Rental advice for landlord refurbishing rental property.

BostonB

Someone in the family has a house rented, and had difficulty with a couple of the tenants. Problems were not cleaning, and damaging things around the house, so much so that the general condition of the house has degraded considerably and now needs redecorating and reparing. They also didn't pay full rent in the past when one or two tenants moved out, even though the house is rented per house and not per room. It was felt the condition of the house, and troublesome tenants (who were a bit weird) really put others off for renting. A few who moved out basically confirmed this.

As a result, after a long time of warnings and no improvements, they were given notice and the troublesome tenants have moved out. Theres still a couple of tenants in there, that never gave any trouble. The plan was for them to move out for a week so as to refurbish the house, then rent the house at market rates and return to renting the house as a house and not per room. It was also decided to increase the rent to some thing closer to market rates considering all the work that was being done.

The two tenants who remain initially agreed to this, but now don't want to move out staying they have other people to fill the empty spaces. This causes a dilemma. Because they might feel even with a new contract that things will be lax regarding the rent as they were before, and also they've gone back on what was agreed, which makes it less confident that they'll adhere to the new terms in the contract. A easy way to fill the house isn't something to dismiss lightly though. Hence the dilemma. The owner however would be happy to leave the house vacant for some time, to get the right tenants, and is considering using a letting agency to handle the property as they don't want the hassle that this property has been in the past.

Any thoughts, advice on how to proceed? My advice was to proceed with the termination of all tenants then seek a letting agency and see how that works out for a 6 month period. The current tenants could choose to re-rent the property but through the letting agency once its been refurbished.

patrickolee

They probably won't re-rent though... they will need somewhere to live while the house is been redecorated. If they have two good tenants that didn't cause any problems, probably best to keep them if you can at all. Letting agency will take a good old lump of the rent...

BostonB

patrickolee wrote:

They probably won't re-rent though... they will need somewhere to live while the house is been redecorated. If they have two good tenants that didn't cause any problems, probably best to keep them if you can at all. Letting agency will take a good old lump of the rent...

I think its a price they are willing to pay so as to avoid the hassle. They have a few houses. This one just seems to attract more troublesome tenants than their other properties.

TCollins

Last i rented with more people than just myself and the gf the landlord just rented to one person who was responsible for renting the whole house and his name was on the lease. He then subletted to the rest of us. When anyone moved out the rest of us would have to pay the extra til we got someone new in.
It seemed fair to me.
Landlord got one person responsible for rent. Subletter got a few quid extra a month for his troubles because he charged market rates as someone new moved in.
I dont know what happened when he moved out because i was long gone then.

antoinolachtnai

Well, it sounds like it makes good sense to have a clean sweep like you suggested.