do is find a good local property lawyer (not the cheapest) and get them instructed to advise you. They need all the paperwork and documents and may come up with a way to help you. Do it quickly, it’s very important.

The first rule of landlording is never let to friends or family. I think you’ve probably broken most of the other rules too by the sound of it. You are going to need specialist legal help on this one both to get them out and to avoid prosecution yourself for renting a potentially dangerous property. Find a good housing solicitor.

Reply to the comment left by MH at 18/01/2021 – 22:55
If pretty much all you have is a tenancy agreement and no EPC, GSC, deposit paperwork, smoke alarm compliance, EICR, R2R checks etc. (all served & evidenced so), you’re properly knackered. You may as well pay them a substantial amount to leave willingly. No matter how much this grates on you, it’ll faster, cheaper & far less stressful than any other method. Do ensure they sign a Deed of Surrender.

No it is not the end of the world, I let to a friend who proved a complete ass, and I had to take him to court using a Section 8, as he won’t accept rent rise as I paid all the bills and council tax, se started to take a pee with having hot water bath filled daily, there was no way I would let him live a luxuries life at my expense, and he was regularly behind on his rent, he had enough money to get pissed on, the dust bin used to be full of empty beer cans. He also started to abuse me, so I served him warning letter followed by a S8 Notice, he stopped paying altogether built up 6 months rent arrears and finally got kicked off by bailiffs. yes it can be done, so seek legal advice or hire a solicitor that would be your best bet, you may have to pay your solicitor anything between £500 to a £1000, just do it. My solicitor charged me £600.00 and it was every penny well worth it as he had to almost prepare a bundle of nearly 100 pages submitted to the court. I could not believe how much work was required by him, and he worked so hard and was up to his neck to prepare my case against a rogue tenant friend.

Reply to the comment left by Mike at 22/01/2021 – 11:23
You are obviously not very experienced personally, Mike. There’s only one ‘fatal flaw’ re GSCs, but if you’ve set the thing up wrong in the first place, you (or even a solicitor) really are up against it…especially in these Covid time where the Court backlogs are enormous and they’re looking for the smallest reasons to throw cases out.

Paying them to leave would be quicker, cheaper and cleaner.