Tenant has cheek to ask for a reference when property is in awful state, said she would sort it out? really, hasn’t sorted it out in 3 years. shown no commitment. paid rent, fine, but property is damaged alot.
what can one say in a reference. I will not lie if asked about the state of the flat and if it was satisfactory, will say NO, won’t go into any detail, and if asked if I would recommend , just say NO.
NRLA recommended asking tenant to commit to do the repairs before checkout. she is stalling.
If I had a tenant like that who asked for a reference, I’d say something like
Edited to add that if I had had a T like that, I would have issued a S21 two and a half years ago.
U would not believe this! Tenant then gave me one months notice and council are putting her into private rented accommodation. Why. Professional person. Great income.
That’s why my c tax is so high.
Now she doesn’t need a ref so won’t do the repairs. I give up being a landlord. I’ve asked k
council to explain . The housing department quizzed me on why I gave her notice and were pushy and rude. Told them none of their business
If you serve a s21 the council are obliged to house the tenant as a priority it’s a no fault eviction
If you serve a s8 they have no obligation to house the tenant as a priority as they can see cause
When they ask you you must tell them why you evicted the tenant as it pushes the tenant to the bottom of their list
I was in a similar situation and served a tenant a s21 for rent arrears and damage.
When the council called I asked them why they were asking
Once they found out that he was doing drugs and in rent arrears he was not given a priority
I sent all the evidence of damage and emails to the council and he was not given a priority
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Always give good references to get rid of them. It’s the same with job references, if a problem is leaving then help them on their way. Whatever happened in tenancy should have been dealt with earlier. There is zero benefit in giving a bad reference.
Zero benefit to you… but a whole lot of benefit to the rest of us.
Never give a bad or false reference it may have serious legal ramifications
If you don’t want to give a reference don’t take the call
TBH , like employment references, it should only specify the date the tenant was in the property
The rest used to be a phone call
Now there’s voice memos 
Silence speaks volumes
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