Landlord's rights

At the end of the day, dealing with this is the job of being a landlord. And it is a job.

Tenants cannot get council housing unless a Section 21 has been served and they have been formally evicted.

Everyone deserves a place to live, and if someone’s life is so chaotic that they’re living like that, turfing them out immediately rather than giving that four month’s notice isn’t going to do anyone any good.

When I sold my house 2 years ago to move in with my youngest daughter, I intended to buy a flat to rent out in order to eke out my pension. However, watching programmes like 'The Sheriffs are Coming' and 'Nightmare Tenants' put me right off. The tenant seems to have more rights than the poor long-suffering landlord who has to wait months for the judicial process to grind along and then is faced with the legal costs, unpaid bills plus the costs of clearing and renovating the trashed property that's been left behind. I decided against it!!!

All you can do is serve an eviction order, it takes time and money but it’s all part of property management. If you let property eventually you get a disruptive tenant, however careful you are in vetting them. I have sympathy with the good tenants that find it harder to rent because bad tenants cause everyone to get vetted to a high degree
Landlords are very wary accepting tenants where the council pays the rent, it makes it much more difficult if they are anti social.
I would never recommend anyone to buy a property to rent out, the regulations are very tight, you get taxed on the rent, then you get CGT when you sell, let the housing associations do it, they don’t get taxed.

oops we served a section 21.

She needs to see a solicitor who specialises in this area.

Notice to evict will have to be served, usually a section 21 which is a 'no fault' termination of the tenancy or section 8 if, for example there's un paid rent. This is the case for England.

The notice served will give the tenant notice to leave, which is 4 months with a section 21 but, if they refuse to leave the matter would have to go to court and it's notoriously difficult to get an eviction.

We are in a very similar situation. A beautiful one bedroom flat which has become a sh*t hole. It's filthy, filled with clutter and the smell is off the scale.

We've served a section 22 and luckily our tenants appear to be in the process of buying their own home so will be leaving.
Work is needed at the behest of the council for internal wall insulation but as it's impossible to do this with the current state of the premises, and the tenants making life difficult for our builder, the council has agreed for the work to be put on hold until they leave.

If, for whatever reason they haven't left by 4th January 2022, we wont be taking legal action because it cost in the region of 5K to 10K.

They are paying rent so for us, they can live in their filth and have the inconvenience of building work while living there.

It's little wonder that the number of private landlords is declining when it's nigh on impossible to evict a tenant, even if you want to live there yourself, and the cost of doing so tuns into thousands.