Eviction company reporting brisk business

It appears that landlords are not shying away from taking tenants to court if they are putting their business in jeopardy by refusing to pay their rent.

Landlord Action, a company that specialises in retrieving money for landlords by legal means, report that the number of tenants evicted by them for rent arrears in 2010 was 12% up on the previous year. They stated that evicting tenants because of rent arrears was now their core business, with four out five cases they deal with being precipitated by tenants refusing to pay their rent.

The report also pinpointed tenants on Local Housing Allowance as a major problem with cases involving such clients going up by 16%. The figures suggest that many low income families were still struggling to cope with the dire financial situation last year.

An interesting development from the report was that Landlord Action noticed a significant fall in the number of actions brought about by letting agents. Compared with 2009 the number of cases initiated by agents dropped by a massive 33%. Probably a sign that landlords keen to cut their overheads were administering their own portfolios. Of course they do have the chance to include the services of companies such as Landlord Action in their landlord insurance cover.

Paul Shampina, the founder of Landlord Action, feels some landlords would be better off sticking with letting agents saying “Self-managing landlords often try to cut corners in the hope of saving money by not referencing potential tenants properly or not ensuring that they have adequate landlord insurance. This can cost them more money in the long-term.

“However, if a landlord does run into trouble, our data shows that there has been a significant reduction in time between landlords making an initial enquiry to actually giving formal instructions, demonstrating that they are no longer prepared to sit back and are taking quicker action to recoup outstanding monies.”