Does anyone know if there is any way of retrieving unpaid rent from a tenant who wants to flee the country?

My tenant is witholding 2 months rent on the basis that he was without gas for 11 days. We had an engineer come to give us a gas safety certificate in August this year, but he deemed it to be unsafe and switched off the gas then quoting us £2700 to get pipework redone or £6000 for a new boiler system!!

We obviously wanted a second opinion and the time it took to get another engineer was a few days. In the mean time, we did our utmost to decrease the level of inconvienience for the tenants by offering them a microwave or an electric stove.

The second engieneer came in and said that the gas was "safe" even though it was at its upper limit in the corgi threashold and it was within the legal limits. He then sent another engineer from his team to double check that his opinion was correct and even that guy said it was ok and switched on the gas and issued us with a gas certificate. (The time that it took to get all this done was about 10 days) However, the second engineer did switch the gas back on for the tenants and explained to them that even though he's not supposed to switch on the gas without a certificate, he asked the tenants to switch the gas off from the mains after use until the certificate gets issued.

Now the tenants want one month's compensation for the inconvienience and are also witholding July's rent along with September's rent. His deposit is with the TDS so we can't use that against the rent anyway. He doesn't want to called talk to us and says he wants to leave mid October. We've contacted a company called tenancyproblems.co.uk to take him to the small claims court to retrieve our rent, but he says he's leaving the country to go back to Barbados.

We have offered to pay the tenant money for the inconvieneince- he said that he paid £7 a day to use gas at a neighbours house- and that was for 11 days. So we offered him £77 plus money for his takeaways. When we asked him for the receipts or a rough idea of how much that was- he couldn't tell us- he just said "You tell me what you think is fair?" and then he went on to say that he's not paying the rent in September. We've told him that its his contractual obligation to pay his rent, but he still isn't paying and we think he may leave to go back to his country (Barbados) in October.

How can people just wrack up debt and leave like this? Can nothing be done to retrieve our hard earned money?? Also if a summons is issued and he's left anyway, what can we do? Is there anyway we can inform the Customs department or the Homeoffice? Surely it cannot be that easy to just flee from debt??? If anyone has any advice I'd be very grateful.
Thank you

Hello I sympathise with your problems. Firstly, even though the tenant was without gas for 11 days you should consider offering 2 weeks or free in lieu of the incconvenience caused. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are opportunists and your tenant is taking advantage. Basically, your tenant states that he will leave the country but you do not know this for sure. He may be bluffing in the hope that you will give up and not pursue the monies he owes you. You have taken the right action by taking your claim to the small claims court. In the future consider insuring your rent for about 70 - 100 GBP per year as you could have protected your rental income in this way. If the tenant does not leave the country then you should recover the money. If the tenant does leave the country then you may be able to have CCJ placed on him but this has no effect in another country. Also this is a civil matter not criminal so customs/home office etc would not even listen to your problem. Sorry I can't be more positive but in the future insure your rental income and you can have peace of mind. If you need some more info on this let me know. Good luck.

Hi there,
Many thanks for your reply and advice and sorry for the delay in responding to your post.

On the weekend, I found out that those tenants actually left without informing us but left the place in a bit of a mess. I guess this is a much better outcome than having to evict them. I had issued court proceedings, but they aren't there to open the post- so I don't know how good that is going to be!

I suggest the following:
1/change the locks
2/check with credit agencies to see if bad debts have been racked up against the property[you may want to use the property in future either to live in or get credit!!!]
Any future tenants will be pretty hacked off if bailiffs start knocking on the door due to debt accrued by this guy.[Trust me this happend to us in 2004 [xmas]wife had just given birth and we had all types knocking on the door.I had to show id and copies of contract to prove I was who I said I was.]
3/in future get a proper corgi "person".Write to corgi with the details and they should investigate.He sounds like a he may need to be investigated!!!.
4/inform social services/any welfare agencies of all their details at least if they are getting any benefits theywill be stuffed
5/ I dont know much about the deposit scheme but if that money is held on deposit put a claim on it.Hopefully you have taken pictures of any damage caused and you could possibly use them in your claim.
6/clean the flat/repair quickly and cost effectively and to be honest move on.I think you have had a lucky escape.When I was a tenant I found that the only way to get things done was always to withhold the rent.Guess what the heating guy was on his way, worked a treat.To be honest though the letting agent encouraged me to do this and as soon as the problem was fixed I went and paid the outstanding monies.If I had been your tenant I would have probably turned up on your door with my wife and kid --you would have got the problem sorted.!!!!!!