Hi, I hope anyone knows how to deal this problem I am facing now.
I have 2 tenants rented my flat under one rental contract. One tenant quitted his job and moved back to Italy at the beginning of April 2020, refused to pay rent, said he was affected by Covid19 despite he quitted job himself, and said it is safer go back to home and stay with his family in Italy due to Covid19.
The other tenant was laid off and still live in my flat, said he is unable to pay rent due to no job and no income. Despite I advised him several times to claim universal credit and other benefits etc as he is an Italian national, he is entitle to as european citizen, however he does not reply my emails at all. When I called, he just keep saying he will claim but nothing happened, so far no rent, no news from him either.
The law during Covid19 does not allow landlord to evict tenants, and I am not getting any rent from my tenants and I have a kid to look after since I have no rental income, I am very worried. Any advise on this would be very helpful as totally stressed out. Many thanks.
You have my sympathy , as I understand it no evictions are possible under this lockdown, BUT the lockdown will end, and whist I am not a lawyer I would investigate serving a s21 now on the basis that if you wait till the eviction embargo is over , you will then have another 3 months to wait before you can get possession - it might even frighten the tenant into trying harder, and I don’t see ewhat you have to lose ,
Overseas nationals are harder to reference and , often, get guarantors, so my guess is you don’t have a guarantor either.
You will get through this , after a lot of pain, OR seems good and cheap at referencing, for certain a lot better than no referencing at all, and guarantors can be very handy - this gentleman might try harder if he thought his parent? was going to called to pay his rent for him
I’m not sure what use my advice will be because of your tenants domicile however if there are two tenants on one agreement then either one of the tenants or both are equally liable for the totality of the contract, this means that if the two tenants are for instance both putting half of their money in to your account then this is irrelevant if they are trying to claim one will only pay half now one has gone as both or either one of them are singularly or jointly legally liable for the fixed term of the contract regardless.
I presume your only interest now is getting out the person which remains in your property however how you do this will be dependent on a lot of factors due to the complexity of the present pandemic as you now.
You can go on to the website called shelter and you can further get information from.gov website and there is some further information on citizens advice bureau which I would suggest to read upon on all of the sites which should bring you up to speed with the recent FinePrint.
You will also need to re-read your tenancy agreement and follow the exact procedure in conjunction with the advice for eviction or commencing section 21 or section 8 during these times yet it sounds like you may be more interested in following section 8, in any event regardless to the tenants ignoring you or not you need to send recorded delivery Royal mail correspondence to the remaining tenant with clear open communication requesting formally their present situation possible forecast and intentions so that you have something to work from in the hope that they respond and if they don’t respond then you have followed the first course of process, I would also send the exact same letter via email and further text the tenant confirming the letter has been sent Royal mail and email so then you have made every possible effort to try and converse.
You may wish to paraphrase some advantageous facts regarding tenants liability and responsibility that are clearly laid out in the agreement and as well as from the government As this may help persuade communication as this is most definitely what you need right now as you have nothing else.
Hi. It’s so frustrating when tenants just stop communicating. I would probably sent a letter/ communication saying that you want to discuss and help to work out a solution with him in what are difficult times. This would go some way to show you were being reasonable and trying to help. But also stress it’s imperative he contacts you by return.
Unless things have changed you are still allowed to issue section 21 but just have to give three months notice instead of two. (Scotland is different) . You can also issue Section 8 and Section 21 at the same time.
If one tenant has gone the situation changed, he’s not communicating might be an idea to get the Section 21 underway.
Issuing both sections can get your case kicked out of Court if the defendant is smart as both Sections should not be used for eviction as you suggested.