The last 2 years have been particularly challenging and sadly during this time many tenants have fallen into arrears. Whilst we will always do our best to work with tenants and help them to repay the debt and remain in their home, it isn’t always possible.  Sometimes the situation just becomes too serious, and we have to step in and issue possession proceedings.

 

This is where using a referencing company comes into its own. From the very beginning of the tenancy everything is provided online, documented and recorded.  The court, in any possession hearing will always require proof that everything has been provided to the tenant in the correct format and at the right time; Goodlord’s audit trail has all the information we need at the click of a button or two. Without this very valuable part of the service that Goodlord provide, we would be much less confident in guaranteeing that every case we have to take before a court would be successful. Even a single missing document will result in, at best delays and at worst, the court refusing to award the landlord possession of his property.

 

We have recently been to court to obtain possession, costs and rent arrears for a property where the tenants had lost their incomes during the pandemic and were not in a position to offer a formal repayment plan that was acceptable to the landlord.  By the time we obtained possession, the arrears alone were sitting just below £27,000!!  Add to this the court costs along with some repairs and making good that was required at the property following the departure of the tenants, and the total cost which would have been borne by the landlord was nearer to £30,000.

 

Why would we allow the arrears to get so high before stepping in? During the pandemic, all landlords were asked to give tenants a little more time than is usual to attempt to catch up; normally 2 months would be the longest we would wait.  Even once proceedings begin, the length of time it takes to get before the courts has grown, and in some cases is taking the best part of 12 months! Again, this is due to the volume of cases now going before the courts and we would hope that this will settle back down over this year.

 

During all of this time, the landlord received their rent via our Rent Guarantee cover. We were also able to use the deposit to cover the cost of the works required, so again no costs were borne by the landlord and the full costs of the legal team were also covered.

 

This does show how costs can soon escalate and for most landlords, Rent Guarantee is an absolute priority.  It’s something that we provide as part of our fully managed service and allows us to give you full peace of mind should the worst happen.