Rogue tenants exposed on ITV Tonight

Landlord Action’s founder, Paul Shamplina, will be heavily appearing on ITV Tonight’s programme ‘Nightmare Tenants’ on Thursday 26th August at 7.30pm.

Related topics:  Specialist Lending
Millie Dyson
17th August 2010
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Paul will not only be commenting on a number of ongoing cases where landlords are owed thousands of pounds relating to unpaid rent but will also be trying to expose these ‘rogue’ tenants in front of the camera to the nation.

The programme is set to highlight some of the financial issues that landlords can experience when they rent their property out to a nightmare tenant, and will be mainly doing so by using three cases that Landlord Action are currently acting on, including their biggest rent arrears case to date.

With rent arrears exceeding £85,000, Landlord Action started the eviction process on behalf of landlady Vanessa Rhodes back in April to ensure tenants were vacated from her property in Putney Wharf.

Having been through the correct procedures, Landlord Action received a seven day possession order and had applied for an eviction date, which was set for the 6th August. With the client now in possession of the property, on filming Paul is shown serving the court order and bankruptcy documents.

Of any calculation, rent arrears are an increasingly common problem for Landlord Action.

Paul comments:

“From dealing with thousands of cases over our ten years of trading we have seen a huge increase in the last 18 months of landlords instructing us to carry out an eviction on their tenants who have not been paying the rent.

"This is mainly due to the recession as we have seen more amateur landlords enter the market who may not have the knowledge about buy-to-let and have therefore not done their tenant checks properly, opening themselves up to these potential problems.”

As well as this, Paul says that there are problems with regards to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) system with tenants keeping the rent:

“Under current laws payments are made direct to the tenant and we have also seen a rise in possession actions against tenants who have withheld rent and not passed it on to the landlord.”

Paul has therefore also been filmed undertaking two evictions on LHA tenants who owe thousands of pounds. The first eviction was for landlord Mr Parmar on his property in Mitcham, Surrey. Paul is shown along with a professional locksmith and a bailiff being interviewed outside the residence before trying to undertake procedures.

However, wise to the fact that something was going on the tenant had left the property the day before. Exposed on the next eviction though is a tenant who is still in the property.

On arrival, although the tenant wouldn’t leave at first they were eventually talked out by the bailiffs only to up and flee, leaving all personal belongings behind.

Paul says:

“Unfortunately, some cases can be an example of a tenant having their own problems and it can be upsetting to see, as was the situation with this last case.”

The programme also draws attention to a closed case where after the landlord had taken back possession of their property they discovered that the tenant had actually stolen the conservatory. This is to underline an extraordinary situation that has happened to one innocent landlord.
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