how to find runaway tenants

[ruggief]

Hi, My tenants have done a midnight flit owing rent with no forwarding address and I'm so confused as to what to do, I Can somebody point me in the right direction, do I need a solicitor, debt collection, private detective, I first need to find them then pursue, so is there a simple first place to go to

[CushtyFred]

You should collect rent for one month in advance.

[ruggief]

abusive and irrelevant and I will be reporting this, I'm in need of help which Is why I posted the question, don't bother replying if all you can do is be abusive. I have reported this to answerbank hope they ban you, any genuine advice please reply, I am really quite stressed now and can't afford to lose this money.

[soph0205]

hopefully u took a deposit from them to begin with?? if so u can use that. Did you get them referenced properly to begin with if so you should have alot of details about them eg. national insurance number nxt of kin etc. Then you get in touch with debt collectors who will chase them. Employ those who dnt charge unless they find them that way you wont loose more money.

i also suggest (thats if you didnt to begin with) to use a letting agent, that way they will be properly referenced.

hope this helps.

[ruggief]

Hi Soph,
thanks for that, we have a deposit which covers some of it, I just don't know where to start with trying to reclaim, All the websites I've looked at say debt collection etc but I wasn't sure if that was right, I guess I need to start trawling through the yellow pages to find a local one. We do have a letting agent who did a reference but I'm not sure 'proper' is the right word.

[WendyS]

Did you know anything about your tenants which could help you track them down, i.e. did you ask for a Reference from their company that they were a good bet for a rental payment of �xxx per month? If so, is there a good chance that they might still be employed there? If doubt whether their Personnel Department would give you their current address but it it certainly wouldn't do their reputation any good if the company knew you were trying to track them down and they might be able at least to pass a letter on to them ( not that they are likely to respond to you.).
Also, are they likely to be trying to rent another place in the locality? You could contact other local letting agents and see whether any of them might (unofficially) be able to help you. Sorry, but can't think of any other suggestions.

[Kathyan]

Hi ruggief, sorry to hear of your problem. I don't have the answer I'm afraid, but I do feel for you. I hope you get things sorted in your favour and please don't take this the wrong way, but next time you let your house, please, please, please take out insurance. We were lucky with our tenants and didn't have any problems, but insurance would have covered you for this. You wouldn't have lost any rent and they would have paid to get the money back from the tenants. I'm surprised that your letting agents didn't advise you to get insurance when you first let your house. It cost us around �11 per month and it was worth it for the peace of mind alone. Good luck with getting things sorted!

[ruggief]

Hi all

We do have insurance but it doesn't cover the first 3 months, it will pay up for the 4th month and after only, which aparanetly is standard.Thanks for the quick response boith of you and for your suggestion Wendy, I do have their employers details so I will pass a letter there way as well,

[Peter Pedant]

walk away from this.

throw a party - tenants you dont want have gone. It could be much worse - them staying and refusing to pay the rent

relet the house - presumably youhave possession ? Any costs of making it rentable are tax deductible.

walk away from the loss - three months rent - and thank your lucky stars it aint more !

Do NOT go to law.

[soph0205]

you are lucky they left, some tenants stick there heels in and wont leave till the baliffs come (thats expensive)

Look for a debt collector and give them every bit of info you have

National insurance number, date of birth, previous address, next of kin, contact numbers, work place

The agent you used should have this on file on the referencing form the tenants filled out.

Hope this helps.

[mo22a]

You may instruct a trace agent to attempt to find them. I am a debt collector by trade and use ICU Investigations. However it may take a while for the absondees to resurface and change their adress details. Good luck.

[janetsflower]

we just did something slightly illegal and opened the mail that kept on coming from that i got tenants payslip and got a mate to phone up claiming to be from personnel dept of where the guy worked - toldhim we had had payslips returned as unknown at address we hold and where has he moved to - dopey git fell for it hook line and sinker and gave us his new address, phone number etc etc and i then took legal action and won! Good luck with your investigations, a lot of tenants think e landlords must be loaded andcan afford to lose rent but its simply not the case - infact quite the reverse, we have mortgages on al our properties, they don't make any money for us at the moment, they are our pension

[ruggief]

Hi everyone,

thanks for all the answers, we don't make money either we top up the mortgage every month that the rent doesn't cover but it's our pension too, I have found a debt collection /tracing agency that offers no collection no fee but takes 10% of the money recovered and I figure that's better than nothing

[Re-Nata]

use this company, they work on a no success no fee basis and charge very reasonable fee for the job. You simply fill in the form with as much details as you can, select the service i.e. how quickly you want the results and send. Good luck!
here is the link: http://www.traceadebt.com

[Re-Nata]

use this company, they work on a no success no fee basis and charge very reasonable fee for the job. You simply fill in the form with as much details as you can, select the service i.e. how quickly you want the results and send. Good luck!
here is the link: http://www.traceadebt.com