Serial rip-off tenant

We have a non-paying and non-responding tenant whose bank reference said his income was £80k a year. He has his own business in the construction industry. Clearly he is a serial rip-off tenant. Is there any register of people like this so landlords can be aware of them and they can’t continue to rip-off landlords who need to pay a mortgage? Eviction is under way but two months’ notice for someone effectively carrying out a criminal act seems ludicrous. It is clear we will never get any money from him.

we all wish there was a bad tenant list I know what action I would take but I cannot tell you

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I would pursue him for any costs to evict, unpaid rent etc. If he didn’t pay up after court I would issue a statutory demand and then he can’t run his business unless he pays.

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Thanks Per - will look into that.

Hi , did you do any credit checks and check for CCJs etc ?

80 K income for a construction company isn’t very much at all because they would have to pay wages and materials out of that

Depends on how they define income. Income to the company, not much at all. Income after costs, not great but ok. Income as in salary he pays himself - pretty good.

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That’s personal income - he’s small trader who may occasionally employ freelances

Hi Peter - we used the Open Rent referencing service

If the reference system has failed you could take legal action.
Hale vs Blue Sky Property Group

I thought the open rent references cover CCJs was I wrong??

The only way we get to know is if Landlords take these guys to court and it gets flagged on the credit reference. If the credit referencing company screws up , take it up with them

Many self employed people, (my partner included), take a minimal salary from their company and take other remunaration in dividends. That may mean they fail referencing. You may want to take 6 months bank and credit card statements to see how much their actual income is. Also ask for an SA302 from their most recent company accounts. You should be aware that suing a self employed person for arrears isn’t usually worthwhile as its easy for them to show a court that they don’t have sufficient income to pay you more than say £10 a week against the debt. You also can’t get an attachment of earnings order against the self employed AFAIK. I’m not saying you shouldn’t consider them though.

Thanks for this. Are you allowed to ask for bank and credit card statements from a personal data protection point of view?

Yes. Tessa Shepperson advocates it.

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Make sure you’ve given them z copy of your comprehensive GDPR privacy notice first

David, where does one get such documentation ? I am registered with the ICO and kinda expected to be supplied with such.

Tessa Sheperson’s website has a template

Thanks for that, will have a look