UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello,

We've had a very difficult tenant - or rather tenant's mother. From the outset after renting the property for her disabled daughter, she has been uncooperative, to say the least - starting on day one with threatening to remove all furnishings from the flat that was rented as furnished. During the course of her tenancy, she has caused (lovely) neighbours to call the police and just generally been 'problem first' in every way. In short, she's a bully that tends to get her way by making others (including our agents) buckle by not wanting to deal with her.

This, however is only background to provide some colour.

Recently she left a monthly rolling tenancy without notice. I received council tax notification for a date already passed and contacted my agent. He contacted her and she said she would be leaving the next day. He informed her that she was still liable for council tax, rent and utilities for one more month - this was 5 Sept when the current paid month ended 7 Sept (the council tax date was 31 August). He then sent her an email saying they (the agent) would accept the keys but only on the understanding that they were still liable for the rent, tax utilities until 7 Oct. The mother brought the keys in the next day.

Now: we haven't done a final inventory, as we know that signing this off would be taking back the flat, per se. As it stands the flat is empty as they left it and we have not given them permission to surrender the tenancy.

We have, however, decided that we want to see the back of this truly unpleasant person and the agency has said if she surrenders her entire security deposit we will end the tenancy on 7 Sept and let her out of the final month. She agreed to this on the phone, but has thus far not released the deposit through the DPS.

I'm almost ready to fight this in small claims court - not because I want to but just so that such a bully does not get away with treating people this way.

Are their any pitfalls to holding her to her final month and  (doubtless) having to go to small claims court to follow through?

I say this as she is smart and will certainly fight for the sake of fighting. I would rather just claim the deposit and put an end to it, but without her surrendering it what can we do?

Advice please!

Suing the daughter won't make the mother a better person. I'd just get in there, evict the noisy mother from your head, turn the property over and get it re-let.

Claim the deposit in lieu of notice: if your former tenant wants to argue, she can use the dispute resolution service.