The Pain of Arrears (Part 2)

In The Pain Caused by Arrears (Part 1) I related the story of Edith who was struggling with arrears, desperate to get her house back and visibly feeling the stress and strain.

Landlords react in different ways and a couple of months before meeting Edith I met another landlord, Marsha, who had a similar experience but reacted very differently. Her tenant had stopped paying rent and after 6 months she ignored the advice of her agents and took matters into her own hands…….

Marsha’s Story

‘I went round there Rachel’ she said ‘I knocked on the door, he wasn’t in, so I phoned him. I said –

“Are you going to pay me this month? No? Then you’re not living in MY flat anymore!”’.

She let herself in, bundled all his things into black bags and piled them in the front garden. <Yes, really!>

My colleague Samantha and I looked at each other amazed, our mouths opening and closing like goldfish – had this petite unassuming lady really done something so extreme?! ‘Yes I did!’ she declared indignantly ‘He was in my flat and he wasn’t paying! He had a job! He was getting money from the Council and he was keeping it! KEEPING IT!’ By now her arms were waving around wildly as she was clearly reliving the nightmare.

Now I’ve met a few landlords who have felt like hurling their tenant’s belongings into the street and who’ve had to be persuaded that ‘maybe that’s not the best thing to do in the long run’ but I’d never met one who’d actually done it and Marsha just seemed so unlikely!

She composed herself and continued ‘I called him again – “Come and get your things from my garden” and then I phoned the police’.

The long arm of the law

Wow! Now obviously Marsha had broken the law, so not only did this not solve her problems it actually made them worse. However, when she told me the full story I could understand her desperation. She’d bought the flat earlier that year specifically to let out as a long term investment. It was a stretch, she’d used all her savings to pay the deposit and while her job paid for the mortgage on her home it didn’t cover the mortgage on the flat.

When the rent stopped coming in, she couldn’t pay the mortgage. The bank were on her back, she was heavily in debt, her agent kept telling her that there was a procedure to follow (although I’m not sure what was taking 6 months!!), and she, like Edith, just wanted the whole thing to be over.

Happy ending?

The tenant was rehoused and Marsha ended up in court. There was no happy ending for her, she was fined nearly £4,000 and voluntarily handed the keys to the bank. I didn’t ask how much they sold the flat for or whether she ended up owing them even more money but somehow several years later she’s trying again and renting out her own home, this time with rent guarantee cover!