One of the industry’s leading experts wants letting agents to engage with tenants and landlords over Covid-related arrears, agree to mediation, and if all else fails accept a deal to clear the debt.
“If it comes to it and a tenant can’t pay the rent then sometimes you’ve got to do some sort of deal” explains Paul Shamplina, the founder of Landlord Action and presenter of Channel 5's Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords programme.
“Some landlords have been writing off rent arrears just to get vacant possession because it can take the best part of a year to evict a tenant with [the current] six month notice period” he adds.
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I am sure you realise that they will certainly put the purchase of a 60-inch TV before your rent payment!
And a BMW
And a holiday to Spain
And handbags from Gucci and Vuitton.
And of course, now, it will take you about a year to evict them if you are lucky.
So would be easier to just give them all that cash and then fined a good tenant so at least you will break even at £0.00.
Landlords need to be commercial, less emotive about a potentially very emotional subject as we often see with posts on here, and look at their forecasted net profit over the next 12-24 months in different scenarios. There is a tempatation to go for all the arrears, delay getting vacant possession, but its a false economy chucking good money after bad.
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