My father died last month. I am the executor of his will. My father died unexpectedly in the property. He was a fairly disorganised man, not one for keeping clear records or documents by all accounts. We found a tenancy agreement that ended in June 2025, as well as similar previous ones (not continuous) from around 2018 when he moved into the property. From these documents I found a mobile phone number and an email address. I contacted both (via voicemail, WhatsApp and email) when we discovered the info, within a week of my father passing. Received a ‘I cannot deal with your enquiry, I’m on holiday’ message through WhatsApp, nothing from any other communication method.
We (siblings) are not physically near the property and have slowly sorted through what is, to be brutally honest, a load of rubbish to clear the place as much as we can. My father was a heavy smoker and seemingly a bit of a hoarder, so the complete absence of landlord contact has actually served us well in terms of trying to put things straight up to now. (For context, none of my father’s children were close to him, I personally hadn’t seen him for nearly a decade. Notwithstanding, I’m aware of my duties as an executor, however unexpected a role this has been for me).
I don’t want to think of the landlord as being dodgy, but the lack of interest from him seems unusual to me. My father was in receipt of housing benefit, paid to him fortnightly, and paid rent to the landlord directly every month. It seems he may have missed/been late on occasion. I glean this from statements obtained from his bank. He was also bouncing off a substantial overdraft, so there were instances where he clearly couldn’t release rent funds depending on his overdraft status.
What are my next steps? It does appear that my father had 2 months in the rent deposit scheme. Realistically, I won’t be attempting to claim any of this back because the place is heavily nicotine stained, plus there are no estate funds to clear big items (sofa, wardrobes, bed), so it’ll take some work to re-let. There’s no damage other than superficial picture hook holes, carpet wear and tear and general shabbiness. Can’t say we’re ecstatic in handing back the property in this state, but we’ve done all that we can realistically, and are prepared to take a hit on the deposit because of this. But without any word from the landlord, we’re up in the air at the moment.
What are my next steps? I believe it’s to contact the council’s private housing team to liaise with the landlord. I just can’t believe he’s had all but zero communication so far.
Apologies if I’ve missed any relevant info, please feel free to ask if required, and thanks for any advice. This is a new process for me and I just want to follow the correct procedures to round this off.
Edited to add: I’ve been contacting the landlord by either WhatsApp/call/email at a frequency of about every ten days or so (four times in just over five weeks), with only that one initial reply to the very first contact via WhatsApp.