I like My Tenant. But What Makes A Good Tenant?

@David
A lot of wise words thank you David.

NOW !! I did write earlier in this post about my good tenant. Yes a ''disabled'' one on DHSS. Played ball all through the tenancy and eviction process. Was even ''given'' a bigger converted house for her needs.

Silly silly me. Oh Im smacking myself round the head now with a damp towel.

Basically as I am selling the renovations started immediately. I allowed her to collect her stuff 3 days after the bailiff and as I was on the premises access on other days.
Remember in agreement with the court I allowed 47 days after the final possession hearing. So there were 47 days to organise.

I worked around piles of boxes and furniture. Unable to decorate ceilings and remove carpets due to the sheer volume of consumerism which ranged from 2 upright fridges full of food plus a chest freezer to settees that the guys struggled to get out of the room. There were 3 tables in the dining area !! And on day 3 a Luton van turns up with 3 very rough guys. It took them and poor me who has a friend helping be from 1.30 until 6 to fill the van to the brim twice.These guys worked like trojans non stop. One even rushed to the shop to buy baby wipes after carrying her mattress !!!
However they were only contracted for 2 loads and left a whole room full of boxes.
Now this is in addition to the storage unit she hired and filled and the whole house has a footprint of 6 metres by 6 metres.
On day 4 she storms in saying that they could have taken the rest (no hope the van was piled high). Selects a few boxes and tells me she doesn't want the rest. Thats chests of drawers, wardrobe, bedside tables etc. I threw it out of the bedroom window smashed up to add to the 8 yard skip worth of Fisher price toys and other destroyed consumer items.
Then come the accusations that we have been going through the boxes and her mattress is destroyed. ( here we go another load of money bollox in compensation)
Phew an empty house !!

Now this is the Thursday and I have a promise that she will get a skip. On Sunday a 6pm I get a phonecall. Heart sinks. She wants the bayonet fitting for the gas cooker. I tell her she can;t have it as Im not allowed to play with the gas. At which point the whirling dervish screams that its hers as they replaced my electric cooker with her gas one and her 'mate' fitted it and he needs it for the new house.
(Please don't cringe here as I know all the gas regs !!)
So where is my electric cooker ???? I will look under the pile in the garden.
I haven't heard another word since. Are you surprised ?

Now one of the conditions of her new tenancy with the housing association is that there are no issues with the last tenancy and no debts. So I have an avenue to follow and it clearly states in the terms and conditions that she could have obtained her new tenancy fraudulently and will lose it.

I won't go into the massive celebrations the neighbours are having or the complaints about dope smoking being posted on facebook by her new neighbours less than a week after she got the keys.

You may ask why I put disabled in inverted commas. She could carry heavy boxes down the stairs unaided better than the removal guys. And they were big guys.

So I woke up this morning unable to move with a bad back and genuinly unable to move ,worrying about the gas safety of the new landlord who has had a cooker (which was so filthy that the removal guys covered it in clingfilm to move it) connected illegally.

And finally. As I have a friend who is a professional inspector / inventory inspector this chaos has been created since the last inspection.

I feel a phone call coming on !!

Tenants on benefits can be fine, or even very good. I'm on HB and have been for 12/13 years.
To begin with, I thought it would be a good idea to get the council to pay my HB directly to the agency. How wrong I was. At that time, my HB was the same as my rent (please be aware that HB will not rise with every rent increase), but it was paid in two smaller payments, every two weeks. This meant that sometimes I was in arrears on the 1st of the month. So I would get the phonecall, and pay what they asked. Of course, that meant I had paid them too much when they got the next check. Eventually, they had to send me a nice check.
Ever since then, I have had the HB paid to me, and I have a standing order for rent payments.
Agencies should know how HB works if they intend to use tenants on HB, and they should, for we are all just people who have to live somewhere, and you're a prick if you single out benefit claimants. In fact, I hope you become one one day.

@Bob

With respect I totally disagree with you.

Geting the rent paid direct means that tenants do not spend it on an unexpected expense.

Landlords, Housing Associations and letting agents accept that it is paid 4 weeks in arrears when paid to a 3rd party. You can tell them to stop harrassing you if they keep chasing you (or their computer does).

They can even insist it is paid direct after 6 weeks of arrears with most Local Councils.

The reason it is good for the tenant to have it paid direct is that it removes that temptation to go into arrears when their is a blip in finances. This is important because non payment of rent means you intentionally made yourself homeless and so the local authority no longer has a duty of care to house you.

Bear in mind Bob this is primarily a site for Landlords and it believes that for the most part DSS tenants are not viable for private rent:

https://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/refusing-dss-tenants-is-discrimination/

I am inclined to agree because DSS tenants have been priced out of the market due to massive rent increases cause by lack of supply and increased demand. The LHA levels that set HB have not been increased adequately so the tenants can no longer afford to live in that property or that area. The benefits cap that does the social cleansing and ships tenants to the armpits of the UK is another factor.

The answer is to restore the requirment to build 20% social housing of all developments (changed by Osborne) and to create a massive building programme of social housing (not affordable housing. This will restore the supply to the market and lower rents, that lowering of rents will reduce LHA and that in turn will reduce HB costs.

Nige is a decent Landlord, take the time to read his replies all over this blog and you will see. He has just beem screwed too many times after trusting people.

My point is people are people, tenants are tenants. Perhaps there is DSS and then there's DSS; I'm long term disabled, getting a comfortable benefit income, and always pay my rent. Maybe, if people can't do that, they aren't getting enough and/or there are other reasons for their behaviour (yes, that may be the case with someone on HB more than someone not on it, generalizing wildly).
The situation I described is a decade an more behind me, but it is accurate. You live and learn.

You may be right. There are DHSS and DHSS.
I have just taken back my last property that is let to DHSS. Not a bad tenant really. Rent up to date or maybe a couple of quid out.
I started action to evict her well back earlier this year.We slowed the process down to enable her to get organised. She had known about the end coming for 2 years but circumstances allowed different disposals.
So in August we hit court virtually holding hands. I get the possession order but suddenly DHSS kicks in. She uses the law as she is entitled to and we get a further hearing where I suggest she has an extra 42 days to get out. Ms DHSS squalks thats the day her kid starts school so I offer a further 7 days which the judge is surprised at.

Does she mover out in the 49 days...NOPE. She wants to be evicted by bailiffs. Oh another £121 forked out.
Now we all know bailiff eviction rules. Thrown out and can arrange to pick up her stuff. In the mean time she and her 2 carers (who work full time who are living in the house without permission and she is paying single persons council tax) are put up in a premier lodge at £82 a room rate.
Then she pops back the next day to pick up some of her stuff. The next day she sends a removal team in (she is nowhere to be seen)who are not to happy with the state of the gear they are shifting and insist on wrapping the cooker in clingfilm. 2 full luton vans are moved over the next 4 and a half hours helped by myself and my worker. But stuff is still left.
So the next day when working in the house she turns up to retrieve the last bits. She doesn;t want most of it so we are left to dispose of it.
A couple of days later I get a demanding phonecall telling me she wants me to disconnect the gas bayonet fitting so she can connect her cooker. This is now 6 days after eviction but she insists its her property as they fitted it after they disposed of my electric cooker (which has now vanished.)
I put the phone down.

Now all this is roughly what I expected except for a couple of matters. I had stated that I was going to totally refurb the property for sale so damages would be ignored ie holes in doors which magically appeared etc. The seven year old kitchen isn't worth salvaging and so on it goes.
Not to bothered as house is being gutted anyway but there is one issue.

Knock on the door 8 days after eviction !! Its her !! Wants me to share the cost of a skip because of our builders rubbish. NOPE we dispose of our rubbish our way (you know..laybyes..left at side of kerbs..thrown in peoples gardens !! ) She storms out so I wait 3 days and pay another £288 to a company to clear enough to fill 2 skips and a further £100 to a guy to remove the entire stock of the 99p shops toys from the grass.

Ah today now 25 days after eviction the scrap boys finally pick up the barby, dishwasher where she dumped them on the street. Neighbours are cheering with flags out and they are going to send the BIG boys after me if I ever rent the house again.

Now she had TWO live in carers??? Probably getting payment from DHSS or somewhere. So if she had a carer why didn;t they shift the crap or clean the house etc. ?

So now this tenant has a nice shiny housing association house with all amenities and I am left with bills everywhere.

As the letter to her explained. If she had been a working tenant she would have probably left at the end of the tenancy notice. ALL the bills were as a direct result of her choices..not mine. She wanted the 2 court cases. the bailiffs and to leave her rubbish.

Anyone want to pop down to Ladbrooks and get odds on whether my claim for my actual costs of clearing rubbish. ? Dont hold your breath.

PS and now its your turn to throw up.
In the garden rubbish documents were found showing that she got £465 per week plus housing benefit. She wasted NHS time by being investigated for cancer so she could be put to the top of the pile in a car accident claim. (no cancer of course)

Yes there may be DHSS tenants and DHSS tenants but you know which group of society I would let to again. Yes working people.

Front and rear gardens are full of rubbish. She was warned about this multiple times

I dont know how those last 2 lines went out of sync

@Bob
Whilst you state that your rent is paid in 2 week lots one of those payments is in arrears. Then unless I am wrong you have a monthly tenancy with 12 requests for money. To comply with the tenancy these should be made before or on the due date.
So you get a request and you top up and then get in advance and you are refunded.
Have you calculated how many additional transactions a year are being made by the landlord/agent ?
A lot.
A lot of checking bank accounts virtually every day as payment dates vary, refunding etc. Letter writing or phone calls. It all adds up. Sometimes DHSS tenants do not get the same amount every time as their circumstances change as often as a ball bounces.
I calculated that I do 6 times more work as a result of DHSS payments as I should if a tenant paid as per tenancy agreement.
And that discounts the huge amount of time,money, effort and paperwork involved if the tenant refuses to leave because they want the council to rehouse them.
landlords do and I did house DHSS but I am not part of the social system but somehow bear some of the brunt .

Nige, your tale is so true and correct, those that read your comments and ridicule them will have never experienced what you have described. In this past year I have had two exact cases, one property cost me over £4K to restore, the second £6.5K, in both cases the tenants were on benefits and lived like pigs. One family boastfully told me that they received over £2K a month, their phone was on speed dial to the local bookmakers and Chinese, need I say any more!

Nige. Firstly, my post was not a direct reference to you, though we could get in to a most unedifying spat about the very Daily Fail attitude exemplified by some in this thread
Your reply makes my point for me - it is best for many tenants to pay the rent themselves after having HB paid to themselves. That would mean less work for you, and the tenant wouldn't have to chase an agency for money owed.
You'll note that my situation is in the past, because I chose to take it in hand.

@Bob
Have you ever heard of cannabis ? Its the first thing bailiffs say to me. ''can you smell cannabis''

There is an expression . You cannot get blood out of a stone.
Universal credit where the tenant receives the money directly and passes it on to the landlord is sending shivers down the industry.
I can tell you of horror stories of tenants borrowing from money lenders with alsatian dogs at gawd knows how much interest for trivial reasons. Who is going to have first call on the money ?
Try getting food from Tesco without paying before you eat it.
But DHSS tenants all to often know the law and giving them the power to choose what they spend the money on is risky.
So a tenant doesn't pay the rent. OK 2 big boys throw them out on the street ? No way. Its no rent for 3 months with time and bills , paperwork and court visits.(remember many small landlords also work so a day off work) and maybe you get the house back.
Just watch ''cant pay and we will take it away '' to learn the multitude of ways people from all walks of life evade paying .
When I take a DHSS property back I am inundated with letters which demand cash from loan companies to washing machine hire.
The worst I have seen were water bills for £5000 and £2500 !!
Its a nightmare sorting out card meters for gas and electric which have been run on emergency.

Ask me how many DHSS properties have been returned clean enough or in good repair and suitable for letting immediately. ONE in 20 years.

My last evicted tenant stocked up her THREE fridges full of food the day before eviction (DUH) whilst owing me money ordered by a court. Tesco Home delivery got paid first.

None of my DHSS tenants has ever used a recycle bin !!!
A quick reccy of the bins after they leave will be full of branded products bought from local shops not the supermarkets own brands.

Did you know that in the UK there is no register that can be checked so you cannot get a report on bad tenants who have skipped paying rent.

I know of at least 3 foolproof ways of skipping a property owing rent and then getting a council house.

So we take tenants on with a degree of trust and there are sections of our society who I wouldn't trust to tie my shoelaces never mind pay the rent themselves out of benefits.

I could tell you about the tenant 'locked' out of her home and called us out on emergency.She had been standing outside for an hour. WHY? She had another door key cut and had the original in one hand and the new one in the other. She never tried the original.

I could tell you about the emergency gas boiler call out where the engineer found the radiators were hot. But apparently not giving out heat. DUH.

The majority of my tenants were DHSS and if I paid spent as much time attending to my house as I did to repairing damage I would live in a palace. Such is the business.

But I value other peoples opinion if they are like me.
67 years old. Had a heart attack and a stroke yet still renovating properties damaged by 35 year olds. And the only benefits I receive are a pension of £115 per week that was earned by paying NI whilst working. And never claimed any other benefits in my life.
PS I was brought up on a council estate.

Why are you telling me this, Nige?

This is a general discussion forum and most people can write what they would like subject to a degree of censorship.As David explained this forum is primarily for landlords.

The UK has a safety net for people which is generally regarded as fairly generous. There are many who as you put it...''I live comfortably''

Well I dont . ALL of my earnings and pension have been directed towards property repairs caused by DHSS tenants since March.
Earnings ZERO and even then I have had to dip into savings.

No safety net for me at all.

My benevolent attitude towards DHSS tenants has cost me dearly . At a time when I should be enjoying retirement I was working in freezing rain clearing up the crap of another DHSS tenant who , if you read my story further back, took advantage of my generousity.

For some reason many DHSS tenants think that they should be treated differently and as a priority.

A female friend of mine with very severe arthritis , so bad that she cannot get out of the car at times is a prime example. She lost her job.
One month and one day of missing her mortgage payment she received a letter saying that she was going to lose her home. No safety net whatsoever for her. Basic job seekers only.
Not enough to pay her mortgage. No housing benefit to help.
Not many companies interested in employing a disabled (though not officially ) 60 year old woman. So she had to take a low paid job and she struggles.
Interestingly enough if she had lost her house through non payment of her mortgage she would have been deemed to have intentionally made herself homeless. Councils refuse to help that catagory of person. Best she could have hoped for would have been a room in a shared house.
However councils are bound to help a tenant who is evicted for non payment of rent.

Comfortable is not a word many landlords would regard their position. Rules, regulations and crap being foisted on us daily followed by paperwork that clutters up my house in reams.
Why? Because rules always favour the tenant and especially tenants on benefits.

I have several investor friends who have now disposed of all their rental properties and are buying and renovating instead of meeting the demand for rental housing.

You wrote explaining why it would be better if tenants received housing allowance directly and then passed it on to the landlord. I explained that this was sending shudders down the industry.

Imagine a world where no landlords would let to DHSS as is rapidly happening now. David has already explained that more houses are needed in detail.

I have one tenant left in a property managed by an agent. The rent was £620 a month when the DHSS tenant died leaving chaos and a devastated house.
Its now let at £750 a month. No damage, no part payments, rent well over DHSS levels and I can sleep at night.
I wish I had taken this route years ago and then maybe I could describe my life was comfortable instead of worrying about the security of a house I am renovating.

One thing thats never mentioned. Houses are damaged and repairs cost a lot of money. Repairs are deducted from earnings and therefore the government gets less tax. Less tax means not so much money for benefits. So in effect those who damage properties are shooting themselves and others in the foot.

I haven't questioned your right to write what you want

I'm sorry your tenant had the temerity to die whilst providing you with a living, by way of the state.

And in typical DHSS mode you think that your money comes from the state. There is no state money. There is no council money.
It is money that comes from all those who have it taken away from them in taxes and I can assure you that I have always been a positive contributor paying both tax on my earnings and tax on my spending which have already been taxed.

The temerity to die ? May I tell you that I took a desperate woman with 3 kids in on a temporary tenancy as she had nowhere to go. She even got a reduced rent from the previous occupant.
And she worked until her last days even after losing her hair due to chemo. She put into the system to help support less deserving cases.
Yes she was with me for 3 and a half years at a lower rent than it should have been because I respected her.

I wont go into disabled arguments here but no doubt are sitting typing on a computer paid for by benefits on a connection paid for by benefits and in a house paid for by benefits. If you can type there are home jobs involving typing. I had a tenant who was a taxi controller using a mobile phone and an internet connection.

Nige, are you really a rightwing parody bot?

Terrible disableds, with their seizures, infections, clots, organ failures, drug resistances and so forth! Dreadful people! Are there no workhouses?!

Bob, why you change subject and not answer Niges question? I can tell you can do a job that requires the ability to read and use a computer just by the quality of your posts (or does your carer type your posts by decoding your eye blinks?)

What was the question?

Thank you Andrewa

I always believed that National Insurance was set up so that people who fell onto hard times could be helped to recover.

Now it encompasses everything. Everything except those who want to put something back into society.

Many tenants imagine that the landlord gets all the rent. Silly me. I have to pay tax, national insurance, gas checks, transportation to properties, attend training courses, have to have a phone, have to have internet as all documents come online now, attend court, read up all the legal regulations which change daily, prepare accounts,have data protection registration, have landlords insurance and liability insurance, be a member of a trade body, do repairs or replace items I am responsible for, spend time on tenant/landlord documentation ie letters and agreements..and so the list goes on.

Yes Bob is 100% right. I made some of my money from providing reasonable houses at reasonable rents to DHSS tenants (not all tenants were DHSS) I even had good tenants who I found out later were in receipt of benefits where the tenants made up all of the rent and was paid BEFORE the due date. Their account looked like any other 12 line yearly statement not a missmash of 2 payments at different times followed by refunds.

Of course Bob would not understand the free choice tenants have to move away from nasty landlords. Thats why the majority of my tenants were with me for over 5 years and some over 10 years. Ive even had them leave and come back.

Would I be better off on benefits I ask. Well the straight answer is YES because of my disabilities.

What Nige asked was seeing as you can use a computer and in my opinion judging by the quality of the English in your posts are better educated than he is (maybe Nige is better with tools like me) why you are claiming benefits instead of working for a living?

Ah, yes. You confused a rant with a question.
I won't be explaining the full nature of my condition to you or anybody else who just happens to think they have a right to know

It is interesting that discrete abilities are mistaken by many for the capability to hold down a job of work.

G'night.

"Their account looked like any other 12 line yearly statement not a missmash of 2 payments at different times followed by refunds."

Point being?

"Of course Bob would not understand the free choice tenants have to move away from nasty landlords."

Um...What?

You got it wrong Bob. The statement is "it is interesting that discrete abilities are used by many for holding down a job whilst those utterly incapable of useful work may be supported by those who can"
I take it you are "sick of work or have a terminal case of lazy"

Slightly off topic but in the same vein.

We are trying to refurbish the house Ive mentioned.

One of my workers who has the misfortune to be stuck in a cold house and in the rain and clearing up after a DHSS tenant mentioned the traffic walking past the house.

His exact words were.

''Do you know its the same people walking past and going to the shop three or four times a day.''

There is a joke told by the shop staff.

'' Packet of fags . 2 number ....scratch cards and £3 on the electric card.''

Guess who pays for all three items (ok 4) and guess which one is essential.

That's an interesting conclusion, Andrewa, which brings you down to the level of certain others here.

And guess what it's like to live their lives, Nige.
It's sad that you think people shouldn't be able to afford a little respite and hope.

And I suppose I wouldn't be surprised if the donations I gave to the Salvation Army to help the less fortunate was spent on scratchcards in attempt to win a million.

Yes I would like to live the lives on some of them. No worries about the wolf knocking on the door as the next payment coming in will pay that.

My income including pensions since March. ZERO

Sorry this is day 24 of working in a shitty . unheated crap hole trying to make it habitable again after the tenant was given a nice new warm house so she could sublet it again. Yes spent an hour on the phone today trying to get gas and electric under control after her debts were not paid to those utilities and my workers twiddled their thumbs so we could get gas and electric certificates on the property.
Oh and yes she was given a nice new Astra as a mobility car when she didn't have a driving licence. That was used by all and sundry until her friend who also didn't have a licence piled into 3 cars at Tescos. It was taken away from her so now she admits she has no insurance on the vehicle she drives.

Maybe I should advise landlords to stop buying property and buy scratch cards ? At least they might win something without standing in front of a judge.

Yes Bob, down to the level of using logic. As I said I can tell from your posts you are both well educated and can use a computer. I may be too stupid but I cannot think of single disability that prevents someone as well educated and computer literate as you from holding down a job using those abilities. Come clean....you just don’t like working if someone else will work to support you.

You're probably not thick exactly, just ignorant of the many weird and wonderful impediments to work.

Imoediments to work. Err, bone idleness, laziness, desire to ride on someone else’s back,work shyness?
You are computer literate and not a "special needs due to IQ" person as mentioned above so I can only assume you are mentally disabled in which case I am dreadfully sorry otherwise I think you are being selfish and are taking money from people who really cant work (I know people too dim to use language and computers like you in "sheltered employment" doing things like picking up litter and you wish to tell me that you are incapable of using your very evident skills to support yourself?) You can read, write and type as proven above but would rather subsist on the taxes paid by someone in sheltered employment? Really?

Keep at it, I'm sure you'll get there eventually.

Coming away from the personal attack on Bob !!

National Insurance was set up to provide a safety net.

Notice the word insurance and in order to get insurance you have to pay a premium. So tell me how people who have never done a days work in their lives and are probably third generation of families who have not put anything in get to draw on that insurance.

Every tenant I have housed who has been on DHSS has been healthier than me !!

@Bob I would not worry about @andrewa or anything he has to say, you see what @andrewa is doing is bringing out his own dissatisfaction with who he is and reflecting that on you.

I have a brother in law who was injured and cannot work, he has done so much in his time, served his country, setup two businesses employing others, worked for others for 10 years, earned over £10k a month and paid nearly £7k deductions in same months.

I have asked him some pretty deep questions about how he is adapting and he told me he would rather be dead. He has a major depression because he is never going to be able to recover or do the things we all take for granted.

He told me that the worst thing for him was having to claim from the State, the 57 page form and the medical forced him to face his disability, before that he had hope. We all know about the death stats, that is the 65,000 extra people that the ConGov killed. Yes Cameron lied to the House of commons over the stats, said they did not exist, but DWP had already told ICO they did exist. Later after some massaging, date splicing and missing data the figures came out and people talk about Saddam Hussein gassing 5000 kurds, that is nothing compared to Ian "call me Duncan" Smith's policies!

My brother in law is as computer literate as you Bob (actually way more) and so bloody capable, he walks with aids and he told me the day he has to go in a wheelchair is the day he tops himself.

He would like to be able to work, in fact if he could he would start another business, just working from home, but he is unable to work.

We discussed it and having employed others he explained it very well, he asked me

What is a Job? Define it?

Whether Self Employed or Employed, he said it was this:

A job requires that you complete a defined task or series of tasks, to a certain specification and quality, in a reasonable period of time.

He and a lot of other people can't do it, now we can pay them £2 an hour and make them feel even worse about themselves or we can help them perhaps volunteer in whatever capacity they can.

He can do about 20m at the computer; maybe 30m if he pushes himself, he then needs about 2 to 3 hours to recover.

With his meds he can't think straight, they make him a zombie, he can't drive, can't use a PC, can't remember what he us supposed to be doing. I looked up these drugs and these are their side effects.

So without the drugs he is in too much pain and with the drugs he is still in pain but spaced out.

Having been in the elite of fitness, run double marathons, triathlon and the like he figured he would be able to fix this. He parked his car in the closest free car park he could find, forced himself to get to the library (as a place of work), took about an hour with strategic stops along the way. When he got there he was in so much pain he has to sit on their sofa for about 3 hours. He browsed the web for a bit then made his way back. He was expecting it would get easier, it didn't in fact it made his injuries worse.

Now if you were to meet him you would think he could do something, but the most basic things that we do every day are a struggle for him.

He refuses to claim PIP and survives on under £500 a month, he volunteers where he can because he can't commit to doing something at a regular or specific time as he never knows from one day to the next how bad it will be and he hates to let people down.

We discussed his depression and he has it all planned out, he said he has achieved more than most men of his age have done. He knows he can't face the potential of 20 more years of this. He lost his family, his home, his work and can’t afford anything that may give him some pleasure. He still has a massive sense of self-discipline but he is not living up to his own expectations.

His first plan was to use very sharp knives and a heavy but small item so he did not have to use his limited strength to get them in; he had other knives for key arteries in neck and legs if the first one left him conscious. He plans on taking meds first that he had after surgery to dampen the pain.

He also considered just pills, the ones he has would do the job, but both of these left him with a problem; the certainty of success in his task. He knew it would be a great dishonour to his family so he had to think of a way that would save them that.

Finally he came up with a place in the town where he lives, there is a hill where the lorries go a bit too fast, there is a crossing and it would all be considered an accident. So no loss of honour for those left behind.

He is under treatment from Adult Mental Health, he has had as many surgeries as he can, is now getting day procedures on specific areas. The funny thing is that he hates himself more than the likes of @andrewa hate people like him.

@Bob the problem with the likes of @andrewa is that he is judgmental, it is not his fault, you see like a lot of people in this country he has been programmed by the newspapers and media.

Every day we are told who to hate, who to blame, Monday is it single mums on benefits, Tuesday it is eastern Europeans, Wednesday the disabled, Thursday any benefit claimant and Friday the Muslims..

You can hate anyone but do not hate the people that caused the crisis this Country is in; the government, the politicians, finance industry that created non-existent products and gambled all of our money so we all going up a treadmill going down.

We see this the world over, Trump won because he gave them someone to hate and he said he would change things like Obamacare which cost them money.

What idiots like @andrewa have never done is walk a mile in the shoes of those he wants to admonish. He is lucky he has a brain and the capability to do better than "these people" that he hates so much.

The rank hypocrisy of the likes of @andrewa is that he is on benefits as are the majority of people in this country, starting with the biggest benefit claimant family, the royals. Yes they have their "duty" but there is a reason they and other wealthy people live 20 years longer on average than those at the bottom of the scale in the UK.

@andrewa will get tax breaks, child benefit if he has kids, he will have a few fiddles of his own, perhaps pays people in cash to get a better price or no vat.

Now working and volunteering with people on benefits I see all sorts, some have fear of trying because they have been knocked down so many times. Some are ex-cons who are completely cut off from society, so why would they respect it or want to be part of it.

Some see the benefit trap; they are below the breadline so they get housing benefit and Council Tax credit, over 70% of these claimants work, they do shit shoveling jobs and get no real respect for that. They do zero hours contracts, go to work, get paid nothing, but are not allowed to work for anyone else. Modern day slavery.

Now as soon as they cross the level someone on JSA gets there is a precipice, it is effectively an 85% tax, they lose Council Tax credit and are suddenly faced with a £1800 to £2500 bill. Their HB is reduced, so they can't pay their rent and they bring home less money than they had plus they do not get the money they earned for a month and can't afford the cost of travel to work.

Now as much as @andrewa derides them, they can do the maths; they can work out they are worse off, it is not that they do not want to work, it is that they can't afford to or they lose their home.

The likes of @andrewa complain because they have a smartphone or a flat screen tv, the fucking bastards, how dare they take up a special offer, buy a cheap one off ebay or pick up a TV off Freecycle? These motherfuckers should have nothing, they should “lick road clean wit tongue”.

Now you see in the paper the benefits cap and we hear "yes reduce it further" but the benefits cap is a Landlord cap, it really is social cleansing. This concept that "we are paying their benefits" is bollocks, 99% of people are not going to be paying enough tax and NI to cover what they take from the system.

So we kick these people out of the relatively low rent home they have lived in for 10 years, rip their children out of school and send the family to armpits of the UK, they have no local family support and no childcare, their kids lose all their friends, they are all on the scrapheap. But hey, at least they are not living in Islington and that may free up a place for a politician.

Now I would not mind a bit if austerity if the ConGov could actually show they reduced spending, but no, they started with £670bn and got us close to a trillion. Osborne (who has a £7m trust fund from his dad's avoidance of tax AKA Osbourne and Little) created the Office of Budget Responsibility, he created 30 targets and they would independently check on him. HE FAILED 29 OF THEM.

No wonder they were called the Nasty Party, the bedroom tax did not save a penny, the so called discretionary payments are limited to 16 weeks max and fuck it, let's charge that COPD patient for the 2nd bedroom that houses their breathing system. Oh and let's take a £2bn from the disabled and pay it to reduce corporation tax and CGT.

Whatever their rosette colour we see politicians being self-serving, funny how so many of them get non-exec director roles. Some wait until they have finished their MP salary, expenses and freebie swilling careers. Well I suppose if you were instrumental in the privatisation of the Water Industry it makes sense that you would get a non-exec directorship with a water company, no nothing at all wrong with that. Oh and they have the gold plated pension that MP’s get along with the 6 month redundancy package. We saw with their expenses that they were fiddling £6m a year, so we now spend £11m a year for IPSA and still we find them renting each other’s homes to each other so they can claim allowance from us. IPSA even recommended we increase their salaries, they have increased salary by £40,000 since 1996, pattern seems to be a huge increase (£9k in 1996) then one or two K for a bit then £3k here and there and £6.9k in 2015. That is before their “benefits”.

We saw Blair not pay CG tax on his primary residence because he claimed he lived at 11 downing street. He setup a trust fund for his kids managed by a school mate lawyer firm, to buy property when they went to Uni. He and his wife own more than 20 properties worth £27m and so what; they are using their skills to earn what they can in the system, just like the people on benefits in the daily fail use "the system", albeit of a far different scale. Do we blame the person or the system?

We see vofafone evade £6m and get away with paying just £2m, (how many landlords would get away with that?), then they sold stake in Verizon and avoided tax on over £83m.

It costs just £2k to create an offshore structure to avoid/evade tax, so anyone earning more than £15k definitely gets a payback, it will not be long before we see self-employed people doing this en masse, if you can’t beat em join em.

So with so many people feeling excluded why would they care for a society that does not reward them for trying, especially when they see the wealth of others.

One might say that the so call "scum" are smart for seeing the game is rigged and refusing to play hamster.

Now I do not like “scum” any more than the next person, but scum comes in many forms, there are scum who claim benefits, but that does not mean that all people who claim benefits are scum. No more than scum landlords mean that all landlords are scum.

Who the fuck is @andrewa or anyone else to Judge? I bet if I took his life apart I could shame him in some way to the papers.

Where will it end?

I mean let’s start with people who smoke, they are killing themselves anyway, let’s put something in cigarettes to kill em off in a year, it will save the NHS billions.

While we are on people that self-harm, let’s kill off all the fat people, people that participate in risky behaviour, oh and let’s spike the HIV cocktail and kill them off.

We definitely need to kill off anyone who takes any sort of drugs and execute anyone who participates in the supply of drugs at any level.

Prisons are a huge burden, let’s bring in a 3x and you get life and let’s kill off the lifers, it will be cheaper.

I am feeling better already, where next?

What about those old people, they have had their day, over 65% of welfare costs are on the silver tops, let’s kill them off, bit of morphine and they will at least go peacefully.

Now those disabled, they must have a really hard life, they can go and it will save a lot. We could do the disabled kids too, much easier for the parents to have a bereavement they can get over in time rather than a lifetime of care obligations.

Well things will be better, but what about those immigrants, we could send them home but we could have them discreetly disappear, who would complain, who would know?

After that there are the Muslims, very easy to identify and let’s face it they are all extremists or paedo’s following a book that says rape anyone not in a Hijab.

Now if we take out the brown people we can take out the black, Chinese and definitely the French, come to think of it, any bloody foreigners can be got rid of.

So we still have a way to go, yes we can go after the illiterate, anyone who can’t get 142 on an 11 plus paper (whether child or adult), in fact before the war we had this thing called eugenics, we can start that back up.

Once we have killed off all the ignorant or uneducated we can move onto the ugly, let’s face it they can’t be happy, we would be doing them a favour.

It follows that anyone wearing glasses or contact lenses to go next.

After that people with no fashion sense or who wear smelly underwear.

Then there are Volvo drivers oh and yes we can kill off cyclists, fucking idiots on the road. Instead of having them post their stupid videos on YouTube, let’s pay drivers to run them down and post those videos, I feel a remake of death race 2000 coming on.

By this time things will be on the up, still we can go after people with bad breath and introduce a nominations system of individual targeting of people just for being cunts.

In this new small society we will not really need MP’s so we can have a lot of fun killing them off, followed by House of Lords and anyone who is a lord for that matter. Ex-MP to go too.

After that I think we need to solve the housing crisis, answer is simple, kill off all landlords and their properties default to the people living on them. Their own homes go to social housing, their families made homeless.

After that we introduce a youth movement, to weed out anybody who might become one of the above groups, plump kids, the short sighted and the nerds.

Yes that is where hating takes us, now we can all be judgmental, but what gives you the fucking right @andrewa? Nothing, you are just pathetic and taking out your own impotence on someone else who is not as fortunate as you. We call people like you trolls

It would take nothing to wipe you and your seed from the earth, nobody would miss you or anything you did in your sad life, so be careful what you wish for.

Wow. Bravo, Rick.

Dear Landlord,

Thank you so much for your website, comment section, and your helpful information. It seems that the Landlord of the Universe was looking after me and I have found a solution for window condensation that has plagued me for two years! Praise the "Land" Lord!

The page I linked to your site (some time ago) is on my seriouslyscarborough.uk/opinion.htm page. I am not looking for publicity; just want you to know that I believe in your almighty works, so to speak.

As a prelude, imagine not having any heat or hot water two Xmas holiday periods... yes, more than 10 days in freezing cold weather, and being elderly, disabled, housebound, and isolated. Well, the first year took 2 months to fix the aged boiler. This past Christmas, problem seemed to be the same, but not only no heat or hot water. NOW, no electricity! Property management company could not care less and did not answer an email or voice messages til 4th January! Not very nice.

Boiler man came out twice, and problem seemed to rectify itself. He could find no problem. Well, next time everything cut off, he discovered that the oven and boiler were on the same circuit. The electrical box/plug behind the oven was rusted out and that was what kept turning the electrics off! I ihad reported damp from that entire wall in my first inventory, and each time a person came to "check on the state of the property" and even to repair people. No one cared. I sent photos of a lot of rain dripping down the kitchen windows when there was guttering immediately above the windows. No one cared!

It transpired that the entire roof of the kitchen / bathroom extension is rotten! etc, etc, etc.

Well, despite the fact that I was given an A+ efficiency certificate for the flat when I moved in, stating that all windows were double-glazed, indeed, the front, aging, sash windows with rotten wood (my bedroom) always have condensation all year round. I am responsible to look after this situation in my TA. I bought thermal curtains, but they do not help. The Scottish govt website suggestion to use condensation strips was a damp squib as there is no promise they work, after you have gone to the trouble to find and buy them.

I found a solution for window condensation that you might want to share with your visitors. The windows had venetian blinds which seemed oblivious to my attempts to keep the windows fog-free. I realised that they might be the problem! I raised them above the level of the bottom window, to find no signs of condensation ever since! The air flow seems important to the solution. Hope this helps someone.

thank you again,

your admirer, Courtney xxooxx

@Rick

Sorry not to reply quickly but I have been busy working hard (as one does unless you are like Bob) doing maintenance on two of my rental properties - leaky roof and removing feminine hygiene products/wetwipes a tenant had disposed of in the magic white disappearing chair . I bet calling people names won all your playground arguments in primary school but it doesn’t if you argue with grown ups. Being an adult I will not be lowering myself to your level though I think accusing someone you have never met of thinking or behaving like Adolf Hitler is a possible sign of mental illness, you should have yourself checked out before it gets worse and you actually physically hurt someone you disagree with instead of just comparing them and their thought processes to a genocidal mass murderer responsible for the death of millions.

My apologies to the "landlord" of this site for behaving in an old womanly fashion but as a landlord myself having had myself described as a parasite for being such by some of those on this site (not necessarily BOB)in receipt of benefits grates a little. Parasites drain the life force of an organization or person giving nothing in return (except maybe malaria, dengue fever etc) whilst symbiotes (like your intestinal flora helping you digest food) or landlords actually contribute something to the organization they subsist from.

@ Bob,

Steven Hawkins, physically disabled, very intelligent, supports himself.
Downs syndrome toilet cleaner and floor sweeper at Birmingham International, not terribly intelligent but not physically disabled, supports himself with assistance from the state through a home and in sheltered employment - I begrudge him not a penny.
My stone deaf friend, physiotherapist, supports herself, jokes being deaf means she doesn’t have to listen to her victims screaming, doesn’t consider herself disabled just unable to listen to music.
Blind friend, runs a household and family quite comfortably thank you, excellent housewife and mother, supported by husband but doesn’t claim benefits as she thinks they should go to people who really need them and she manages quite well thank you. Her children wear interesting colour combinations if their dad doesn’t see them.
Blind acquaintance, supports herself, types theses, reports etc from audio.
I believe the RAF accepted people without legs to fly Spitfires and become aces, the one I am aware of supported himself on his return to civilian life.
Thalidomide baby, flipper arms, supports herself, does computer data capture.

Bob, if you are worse off than the above please accept my humble apologies, if you are not then how do you justify accepting money from them or people like them and applauding people like Rick?

@Rick,
You are right about the media picking up one thing in my past, according to the UK legal system I should possibly be sharing a cell with Royal Marine sergeant Blackman, though we would be court martialed if when we wounded someone with the first round we disobeyed orders and didn’t try and kill both them and the medical personnel helping them with subsequent rounds.

@andrewa

I think it is you who has failed the intellectual argument above.

You are clearly a person who needs to walk a mile in the shoes of others to understand.

Life has a way of giving you what you need, perhaps a car accident or degenerative disease is in your future, I really hope so.

I would go do some volunteering for disabled and homeless charities; it will enrich your soul.

The problem with ignorant cunts like you andrewa is that all you can do is bully (as you have done with Bob) or repeat the daily mail headlines.

You think this is YOUR money, it is not, I agree with Rick that you and your family probably cost the state more than you paid in. He is right about the over 65% welfare figure being the elderly. In fact long term benefits are a meaningless fraction when compared to all the other public spending.

Picking on groups makes the public feel better about their own struggle; the bedroom tax is a fine example, did not save a penny or solve the actual issue which was shortage of housing.

One of the charities I support has 85% of its beneficiaries unable to find work, the other 15% are given shit jobs yet they could do way more. BUT we can't play off one group against another, or say this group do this so that group should be able to do that. As for the examples you cite, I have seen those same examples in the paper, so it seems you do not have this eclectic group of disabled "friend" but just regurgitate tripe you read.

I like Ricks "kill em all" analogy, but maybe we just need to kill people like you, we need another demographic, not all Landlords!!!

Taking Bob and his situation out of the equation.

Nearly all my tenants have been DHSS and most of them have claimed some sort of disability or disability for their kids.

For goodness sake I am 67. Ive had a heart attack. Ive has a operation to prevent mini strokes . My girlfriend is disabled on benefits.

I can honestly say with the exception of one tenant that every one of them has either been working on the side or has been in better health than me.

They are not the ones working cleaning up the shit out of a garden because I evicted her and her 2 carers (yes 2 carers who were working full time and not listed on the tenancy agreement). I didn't evict her because of any reason other than I need to sell the house in order to live. (my great state pension is £115 per week and I cannot sell the house because it is in a terrible state)

Disabled. ??? She went to Spain twice last year chasing some man she fancied abandoning her 3 kids to their respective fathers until it all went wrong. That left me with a property with 2 carers who shouldn't be there claiming carers allowance and housing benefit paying the rent.

Report it?? NOBODY listens. Neighbours now tell me stories that would take weeks to write and read like a soap opera.

Yes genuine people need help. Thats what the safety net is for. But where is my safety net? A megre pension with no top up because I am fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough to be a landlord) . I struggled to build up my portfolio giving up most of the nice things in life like pubs, meals out, holidays .

Yes my safety net was a health service that saved my life but even now I wait ages to see a doctor if I need to.I'm not a priority apparently.

What I am gratefull for is the fact that I can repair houses and my mind is still fairly alert but I do resent paying full council tax whilst repairing a DHSS tenants house whilst they go shopping in their nice new motability car having been given a nice shiny new house after destroying my property.

@ David

As I obviously cannot compete with your erudite childish and oh so intelligent argument of calling me a cunt I will not. As to wishing a car accident or degenerative disease on someone else? You must make your parents SO proud of the way they raised you to be such an evil minded and nasty person. For your information I and my immediate family have received not one penny of benefits. I sympathize with Nige and his problems however and suspect the reason Bob has not disclosed his "disability" is the likelihood that if he did (this being the internet) there would follow a deluge of replies stating they have the same or even worse affliction but do noy find it necessary to ride upon the backs of others, some of whom might have even worse "disabilities".

@andrewa

Funny how bullies do not like getting some of their own treatment!

Intelligent arguments have been given but you ignore them, all you do is pick on someone less able than yourself, so I put you in your place and yes the word is cunt. Actually cunt may not be appropriate, they do at least give pleasure some of the time.

My parents are long dead but they taught me to stand up for those less fortunate than myself and to step in and attack bullies like you. I have done it in the street, I have done it to a gangs beating up a policeman, to some travellers beating up a black man who was a manager at McD. I live by my values, I have helped a plethora of Landlords and tenants alike on here.

You are of course lying when you say that none of you or your family have claimed, it just shows how ignorant you are of how finances of a country work. Your family have used the NHS and had treatment worth many times you NI contributions, they have claimed pension, child benefit is paid to parents of children regardless of means. Tax credits are a benefit, avoiding tax by paying dividends is taking a benefit, shit the biggest benefit takers are the Royal family and their hangers on.

It must be nice for a father like Price William to decide he only wants to work 20 hours a week because this is a time he does not want to miss with his kids.

I too sympathise with Nige, but that does not mean I need to bully Bob, the internet is a publishing platform, he is entitled to his privacy.

He does not have to answer to a troll like you.

Whatever Bob's disability is it is measured by professionals, not cunt trolls like you who would just denigrate him no matter what disability he has.

There is a saying that you have to walk a mile in another man's shoes before you can comment.

As you have shown yourself to be a vindictive cunt troll then YES, I really hope that Karma deals you cards where you can be put in those shoes, a car accident, Huntingdon’s or Parkinson’s disease, would be good. Maybe Motor Neurone, but probably a bit too fast degeneration for scum like you.

Actually for the likes of you I think it would be best for you to just lose all of your assets through mismanagement, lose your income, your lovely family. To find yourself homeless, to be refused accommodation because the local authority has no duty of care to you. For you to be pissed on as a homeless person, to have your health fall to such a level from living on the street that you do finally become so vulnerable that you finally get put into temporary accommodation. I would like to then be there when you have lost all your dignity and to make a decision on your case. I would treat you as you treat others.

I would agree with Bob except for one point.
If I can give an example.
My doctor,a professional, questioned which drugs I an given (on the NHS)because brand A was more expensive than brand B.
The reason is that this professional is questioned as to the cost as I believe GPs are responsible for drug expenditure.

When somebody is granted status as having a problem and the money falls on another budget pot then its easy for the doc to pass on the responsibility.

New measures have taken some of this responsibility away from doctors to centres of assessment.

I have heard of many cases where 'disabled' status has been reduced as a result of this lately as the scroungers are being caught out.

There are few mechanisms to report disabled fraud. I know of actual cases where people have been filmed climbing trees to cut them and they still claim the people carrier.

One of my neighbours claimed carers allowance to look after her kid with asthma. She didn't work in the first place and would have cared for her kid anyway but her attitude was if its available I'm going to have it.

My cousin worked for an insurance company doing investigations. They had 2 vans. One which they parked outside the claimants house with INVESTIGATIONS written all over it. The other with the video was around the corner. Thats because the disability was only evident whilst somebody was watching.

Every one of my DHSS tenants has had a child certified with.......... to get additional benefits.

Yes we have a system but it has lots of flaws. Why is it that when disabled benefits are going to be cut it is only people in wheelchairs being shown ?

There are far to many 'benefits' that can be claimed which people do not even know are available. I can get free gas an electric up to £150 or home insulation if I fit one of a number of benefits. One of them being pension credit. I don't get pension credit because my employer at the time took money away from me !!My friends get it because they spent it with a brewery.

Ah well I am just glad that at my age I am still fit enough to recondition a house let to tenants who claimed twice as much in benefits as I earned as a landlord and they were half my age.

As a postscript the scroungers are being caught. My last one went from £465 a week to £120.

Many a happy hour is spent reading you blog,and the comments from other contributors. Invigorating as perusal of your web site is, I often feel the need to have some background music playing. To this aim i am selective in my choice, choosing a track sympathetic to the particular tale I am reading. A favorite whilst reading of a less than perfect landlords is an old Genesis track. "get em out by Friday" Lyrics which portray the tenant's point of view in the bad old days of the 70's housing crisis.

I wonder if contributors would occasionally care to lighten the gloom contained in their reports of the various attributes of being a landlord,by suggesting a particular song / tune to better help the reader to feel the depth of the comment.

It gets harder to vet tenants. But there is no substitute for face to face meetings.
As bellend twunty letting agents demand upwards of two grand to find tenants, forums like this with sage advice become even more valuable. At least three of the landlord’s tips were so helpful to me this week.

@Mrsmumbles

There should be a way that tenants are able to also talk to prospective tenants about issues in the house due to rogue landlords, without fearing eviction.

Too many times, tenants don't want to tell prospective tenants the truth, because they fear a section 21 notice coming their way.

@ Waqas,
Your logic is a bit skewed. Why would they fear a section 21 as the reason the landlord is looking for new tenants is because the old ones are leaving for one reason or another.
As a landlord I am happy for prospective tenants to interview previous tenants and supply the contact numbers after asking the previous tenants permission. I check up on prospective tenants most thoroughly so why should I object to tenants checking up on me?

@Andrewa Did you read what I said? I wasn't talking about passing details on, but rather that tenants (in HMOs) that aren't leaving, don't want to also risk eviction by telling the truth.

You might well be a good landlord though there are certainly rogue landlords about.

@Waqas,
The only reason for tenants to fear eviction in that case would be because their landlord is providing excellent value for money and is a good landlord.
Simple economics!
Build a better mousetrap etc.

@Andrewa

Again, did you read what I said? It isn't about landlords providing "value for money and is a good landlord" which tbh, let's face it, is rarely true.

People don't want to tell prospective tenants in HMOs about bad landlords because they fear eviction.