Disappearing Tenants

Most landlords share one major fear: tenants that leave and are never seen again. Tracking down missing tenants can be a near-impossible task and extracting any missing rent from them is even harder. We’ve all heard awful stories about the sorts of tenants who were there one day and gone the next. Knowing how to deal with a missing tenant is not always easy but there are ways to go about the procedure. Here are our top tips for getting in touch.

Try All Avenues

It’s true that tenants do sometimes disappear to get away from their landlords, but more often than not there is some other reason. In these cases your tenants will ultimately get in touch, but maybe just when the time is right. Try a mobile phone call, leave a message, drop an email and even write a letter. You may be surprised how quickly you get a response.

Make it Known

If you think your tenant genuinely has left then you should tell your rent guarantee insurance provider immediately and get claim proceedings running. You may also want to give a non-emergency police number a ring. Though it doesn’t bear thinking about, the missing persons you hear about on the news are someone’s tenants, so don’t rule out the possibility that this is more serious than you thought.

Begin to Advertise

Once you’ve confirmed your tenants have left then you should either notify your agent or get right back online and try to find yourself new tenants. Dwelling on the fact that your last tenants left or assuming their disappearance had something to do with a bad property just isn’t going to be helpful; get back out there and get back earning rent.

Tenants do come and go and when you’ve been in the business for a few years you start to realise the sort of tenants that sometimes just up and leave. Make sure you know how to deal with such a situation, make sure you don’t panic but do treat the case seriously.