Evict unreasonable tenant with unsecured deposit - advice please

Landlord Discussion Legal
1
  • Tenant of over 7 years, gave an excellent deal due to their poor circumstances (war)
  • Took a deposit (unsecured, very stupid of us I know)
  • Due to a personal circumstance of theirs in the second year they asked for the deposit to be used as the months rent due to financial hardship
  • The relationship soured at some point, I’m genuinely not sure what I did to cause that
  • Since, they’ve have countless instances where rent has been unpaid often for a month, and sometimes a whole two months
  • They stopped allowing any access to the property for landlord inspection and even for maintenance work, unless something completely stopped working e.g. a Boiler
  • They’d dock rent automatically for maintenance / appliances broken
  • They also dont let in Electric / Gas Engineers for yearly safety certification on our request
  • They aren’t willing to sign any new tenancy agreement (since 6 years)
  • They refused any rent increases past the second year, we are estimated to be providing the property at a discount of £400-£500 pm from market value
  • In the past they agreed to move out at the end of the (rolling) tenancy agreement, but didn’t follow through
  • Have told us to go to court if they are unhappy with them, and have accused of attacking them, and called the cops once when we went for a discussion.
  • Recently I sent a gas engineer to do the gas certificate for this year, they denied him entry

I have screenshots of correspondence to prove all above.

I know what rights they have RE us not having secured that deposit.

The question is, you can imagine, at a discount of £500, I’m not even meeting my mortgage, what would be the best course of action for getting them to vacate the property.

Is a Section 21, plainly just going to be refused due to that unsecured deposit?

Any ideas if a Section 8 is applicable here.

Of course I am biased, but I do believe they have been unreasonable for a very long time now, and I’ve just about had enough. Since they aren’t allowing a gas inspection, I feel they are banking on the S21 criteria, so are being advised re. law.

Please advise

2

Was a gas safety cert issued when the tenancy began? Do you have evidence that the deposit has been returned to the tenant.? You should use section 13 notice to increase the rent upto market value.

3

The deposit issue should no longer be a problem for s21 as its effectively been returned to the tenant to use for rent, (make sure you have the evidence of this). If the last tenancy renewal was at least 6 years ago, then they are also out of time to claim a deposit penalty against you. However, my guess is that you may have made some other mistakes that would preclude use of a s21. You can check by googling “nearly legal s21 checker”

I would suggest that unless your tenancy agreement includes a rent review clause, you use a s13 notice to increase the rent to the full market level. I’ve no doubt they will refuse to pay it, but once their total arrears are more than 2 months rent, you can use s8 ground 8 to evict. Make sure you add grounds 10 and 11 and also ground 12 for the other tenancy breaches. Again keep all evidence.

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4

Ah right. I thought it was 6 years from the end of the tenancy that the deposit relates to, not from when deposit was paid.

5

No, 6 years + 30 days from receipt of the deposit.

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6

You don’t want to hear this… But no good deed goes unpunished.

If I ever wanted to help someone I would rather gift them money than put someone in my apartment that does not have the right affordability or personal circumstances. It will cost you so much more than what you originally wanted to help them with.

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