IT’S been four months and your tenant, who seemed so honest on first meeting, is ignoring your calls, he hasn’t paid his rent, and his water and lights bill is climbing steadily – just like your blood pressure.
Suddenly your real estate is looking like a real mistake.
We have all heard the horror stories about landlords being held over a barrel regarding their rent and tenants becoming squatters, but what can we do about it?
Many cowboy landlords simply cut off the tenant’s amenities in the hope that this will either convince them to pack up their possessions and leave or cough up the outstanding money.
This sounds like a good solution if it weren’t for one thing – the law.
It is illegal to deprive your tenant of electricity without first having obtained a court order and it is not permitted, under any circumstances, to cut off a water supply because access to water is a basic human right.
Should the tenant in question have a little knowledge of the law, and in all likelihood they have done this before, they will casually amble off to the Magistrates’ Court and obtain a court order to have the lights put back on. It’s a quick and easy process and you don’t even need a lawyer to help. This is called a spoliation order and the landlord will have to answer to the court and could even end up paying damages to the tenant.
So, if the tenant doesn’t pay, why not get him off the property? Simply put, the process involved in obtaining an eviction order can be costly, time-consuming and can take a few months, plus the attorney fees have to be paid up front. There is also no guarantee that the landlord will be able to recover these costs from the tenant.
The ultimate solution is to choose the right tenant at the outset, which is often easier said than done.
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