This is my first time renting. My first tenant and they refused to pay for one year and are now declared bankrupt. I hired a law firm to evict them but they haven’t achieved anything in months. The legal fees are gonna suck me dry. What can I do? I am desperate. How do experienced landlors deal with this?
When you are in a hole, stop digging. Use a professional firm like Landlord Action.
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Sorry to hear about your nightmare.
Many LLs will get both rent guarantee insurance and legal cover to help mitigate the risk of non payment and costs of having to evict. Cover for legal costs can be just £60 a year [eg alan boswell]
Hard to say if your lawyers at fault or not - ask them if they will do you a quote for a fixed fee basis for all remaining work? People on these fora seem to say it can take 6-12m for a s21 being served all the way through to the bailiffs and eviction. There certainly are backlogs in the courts. Write down a detailed description of what law firm has done to evict them, what they have charged you for each item, and what is causing the latest delay and what your lawyers propose as next steps. Then get some independent advice from other lawyers who specialise in eviction on costs of each step to see whether the costs have been reasonable and whether the next steps proposed also seem appropriate.
Worth noting
“Nationally, our research shows an average waiting time of six months in the County Court Bailiff system for an eviction to take place after a Judge has granted a Possession Order saying the tenant must move out.
London is seeing an average delay of eight months once the Order has been granted. As our illustration below shows, that kind of delay is costing landlords over £17,500* in lost rent.
If that’s you - then our illustration below shows how you could save around £12,000 of that lost rent and get your property back six months quicker by enforcing your order of possession with a High Court Enforcement Officer. “
[High Court enforcement officers association report , quoted by landlordzone in oct 2025]
good luck
Well, to be fair, experienced landlords don’t end up in this kind of situation. They would have begun proceedings as soon as the second month of rent didn’t show up and taken it from there.
You need to get rid of the law firm first and then hire a specialist in eviction law to get rid of the tenant.
A tenant going bankrupt doesn’t magically erase the arrears — it normally makes your claim an unsecured debt and you still need a court possession order, so first check the Insolvency Service/bankruptcy register to see who’s the trustee and lodge a claim with them asap. Ask your current law firm for a full itemised bill and a fixed‑fee quote for the remaining work, if they wont agree swap to a specialist eviction solicitor who deals with bankrupt tenants (I had a similar case and changing to a fixed‑fee specialist cut my bills and moved things on quicker). Also consider which possession route is appropriate (Section 8 for arrears or Section 21 if valid), pursue any balance via debt claim once the bankruptcy process settles, and get rent guarantee/legal cover next time so it dont spiral.
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