Gadaffi and The Deathwatch Beetle

By award winning Journalist, Broadcaster and Author John Swinfield 

 

Here’s a tale of our times. Rich pair in a big house in a choice part of London. Life’s a gas. Nothing to worry about. But they’re a greedy pair – or maybe just human – and they’re always wanting more. Other peoples’ lives always seem that little bit greener. We’ve all been there. You know how it is?  Property prices are rocketing. This was a year or two before the word banker became synonymous with Gadaffi.

A house down the street comes up for sale. They buy it thinking they’re going to make a killing. They’ll tart it up and flog it for a big profit. Then comes The Crash. They are halfway through their refurbishment. They decide to finish it – they haven’t a Hell of a lot of choice – and rent it out rather than try to flog it.

A certain estate agent with a dodgy reputation advised them to go for the top end of the letting market. So the tart up costs them a bomb, several bombs. Then they had to furnish it. Heal’s, well naturally. If you’re going for the top end of the letting market, you have to buy the best. Especially in oh so frightfully chic London.

With the cost of buying the property– through re-financing their original home – and the cost of renovating and furnishing it to the highest possible standard – they had to let it out for a colossal amount of money to cover their outgoings.

But a lot of the big hitters and high rollers who could once have afforded to pay the stupendous rent they asked had lost their jobs.

So the hapless pair had to lower their sights and reduce the amount they wanted in rent. They found somebody but the amount they were paid hardly covered their outgoings. But fair enough, they were scraping by. That is, until they discovered death watch beetle in the roof. A serious case of OMG!

 The surveyor should have picked it up. But he didn’t. And then their tenant does a midnight flit. He had lost his job and disappeared back to America. He flew off owing them rent having broken his lease agreement. There’s little point in pursuing him. Or the surveyor.  It would cost them more in chasing the American across the Pond and the surveyor back to his swanky West End offices, and bringing squadrons of glint-eyed lawyers into the equation, than they had lost in unpaid rent.

So, once again, the big expensive house is empty, now roofless while cripplingly expensive repairs are being carried out, and they’re searching for a new tenant. A few years ago, before The Crash, they’d have cut their losses and flogged the whole caboodle for a handsome profit. And to Hell with the troublesome business of being a landlord. But that option’s not really open anymore.

Moral of the story: if you’ve a good thing going, recognise it, count your blessings and be content. Where three or four years ago they were the happiest couple on earth they’re now bogged down with money worries.

They’re all part of the ‘Accidental Landlord’ syndrome. Theirs is just one variation on what sometimes – but not always – can be an unhappy theme. There’ll be more AL stories over the weeks. 

Belvoir Camden operates in the following areas: St Johns Wood, Hampstead, West Hampstead,
Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, Camden, Kentish Town, Maida Vale, Marylebone and are always
looking for new landlords. Belvoir is the property management specialist in the area.

Belvoir Camden: 02071 997733

www.belvoirlettings.com/camden

camden@belvoirlettings.com