[GKR9900]

Thank you all for the words of wisdom. My tenant has however started to show more of his stripes now.

My tenant works in a senior corporate position with a well-known Indian jewellery brand. I formally escalated the matter to his employer (in a professional and well-documented manner). Shortly after, he called me angrily and in a tone that bordered on harassment—which I believe is completely unacceptable, especially coming from someone in a leadership position in corporate communications. He was furious and I am concerned about potential damage to the property even if he vacates. I guess I should brace myself for some rough seas now.

[rakesh_r]

Originally Posted by PatienceWins

I

Kerala has a tenant friendly culture and the norms (compared to Bangalore which is landlord friendly) with respect to advance, compensation for destruction of fixtures, maintenance etc are anti-landlord.

Exactly one of the reasons why I stopped renting out my house in Kerala. The last tenants used to delay the rent every month. Fast forward, they vacated on their own as they moved to another property belonging to their relative. After few months they again approached us, my father politely but very firmly rejected their request. From that day we decided we would never rent out our property in Kerala owing to too many loopholes in the law.
Just as an example, one of my friend had to pay a substantial amount to his tenant to vacate his property.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by GKR9900

My tenant works in a senior corporate position with a well-known Indian jewellery brand. I formally escalated the matter to his employer (in a professional and well-documented manner).

Please stick to the scope of the dispute. In my honest opinion, you were wrong in reaching out to his employer. You played dirty, he will play dirty.

In any and all disputes, being mutually-respectful and watching boundaries has always gotten me results (even if you fight hard, stay within the system). Unless he declared bankruptcy or his employer was a co-signer on the rental agreement, you should not have contacted his employer.

Request to execute as per my post above.

[GKR9900]

Originally Posted by GTO

Please stick to the scope of the dispute. In my honest opinion, you were wrong in reaching out to his employer. You played dirty, he will play dirty.

In any and all disputes, being mutually-respectful and watching boundaries has always gotten me results (even if you fight hard, stay within the system). Unless he declared bankruptcy or his employer was a co-signer on the rental agreement, you should not have contacted his employer.

Request to execute as per my post above.

Thanks GTO-san. I respect your perspective.

I reached out to his employer as per the advice from our family advocate. The advocate's point was that we were too conservative and respectful in our approach to dealing with a hostile tenant over the previous months. And despite our approach, he continued flouting the terms of the agreement and started being confrontational when we reminded him to pay up. In fact, being an employee at the company was also a reason why I rented the property to him in the first place. I am also a loyal customer of the said company. If anything, it was only after the email to his employer that he finally remembered to call me back. Previously, he wouldn't pick up my calls or see my texts regarding the rent reminders or potential eviction dates. Also, he does use work-related excuses a lot for ignoring my calls, and messages, not paying rent, and whatnot. It was only after contacting his employer that I learned that he had made a false statement regarding the salary date, based on which we had provided further leniency to him. Amidst the cries of anguish, he did make a statement confirming his earlier commitment to vacate on the 20th of this month. I'm still not convinced, but hoping for the best.

[Roy.S]

Originally Posted by GTO

Leave the stress to the lawyers>....

How well this approach works depends upon which Indian State you have rented out your property in. The worst places to rent your property out in are WB followed closely by KL.

I had rented out my place in Kolkata (Commercial use) and they were a bit irregular with the rent but would never default. After covid happened, they went out of business and stopped paying the rent.

I met with them and they were very apologetic and made all the right noises but something felt off to me. The next day I met with a lawyer friend who confirmed that the agreement was ironclad but if I gave a notice of eviction I could be looking at a 6-7 year timeframe before the judgement came through.

Long story short, I had to get a bit creative and managed to elbow them out. There was no rough stuff involved but it took every braincell I had to finally evict them. And these were basically decent folk.

@GKR9900 your tenant seems to be a problematic guy. Worst case scenario you may have to write off a couple of month's rent. Keep your cool.

Also, change your lawyer. He has given you some terrible advice already and put you in an awkward place.

[GKR9900]

Originally Posted by Roy.S

@GKR9900 your tenant seems to be a problematic guy. Worst case scenario you may have to write off a couple of month's rent. Keep your cool.

Also, change your lawyer. He has given you some terrible advice already and put you in an awkward place.

Thank you, sir. At this point, I just want him out is all. I enquired about him a bit in my residential association and it seems he is quite the character. He hasn't paid the maid her wages for the last 2 months, he only pays electricity bill when the lineman is about to pull off the fuse, there's also an incident of a helmet being stolen from another resident's scooter. Not to mention the facade he has put before me. I do feel like a total idiot taking whatever he said for face value. But over the past 3 months, I too have been going through a tough time and I didn't want to have a displacement reaction on another person, hence the leniency was shown. It all changed when he started intimidating me though.

I am not trying to be argumentative here, but I do see many members are against contacting the employer in this case and I'm genuinely curious to know the reasons, at least for future reference. A few of my friends also asked me to contact the employer. I understand that was probably a method adopted here by V.Narayan sir also, forgive me if I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

One worthy worked at TCS and troubled me a lot. When my patience gave way I shot off a letter to the TCS Chairman. That got the tenant's attention. He left the next month.

I do get the not mixing professional and personal bit. In fact, I had explicitly mentioned this in my email to the employer. Neither was this my first resort. And legal would be my last resort in this case. But when someone defaults on rent, misuses trust, cuts communication and then tries to intimidate me ("I am not going to pay rent anymore, show me what you can do" - were the exact words he said, albeit in Malayalam), can't I adopt this strategy? Or is it likely to be seen as hitting below the belt?

[hothatchaway]

@GKR9900, did the agreement with the tenant include a clause which explicitly said that his employer will stand guarantee in case the tenant defaults? If not, then you tell me how is it fair when you drag his employer into his personal affairs? Put yourself in his shoes and imagine how public his embarrassment could have been when the HR of his company starts questioning him about his personal affairs. Heck, in the West, this has the potential of being a very juicy lawsuit for both the landlord and the employer.

If I assume that the tenant in this case is an incorrigible defaulter and deserves no mercy, as GTO said, you have only played into his hands and given him the moral high ground by doing this. Suppose for a moment his employer decides to suspend him, good luck in getting him out!

The part where he said do whatever you want, I am not going to pay, did it happen after you comolained to his employer? Because you have also mentioned somewhere that he had committed to vacate. Net net, you have been the recipient of some pretty amateurish legal advice. I think what GTO said is not only professional but also fair, stick to the facts and trust the process, if you didn't do your homework then you have to write this down as a learning in life.

Just like how there are undisciplined tenants, there are also an equal number of unscrupulous landlords, who prey on decent tenants and building associations who treat tenants like dirt. Just like any business, there will be issues regarding quality of service, collection issues and other hurdles. Getting vindictive and going for broke will only make things more personal.

I hope you are able to resolve the issue amicably.

[GKR9900]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

If not, then you tell me how is it fair when you drag his employer into his personal affairs?

If I assume that the tenant in this case is an incorrigible defaulter and deserves no mercy, as GTO said, you have only played into his hands and given him the moral high ground by doing this.

The part where he said to do whatever you want, I am not going to pay, did it happen after you complained to his employer?

I hope you are able to resolve the issue amicably.

I hear you, brother. And yes, it does seem harsh on the tenant. The part where he made the intimidating remark was when I asked him about the last month's rent - this was before I approached his employer. But I have genuinely tried not to take this personally and avoid being vindictive as much as possible over the past few months, and I still am. The reason I involved his employer was to confirm that he was still an employee, but they wouldn't do that unless they knew the purpose. They asked me to elaborate on the issue and email them, while also telling me that this being a personal issue, they wouldn't be able to do much. I'm surprised it got so far.

Maybe I'm a bad person, but I’ve been more than patient with this tenant—offering time, reminders, and chances to resolve things amicably. Escalating the issue was never my first choice. Even last month, when a similar scenario evolved, I still did all the necessary maintenance work as requested by the tenant for a substantial cost - that is business. But when someone defaults on commitments and then resorts to intimidation, protecting yourself isn’t cruelty—it’s self-respect. If anything, it reflects on his actions as much as mine!

[Arun_S]

Originally Posted by am1m

While I don't think it will come to court or anything, I'm saying we need to always be cautious and go about these things legally when dealing with troublesome people, even when, or rather especially when, they are in the wrong. Such people have long since learned that attack is the best form of defense and they have nothing to lose.

I agree with this, my family friend, rented out a flat to a single woman after enquiring about her. She faced some financial difficulties, become a rent defaulter.

When my friend asked for rent, she approached a shady lawyer who advised her to file a sexual harassment complaint. Now she is living rent free and my friend is running to courts each month. Each month her lawyer comes and asks for extension citing some reason or the other.

[PatienceWins]

Originally Posted by GKR9900

Maybe I'm a bad person, but I’ve been more than patient with this tenant—offering time, reminders, and chances to resolve things amicably. Escalating the issue was never my first choice. Even last month, when a similar scenario evolved, I still did all the necessary maintenance work as requested by the tenant for a substantial cost - that is business. But when someone defaults on commitments and then resorts to intimidation, protecting yourself isn’t cruelty—it’s self-respect. If anything, it reflects on his actions as much as mine!

If you find that such incidents (very common in Kerala) take away your peace of mind, I recommend you not to continue this business once you evict the tenant.

My father died when I was in school and our major source of income had been the rental properties. So I got into this at a very young age and past 45 years of age now. My recommendation is to accept the worst case that this could get into a legal battle spanning many years. Legal course should be your last step as I mentioned earler in my post. It is all part of the rental business.

Currently, I have only a few rental properties and my plan is to dispose them in the long term. It is not worth the hassle. The rental yield is very low. My family wants me to construct a house in Kerala for children's marriage and I am totally against it. Not worth the hassle.

[notme]

Recently, I read about a landlord who had gotten a court order to evict a tenant, but the tenant still refused to leave greasing the palms of local police in implementing it. After struggling for a while, the landlord finally had the electricity cut off and that finally forced the tenant out. I don’t know how fair that is, but it worked.

[Raghu M]

Reaching out to his employer was a little surprising to me. Even surprising is their response. Please don't go that route. Since you have exhausted pretty much all your options, please send in a notice that you want him to vacate the property. If possible and this is only the last resort - if nothing works and he is being very stubborn or gets to arguments, you can take care of the electricity meter or water connection cut. That would be against the law but he will not complain as you have already dropped a notice to vacate. Try to find some local people (neighbors - prominent in town/village) who can negotiate or even get the guy to a meeting. Please do this with some local support. We can give all the suggestions in the world but you are the only one who understands the ground situation. Be cautious, good luck!

[mally2]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

Reaching out to his employer was a little surprising to me. Even surprising is their response. Please don't go that route. Since you have exhausted pretty much all your options, please send in a notice that you want him to vacate the property. If possible and this is only the last resort - if nothing works and he is being very stubborn or gets to arguments, you can take care of the electricity meter or water connection cut. That would be against the law but he will not complain as you have already dropped a notice to vacate. Try to find some local people (neighbors - prominent in town/village) who can negotiate or even get the guy to a meeting. Please do this with some local support. We can give all the suggestions in the world but you are the only one who understands the ground situation. Be cautious, good luck!

All said, I am very curious who is this idiotic employer who is willing to handle this as an internal enquiry. Please name the said employer so that we never have to even mistakenly send our resumes that way.

[GeeTee TSI]

As the owner, can you not enter the premises with your duplicate key, change the lock and wait for the defaulter to turn up at yours? This could be supplemented by a notice of rental default in the RWA bulletin board.

You must presumably sitting on the safety deposit to more than cover the rental default?

I could be biased by the prevailing condition in Bangalore.

[charanreddy]

Originally Posted by mally2

All said, I am very curious who is this idiotic employer who is willing to handle this as an internal enquiry. Please name the said employer so that we never have to even mistakenly send our resumes that way.

In many employment contracts there are explicit clauses which bar an employee from defaulting on payments or causing disrepute to the company. All of my contracts had this clause.

Imagine a news head line saying senior employee of XYZ company defaults on monthly rent ! There is reputational damage who no company will accept.

I don’t think this is a bad ploy as there is nothing illegal about reaching out to an employer. It’s a party stating facts about they trusted a person X based on the fact that he was employed at XYZ company and this person has been paying rent. You can also add that you wanted to understand if this is a temporary hardship if company XYZ has been delaying salaries due to financial difficulties!!