Case study: Dishonest tenant caused 20 000 zł rental loss

The worst thing that can happen to a landlord is a dishonest tenant - a professional. One who, when signing the agreement, already knows that instead of paying rent, they will live comfortably at the landlord's expense. Did such a person rent Ms Aneta's flat? Judge for yourself.

Beautiful flat waiting for a secure rental relationship

Ms Aneta, who lives abroad on a daily basis, has a nice apartment with a swimming pool near the Tricity. She didn't want it to be empty, so she decided to rent it out. The prospect of extra money from the rent was also essential to her.

The owner of the property was also one of Rendin's first clients. She was keen to be a secure rental of the property, with additional protection beyond what an occasional rental offers and the support of rental market professionals and lawyers.

The worst thing that can happen to a landlord is a dishonest tenant - a professional. One who, when signing the agreement, already knows that instead of paying rent, they will live comfortably at the landlord's expense. Did such a person rent Ms Aneta's flat? Judge for yourself.

Beautiful flat waiting for a secure rental relationship

Ms Aneta, who lives abroad on a daily basis, has a nice apartment with a swimming pool near the Tricity. She didn't want it to be empty, so she decided to rent it out. The prospect of extra money from the rent was also essential to her.

The owner of the property was also one of Rendin's first clients. She was keen to be a secure rental of the property, with additional protection beyond what an occasional rental offers and the support of rental market professionals and lawyers.

A potential tenant appears, and with her the first problems

Due to the distance from the centre of the Tricity and the high, but adequate to the standard, rent, which amounted to as much as 5 000 zloty, Ms Aneta's flat stood empty for a long time. Eventually, however, a potential tenant, Ms Karolina, appeared on the horizon.

This up-and-coming lawyer liked the apartment to where she wanted to move into with her teenage son. The obligatory verification of Ms Karolina's possible debt yielded a positive result. The ladies decided that the apartment would be governed by an occasional rental agreement.

Before this happened, however, Ms Karolina frequently contacted the landlord, Ms Aneta, inquiring about various points in the Rendin agreement, including the obvious, which should be well known to any lawyer, even if she is not professionally involved in property rental.

The ladies signed the Rendin agreement and the annexes as required by the occasional rental agreement, and the notary certified Ms Karolina's declaration of voluntary submission to execution in the event of eviction. The tenant moved into the rental home with her son in September 2022.

First problems – a secure rental relationship quickly changes

Ms Aneta was hoping for a calm and secure tenancy. Initially, all the payments listed in the agreement appeared in her account. However, the tenant paid untimely and in a grid pattern, omitting some invoices or rents for periods of the property occupied by her and her son.

As the landlord had been receiving transfers from Ms Karolina's son's account for some time, she contacted him to enquire about the arrears that had arisen. However, the tenant's son stated that his mother had not told him to continue paying rent and fees.

The payments were dealt with by the tenant's son, who had only just reached the age of adult. This was probably because the tenant was no longer able to use her accounts, e.g. due to a bailiff.

At the same time, Ms Karolina informed the landlord that she had lost access to her bank account due to computer and phone problems. Such a situation should have been a red flag for the landlord during the rental agreement.

At the end of November 2022, Ms Aneta had to call her tenant, Ms Karolina, for the immediate repayment of the debt due to unpaid rent and utility and internet invoices.

Despite the non-payment and the avoidance of contact (despite instant messaging, emails and calls to her mobile and landline numbers), Ms Karolina continued to live in the property. She was also constantly recording webinars there, in which she advised others on how to comply with the law(!).

It also turned out that there was a problem with the sofa in the rented apartment. Ms Karolina was supposed to buy a new one for herself and store the old one in a suitable place until the rental agreement expired. Unfortunately, the tenant simply put the sofa out in the corridor of the building.

This quickly led to a conflict with neighbours, who did not like this decoration of the common area of the building and the intervention of the administration, who demanded that Ms Aneta remove the furniture and informed her that if this did not happen, the staff would remove and dispose of the sofa.

All the situations described allow us to assume with a high degree of probability that a professional rogue tenant has taken up residence in Ms Aneta's apartment.

The rogue tenant – the professional. They know how to live at your expense

Such a person usually knows the law very well and how to use it to their own advantage and to the detriment of the owner of the property in which they live. In this case, the dishonest tenant was herself a lawyer. In addition, she was a well-known specialist, training others in the meanders of the law.

How does such a person act? First of all, they are aware of impunity thanks to the provisions of the Law on the Protection of Tenants. If they stop paying and avoid contact with the landlord, they can live for free for months until they are evicted.

Avoiding contact can be done by not answering phone calls, messages or letters, which Ms Karolina did. You can also lie about when you will pay the debt and make up further excuses why, for example, the landlord's attorney cannot enter the property.

The tenant played all methods, for example, informing Ms Aneta that she could not let anyone into the flat because her son had become ill with Covid-19. She also wrote that previously the same son had spent 2 months in a hospital intensive care unit.

There were also reports of the tenant losing access to her computer (at the same time, she was still recording her expert webinars) and phone, making it impossible for her to pay her debt to Ms Aneta. With rogue tenants, misfortune usually walks not in pairs but in dozens.

Safe flat rental? Not in this case - the rogue tenant has other plans

At the same time, the debt due to unpaid rent and administrative rent was steadily increasing, as was the pile of invoices for utilities and services in the rented apartment, for which Ms Karolina should be sending money to the landlord.

In this case, all utilities and internet were registered to the landlord. This resulted in Ms Aneta having to legally pay these bills, as if she stopped and the suppliers cut off the electricity and water, the landlord could be held criminally liable at the request of her tenant.

The tenant also tried to provoke further problems and losses for the landlord by not opening the door several times to the administration staff who were supposed to replace the water meters throughout the building with new ones. Indeed, the administration lost patience and threatened Ms Aneta that if she did not allow this necessary replacement to take place it would charge her a financial penalty.

However, Ms Karolina did not take into account that on the landlord's side was Rendin, a professional company with many years of international experience with this type of problem. Our specialists knew very well how to act in order to quickly recover the premises for Ms Aneta. The landlord wanted to conclude the case amicably and simply recover the money owed to her.

At some point, however, she realised that it was impossible to communicate with the dishonest tenant. Being in contact with Rendin's employees, she decided on their advice on 2.02.2023 to make a final call for payment and, after 30 days, to terminate the lease due to the tenant's fault.

Thanks to Rendin's assistance, eviction of the tenant was not necessary and Ms Aneta got back her property

Armed with the advice of Rendin's experienced lawyers, Ms Aneta's attorney and witnesses entered the apartment, using spare keys, on the day stated in the termination notice to inspect the premises and prepare a handover act.

Ms Karolina, who rented the porpety, and her son moved out before that date. The landlord's attorney found the apartment dirty, looking as if the tenants had not cleaned it since the start of the tenancy or had deliberately made it this way before leaving. There was also a lot of damage to the furniture and furnishings in the apartment.

Ms Aneta was disturbed about the state of her apartment. However, Rendin staff assured her that the most difficult part was behind her because the tenant evicition process was not needed. She quickly got her apartment back, and in terms of restoring the initial state of the property, she could count on Rendin's help and reimbursement.

The documentation of dirt, damage and destruction and their removal amounted to almost a hundred photos and invoices, after analysing which Rendin decided to compensate Ms Aneta.

The secure rental agreement for the apartment with Rendin's protection allowed the landlord to get rid of the parasitic tenants promtly, just two months after the final call for payment. Even in the worst-case scenario, as the ladies chose the occasional tenancy, the eviction would have been much quicker and more trouble-free than in a regular agreement.

After the claim submission of Ms Karolina's debt and a summary of the losses and expenses incurred, Rendin transferred the sum of 20 083.57 zł to Ms Aneta's account. The company is now collecting this amount from the former tenant. If the former tenant continues to have problems with debt repayment, for example, by losing access to her computer and telephone once again, it will take the matter to court.

Bottom line – safe tenancy only with additional Rendin protection

Ms Aneta lost a lot of nerve, but ultimately won. Two decisions she made before signing the contract were decisive:

1. The lease was governed by an occasional rental agreement, which protects the landlord much better than a regular lease;

2. The landlord signed the contract through Rendin, which gave her a guarantee of compensation for financial losses of up to 10 times the rent and professional assistance to guide her on the way to recover her flat quickly.

The landlord was very stressed by the situation, but she emphasised that Rendin, which protects secure rental flats, was a big help to her. The Tricity flat is under renovation. The owner confirmed that her next rental also will be under Rendin protection.

This table shows that a simple deposit gives the landlord almost non-existent protection. Meanwhile, Rendin's loss compensation guarantee is the certainty that in the event of debts and damage to the property, the landlord will get the money back.