Originally Posted by Flyboy

I stopped renting to students about fifteen years ago. It go too expensive and there wasn't much profit in it for me. I had four houses near a university and they abused my trust. I would generally leave them alone as long as they paid the rent and left the houses in the same condition as they found them. I did check on them from time-to-time and found out that they were sub-letting living rooms etc. Murals painted on walls (I wouldn't have minded so much if they were any good), furnishings and white goods abused and serious disrepair. All the properties had heating, plumbing and electrical cover and they didn't bother calling British Gas to have the drains fixed, which meant that they wouldn't come out because the problems had been left for so long. When they left I withheld their deposits. Two of the students' fathers threatens legal action until I showed them the before and after pictures and told them they were lucky I was not suing for more than just the deposits. The whole cost of making good on all four properties was over ten thousand pounds. It would have cost almost that to pursue them through the courts (the law is not weighted in favour of landlords). I sold the properties and made the money back.