Tenant left the house in bad shape

Need advice regarding a tenant who moved out of my rented house and left it in a very bad shape: broken furniture, broken window, very dirty, rooms full of rubbish (literally full).

And of course, no rent paid for the last 2 months.

How do I move forward with fixing and cleaning (besides keeping a record of any expenses)?

Thanks!

Have you a deposit?

deposit = one month rent

I see from your history this is a bigger problem for you being abroad than most.

Is now the time to tell the bank to take it?

You will get nothing from the tenant and any advice on here to the contrary would be wrong. If you want to continue as a landlord you are going to have to pay out to fix it.

Who told you the damage? Do you have an agent? Have you an idea how much it will cost to fix.

It's urgent you get the rubbish out, a skip would be your first port of call as you've mentioned broken furniture and rooms stuffed with rubbish.

You have my sympathies as I've been through some of this.

You can now totally write off your wear and tear on the unusable furniture.

PRTB

To cover yourself, tenants who do this play the system.

-Take pictures.
-Take a PRTB case, for the record, to warn other landlords, to prevent them claiming against you for illegal eviction, I kid you not etc
-Send emails about the damage to them now asking them to pay = a record of what they did, just in case.

Thanks Bronte. I'm no longer living abroad. Will take your advice.

Always thought pictures/evaluation should be by an independent third party for legal purposes.

Lesson learned: when tenant is not answering phone/requests to view the property, and not asking for repairs, they're likely hiding something.

You must visit the property regularly, especially at the beginning, and you must vet new tenants thoroughly.