What you need to know about letting a property in Bristol

What you need to know about letting a property in Bristol

Here I cover some common pitfalls and issues private Bristol landlords face when renting out their property, from not legally protecting tenancy deposits to not properly checking out tenants’ backgrounds. And it all started with a chance conversation…

The other day I was in a coffee shop, and whilst waiting for my coffee to take away, I began making conversation with a gentleman in the queue. We covered the usual comments about the weather, what I do for a living and just general chit-chat. As we began talking, he started to mention that he had bought a property at the end of last year. Like most landlords, he had purchased this property for his pension in the future, of course: “Property is a safe bet right?”.

But is it?

So the leads were flowing in, and he began to arrange viewings at the property. He went on to explain that he was approached by a couple who seemed like ideal tenants, they had not long relocated from out of town and had both just started working for a large local company.  What had made them more appealing than the other potential tenants, was that they had offered to pay him the rent 3 months in advance along with a security deposit.

For him things looked like they could not really get any better, he went home to his family delighted with the news of these new dream tenants.

How a lettings dream can quickly turn into a lettings nightmare for landlords.

He went on and described how almost overnight this great feeling of getting on the Buy-to-Let investment ladder with dream tenants in place had turned into a nightmare:

• The first three months flew by, and he did not hear anything from the tenants. It wasn’t until the rent was due in the fourth month that things started to take a turn for the worst.
• Four days after the rent was due he decided to contact the tenants on their mobile phone; he was unable to speak to them so he left a voicemail for them to contact him as soon as possible.
• The following evening he still hadn’t heard from them so he took it upon himself to visit the property (which is actually unlawful, but we’ll let that go in this instance).
• One of the occupants opened the door and let the landlord into the property. The landlord then asked politely, “I’ve noticed that the rent has not been paid this month, is there any reason for this?”.
• The couple went on to explain how they did not pass their probationary period at work and had both lost their jobs.
• At this point, the landlord really did not know what to do or say, both tenants said they were actively looking for new jobs and that if he just bears with them they would be able to have the rent paid and up to date in no time.
• The landlord was gutted, he had just spent most of his funds financing the refurbishment at his new property, meaning that he would now have to sacrifice part of his salary towards paying the mortgage repayments on this property.
• He explained to his wife what was going on and they both remained hopeful that the tenants would find jobs quickly, although they were a little concerned over their family income.

Legal repercussions of not protecting a tenancy deposit

Things started to go from bad to worse. The tenants had informed him that he was in breach of tenancy legislation for not protecting the deposit and that they would be seeking legal advice to sue him for not carrying out his legal obligations. Again the tenants refused to discuss the rent arrears and constantly threatened him with legal action.

Keeping this story condensed, as a result of this, the landlord ended up paying the tenants 3 times the original value of the deposit and also had to take legal action to begin the process of evicting them.  It was not until around 7-8 months that he was able to regain possession of his property.

I could see from the look on his face and tell from his voice that this had left him in a very stressful situation which took its toll, not only financially, but also personally on his family life.

He carried on and explained how he and his wife had to cancel their family summer family as a result of all of this, saying sadly “this was not the plan, our lives were meant to get better from this investment, and not the opposite”.