A man from East Kilbride recently found himself £20,000 worse off after a tenant renting his property completely destroyed it.
Ricky Montgomery is urging other landlords to regularly check up on their tenants and properties to avoid making the same mistake. Ricky only visited the house a few months ago in order to pay a heating engineer. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he say the damage.
The shock came in the fact that internal doors had been completed ripped off, the furniture was in complete pieces and spread through the house, the walls were covered in different paint, the kitchen fittings had been destroyed, a window had been smashed and the home was generally completely destroyed.
The smell of the property was also unbearable due to the fact that litter and left over food had even left across the building.
Ricky is telling his story in the hope that it will warn others who also rent out property. If he had checked on his tenant regularly he would have been able to save him and his wife a great deal of stress and money.
After this damage and mess caused by the tenant, Ricky and his wife have been forced to remortgage the property in order to cover the cost of fixing up the property and bringing it back to a liveable condition.
Ricky told the news that he and his wife originally agreed to let the property to a young women with her two children. The rent was always paid on time through the DSS, and the tenant never phoned with any problems.
During the five years the tenant stayed at the property, she had another five children. There were therefore 6 children living at the property at the time Ricky was called out to fix the problem with the heating. A routine visit to pay an engineer suddenly led to the shock discovery of the mess and destruction to the property.
One room of the property was used for Ricky’s wife to store her father’s good furniture. The tenant used this room to pile junk on top of the furniture, so much so that the door will need to be taken off in order to get into the room to remove the mess.
In total, the damage and mess is costing up to £20,000 for repairs and replacements.
