A bad tenant + bad policy cost me over £100K
A bad tenant + bad policy cost me over £100K.
I'm not here to moan too much. I'm fortunate. I worked hard all my life and was able to buy a flat in my late 20s. No help from parents, just us.
A few years ago, I became an accidental landlord after some difficulties selling the property — COVID slowdown etc. etc. You know the story.
This is where it went wrong. I let the property to a young mother of two. I thought I was doing a good thing — giving her children a safe place to live. Never raised the rent, never let a maintenance issue fester. But the clock was ticking. I only had so much time to sell to claim back higher rate SDLT on my primary home. Issued a S21 — nothing. Council called and told me they're advising the tenant to ignore it.
This was a trend. Stalled with the council, stalled with the court. Felt like the system was stacked against us — and honestly, against her too. She was stuck in limbo waiting for a council house while I bled money I didn't have.
4 years after the initial let, the tenant finally upped and left in the middle of the night after being given a council house up north. Left the place in a mess. Smashed the fixtures, smashed the fittings, smashed the appliances.
The cherry on top? HMRC refused an exception for the SDLT refund because everything that happened is "foreseeable". Let that sink in.
What kind of broken system is this?!?
Two things happened:
- I learned something. The system is rigged against landlords. Between the additional taxes, lost rent, damage, and higher SDLT, I'm down over £100K, and was operating at a loss the whole time. The stress of it all almost broke us.
- I decided something. I'm going to solve this problem. I'm a darn good Engineer and I'm going to use my skills and modern technology to help landlords avoid rewarding years of bad government policy with punitive fines. I'm going to make things better for landlords AND tenants. And maybe Agents too… if there's time.