UK Landlord Forum / Life

My husband and I are homeless, we own two proprties outright, both are let to family, I have long term serious health problems and have recently been diagnosed with a life threatening condition.

One tenant is only paying a small portion of his rent and tried to claim the property through the courts. he failed but it has taken years and a considerable amount of money in legal fees, £33,000 plus we had a buyer at the peak of the housing boom but we couldn"t sell because of the legal challenge made by the tenant.
We face further legal fees to get posession of the property.

The other tenant has not paid rent in years, she paid in 5 years 1 months rent, and part of the next months rent, it was our daughter and our grandchildren so we allowed them to live in the property, she knew that we would need to move back to the property sooner or later but said it was ok for them to stay providing she moved into the small bedroom giving us the master bedroom back.
When the time came for us to move in we found out she had moved her alcholic boyfriend into the house and refused to move him out, and the only way she would allow us back is if she kept the master bedroom and he was allowed to share it with her. 
She said she would then start to pay £50 per week to cover all the food bills etc for this family of 4.
We are now taking action to evict them.
She wont even answer the phone to us, we have not seen our lovely grandchildren since before Christmas, a third party had to deliver the childrens presents to them.
I would never let a property to a family member again and would urge anyone reading this to only let to strangers through an agency.