A smashed car, a bloody nose - but no rent

Tempted to let out your property? Be warned - having a tenant can be a nightmare. By Jenny Knight

The sound of breaking glass sent Philip rushing into the street to find his car had been wrecked. Every window had been smashed and the wing-mirrors ripped off. The vandal slouched away, giving Philip a wink. Philip called the police but there were no witnesses and Philip admitted he had not actually seen his car being trashed.

It was another incident at the nastier end of a typical landlord-tenant dispute - except that, in contrast to the stereotype, Philip is the landlord and his adversary one of his tenants.

The public perception of landlord-tenant rows is that vulnerable tenants are victimised by "greedy slum landlords" who use threats and intimidation to extort massive rents for poor accommodation or to force old ladies to leave their homes. Gareth Hardwick, secretary of the Small Landlords' Association, despairs of this image which, he says, is totally outdated.

Philip believes that the law protects tenants from harassment but leaves landlords vulnerable. Having his car smashed was just one of many unpleasant experiences he has suffered in 12 years as a landlord. He has been burgled by a disgruntled tenant, sworn at, threatened with violence, and has been involved in angry scenes that have upset his young son.

Philip lives in a flat in one of two neighbouring Victorian houses he owns in Manchester. He bought the second house hoping the rental income would subsidise his job as a freelance illustrator. In practice, he says, it is his artistic work that subsidises his flats.

"Barry has been a tenant for five years," says Philip. "He pays pounds 50 a week to share a three-bedroom flat with another man also paying pounds 50 a week. The third bedroom has not been let for ages because Barry is so difficult. This means the rent money is not enough to cover outgoings and payments on the loan on the building.

"The best I can say about Barry is that he can be charming, and that he is house-proud. He's a nightmare when he's drunk. He is due in court soon, for bypassing his electricity meter to get a free supply. He is so cheeky that, after he was caught, he did it again, and then finally reconnected himself via my supply. He got annoyed when his electricity was disconnected for the third time and that's why he smashed my car up.

"When he gets irritated, he goes off the deep end. He recently burst into one of the other flats, threatening to beat everyone up. I had to run upstairs and stand between him and the other tenants, trying to calm him down. He has a lust for excitement, which drinking and fighting seem to provide. The other tenants are afraid of him. I am now pretty confident we will be able to get a court order, to get him for being a nuisance and for endangering other tenants by fiddling with the electricity supply. I'm about to serve him with papers to leave, which he will probably ignore, so we'll have to go to court for a possession order.

"If the law were changed so landlords could evict an anti-social tenant within a couple of weeks, tenants would know they had to behave or end up with nowhere to live."

Philip's story is a cautionary one, but many small landlords have far worse experiences, often with tenants who have jobs and ample means. One couple went to America on business for three months, letting the top half of their maisonette in Earls Court for a modest rent under an informal agreement. When they returned, they found that the female tenant had taken over the whole property and sublet. She refused them access, they took court action and won, but their tenants all vanished without paying any rent or damages. The maisonette was sold to pay legal costs.

Another landlord, a man in his sixties, was knocked down and had his spectacles smashed by a tenant who became violent when asked to clear rent arrears.

"The overwhelming majority of tenancy arrangements run smoothly," says Mr Hardwick, "but things go badly wrong in a minority of cases. We would like a fast-track possession procedure. If a landlord has to wait for nearly a year without getting any rent, it can bankrupt him. I believe most people characterised as bad landlords are just ignorant of their legal obligations. They think that, because a tenant is more than six months behind with the rent, it must be all right to tip him out on to the street, but that is illegal. Similarly, they think that if someone doesn't pay his electricity bill, it must be OK to cut him off, but the landlord must continue supplying him.

"A minority of tenants exploit the law. In one case, a couple, both with good jobs, stopped paying rent. After seven months, the landlord obtained a possession order and the tenants were rehoused by the council. With hindsight, he realised they had aimed to do this all along, to jump the housing queue.The tenants got legal aid - although they appeared to be better-off than the landlord, who had been made redundant - and he had to pay his own costs because his wife was still working."

All names have been changed.