Key Post Who wants to be a landlord?

I have always reckoned you would have to be of a certain disposition to be a landlord. While most tenants are grand and cause no hassle, the few who do would wreck my head. It would be a good idea to list out the posts where landlords have problems just so that potential property investors appreciate the risks. My new favourite problem is

My house is being used as a brothel!

Good thread to start. He're my story:

Bought in 2006, thought it was a great investment - cashflow projection looked good. Place consisted of 3bed house and 2-bed annex. In the last 3 years, have had the following issues:

Piping issues in kitchen of main house - required consevatory floor to be dug up, piping replaced, kitchen replaced (all waste had been seeping under the concrete floor of conservatory rather than out the drain). Took about 1 month to fix, not to mention price - given the level of sediment, must have been going on for years
heating issues in main house
Floor collapse in kitchen of main house (leak from washing machine went undetected by tenants, rotted floorboards and joists). All needed replacing and we lost the tenants as a result. Again big cost involved as kitchen need to be removed to allow access, floors ripped up etc
In the annex, we had some initial work to make it habitable....
In the last year alone, the roof developed a leak (problem with the flashing). Tenants informed us only when the upstairs bathroom had almost collapsed, on the Friday of a bank holiday. Then was reluctant to let us gt someone in that weekend to sort it out (because he wanted to be left alone to watch a Grand Prix!) Was fixed quickly, but expensively.
Two months after that debacle, one of the shower feed pipes sprung a leak, sending water in between ceiling and internal walls. Again a long weekend... This time the tenant would not allow access for it to be addressed, despite complaining! My wife went up to see him to let him know that we had to address the problem - tenant got agressive and my wife had to run out of the place to get away from him - we had to report to the guards.
Got tenants out (anti-social behaviour) and had to spend about 30k fixing up the place.
New leak in main house has occurred in the last few weeks, so all flashing is being replaced for peace of mind...
Overall in the last 3 years we've had unexpected expenses of over 50k... and all the hassle of dealing with tenants....rent reduction of 600 per month and knowing that we're in negative equity of approx 100k on our original purchase price of 379k!

On the plus side.....even though rent is down a lot etc, the mortgage is a tracker so in steady state (not that we've hit that yet!), the rent covers capital and interest. So we can afford to hang on to it, (once no more surprises!)

Certainly as Brendan said, no job for the fainthearted!!

I've been a landlord for nearly 5 years.
The tenants I can handle.
But what REALLY does my head in is trying to get workmen to come and fix things.

Bad enough in your own house...but at least you know you are trying to get it sorted. But I feel tenants think I'm taking the mickey that the workmen haven't shown up etc.

Heres mine

House in negative equity, rent doesn't cover the mortgage, poor tenants that don't always pay rent and poor area for renting.

Other than that its great!

Tenant changed my name on the ESB bill

Tenant not paying rent

A lot of these issues can be attributed to inexperience or bad luck. The threads I find painful to read are where the numbers quite clearly don't stack up. Blue sky, and sometimes voodoo, economics being used to justify very big financial decisions.

Whilst it's very easy to be smart after the fact some of the older threads in this category really show how we got to where we are and why so many people are now stuck in really horrendous financial positions.

Have an investment property but rent is falling short by €170/mth to cover my costs.

Brendan said:

I have always reckoned you would have to be of a certain disposition to be a landlord...

Click to expand...

I agree, but it is an issue that should be viewed from both sides -- not just dealing with difficulties with tenants and property maintenance, but also from the point of view of treating tenants properly. There are probably as many stories out there about bad landlords as about bad tenants.

Brendan said:

I have always reckoned you would have to be of a certain disposition to be a landlord....

Click to expand...

So true.

Biggiest problem I see they don't treat it like a business. They get emotionally involved when they shouldn't.This is especially true when people get left rented property and didn't intentionally set out to be a landlord. I get dragged into help a close family member with their few rentals properties and its a real pain. I got them to use a letting agency and its been much easier. Originally I advised them to get rid of them, but they didn't and theres no much point now. So the letting agency was the next best thing.

Rented apartment got flooded

Problem with letting agent

Letting agent won’t pass on the rent or the contracts

Do I have to find alternative accommodation for tenants because house is unusable due to fire?

Tenant giving one day notice of leaving. Can I keep deposit?

Tenant left without paying waste charges. Who is liable?

What if ESB bill is not paid by tenants?


I am going mad with tenants in arrears

Tenant frequently late with rent

Tenant wants to leave because property is damp

HSE demands fire safety certificate

Neighbours say that my tenants are noisy

Tenant looking for new bed

Can I take a former tenant to court for arrears?

Apartment damaged by water and tenants have moved out

Tenants withholding rent due to heating problem

Tenants want a new iron. Is this a slippery slope?

Tenant chopped down exotic tree

Crazy neighbours are driving my tenants away

Tenant, won’t pay rent, simply refuses to move out.

How do I evict tenants?

Departing tenant left stuff behind. How long do I keep it for?

Problem tenants – can I just change the locks?

Tenants throw party to 4pm - 40+ cars parked all over estate, Gardai can do nothing except request them to be a little quieter (Garda says that all they can do, the tenants could have told him to f"""" Off if they wanted to as its private property)

Neighbours unhappy

You woudl if you can get a tenant like me.

I gave notice to my landlord last week so he called last night to finalise keys etc.

He told me I was the best tenant he ever had (20 years) and gave me 2 bottles of wine and a small box of Roses. I 'd get the same every christmas.

Now he wanted me to weed the small patio area and wash the windows when I moved in first. I told him I wasn't any good at either of those jobs (I cannot clean windows without streaks) so he use to send a man once or twice a year to do that.

Last week I paid the ESB twice (its in his name) so not only is it to date, its overpaid.

I had the most wonderful tenent-rent always paid on time, never looked for anything, gave us a bottle of wine when we were signing the lease, extremely polite and pleasant at all times UNTIL.........it came time to inspect the premises before he left. He had always ushered me to the sitting room whenever I called to check the house, never any need to look around as room really well maintained. Gradually as I looked around the house I suspected all was not well-from the suspiciously newly painted bedroom to the plaster falling off the chimney breast to the boards used to block up all the windows and the myriad of humidifiers around the house. Next day decided to check payment of the utilities-€3500 in arrears to ESB which was still in my name, despite being told otherwise-prompted me to do a little detective work. Sure enough there was enough spamspamspam under the furniture to have a very pleasant weekend and it didn't stop there. THe tenent had converted the upstairs of the house into a growing facility complete with grow lamps nailed to the ceilings, a constant source of water into the bedrooms to keep plants happy (and destroy all the carpets and ceilings!), adapt LCB fuseboard to facilitate increased electricity consumption (meaning it was no longer safe for use). All in all the repairs came to over €10,000 which the tenent paid as we threatened to report all details to the drug squad. There's got to be an easier way to make a few bob!

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold. No doubt about it. If only good landlords could be paired with good tenants and the riff raff could be paired with each other too!

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold. Among examples of bad tenants I have seen:-

1. Tenant fell 6 or 7 months behind in rent because he was out of work. Old-ish separated man, so Landlord was cutting a lot of slack to him. Landlord asked tenant repeatedly to apply for Supplementary Welfare allowance while out of work. Tenant repeatedly said 'I will, I will...' Landlord worried that the 'poor divil might be depressed..' Landlord eventually seized initiative and phoned Community Welfare Office to sort out some welfare assistance only to find that Tenant had been in receipt of allowance for past four years.

2. Prospective Tenants assured prospective landlord that they would receive rent allowance and that they had - that very day - spoken with (named) community welfare officer. Prospective landlord phoned C.W.O. ( mobile no. furnished by tenants) who assured Landlord all is hunky-dorey. Landlord rang back later that day on land line number (obtained from Directory) with some further query, only to find that the C.W.O. had been impersonated earlier in the day ( friend of prospective tenants) and that tenants were certainly 'known to' C.W.O.

3. Tenants got all new mattresses when they moved in. Three months later, when they left, the apartment mysteriousl had all old ratty mattresses ( Tenants brought the mattresses to their new house, and thoughtfully brought the old ones from there back to the apartment on which they were ditching their lease).

4. Problems are not all at the bottom end of the market either. I once had a case where a Tenant of a large period house and stud had removed and kept several items from the house to compensate for 'problems during the tenancy.........' Never satisfactorily resolved, but I think the items missing included an original Paul Henry painting.

I'm a landlord and also a tenant for the last year.

Our former landlords new tenants want to break the lease as they didn't realise someone commited suicide in the house 2 years ago.

Here is another one where the property is unrentable because the last tenant committed suicide.

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=166014

Since the last post in this thread, anyone who invested in 2012 has done very well.

But on the other hand, rent controls have been introduced.

I can understand someone with a cheap tracker mortgage keeping their property as an investment.

I find it hard to understand anyone else investing in property.

Brendan

I agree.
We actually have a cheap tracker, but have decided that even with that it is not worth it anymore.
We are out now because of these new rules and the potential for more shocks to come without notice, which could end up trapping us.
We have examined our options and have decided to sell and invest in a rental in Spain. We can sell the property here and with the equity buy a nice apartment in Spain.
We can do short term lets via an agency and then stay in it in the downtime and still make more money than you could in Ireland now.
Plus the most important aspect of it is that we retain control of the property at all times.

In short, we are getting out of the Irish investment, before we cant get out of it.