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Legal firm reveals trail of horror left by ‘worst rogue tenant ever’

Legal4Landlords says it has helped a landlord battle a rogue tenant who took seven months to evict and still owes £6,250 in back rent.

Sheila Manchester

rogue tenant

A legal firm has released sickening images of a worm-infested home left by a rogue tenant to highlight the plight of landlords facing long eviction waits and a referencing system that often misses repeat offenders.

Maggots can be seen engulfing the fridge and freezer, which the tenant left unplugged intentionally, while mounds of unopened debt letters pile up on kitchen counters.

It took a shocking SEVEN MONTHS for the tenant to be evicted from the two-bedroom home in Barking, Essex, despite the appalling state of the property.

Rent arrears totaled £6,250 but, as the tenant was an EU national with no UK assets, the landlord recouped nothing at all and has been left with a bill totaling thousands of pounds for cleaning, repairs and waste removal.

Rogue tenant

The landlord later discovered the tenant is a repeat offender, having been evicted from other properties, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

While a letting agency dealt with tenant referencing checks on behalf of the landlord, she now questions its thoroughness given that previous issues weren’t flagged.

LegalforLandlords represented the landlord in gaining possession of her property, having initially attempted to handle the issue herself.

The first hearing was scheduled two months after approaching the firm for help, with court backlogs causing delays.

But this hearing was adjourned by the judge, with a new date listed for July 2019, at which possession was granted and a bailiff appointment set for September 2019, again due to the huge number of cases being dealt with.

Sim Sekhon imageSim Sekhon (pictured, left), Managing Director of LegalforLandlords, said: “We’ve handled many cases where tenants have left properties in a state of squalor, but this is definitely one of the worst we’ve seen.”

Read more about evictions.

January 24, 2020

One comment

  1. This is an appalling example of how bad things can get and it also highlights the weaknesses of the system, taking so long for meaningful action to be taken. Every delay in achieving a Court Hearing and subsequent delay, in being able to enforce the eviction, exacerbated the financial losses of rent and property damage.The Reference company involved needs to take a long hard look at its record keeping, this awful tenant obviously left a trail of destruction behind them. The system is broken and taking away the option of S21. notices, without a radical overhaul, can only make things considerably worse.

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