“My ordeal of owner in front of a tenant who no longer pays the rent”

TESTIMONY. From the simple debate on which must take charge of the repairs of the accommodation to the unpaid rent, the relations between owners and tenants are not always a long quiet river. For Romain, this relationship turned outright in the nightmare.

• 
  

  To safeguard
  

  
  
  

  Saved
  

The first obsession with everything landlord accommodation? These are the unpaid rent. For Romain, this fear has come true. For the past five or six years, he rents the three-room three square meters he had bought in Haute-Savoie before moving into the apartment of his partner. Until May 2023, everything was going well, “The tenants stayed a year, a year and a half in the premises”the good being furnishedwith a 12 -month lease, reports Romain.

But the tenant who moved in May 2023 paid his first rents with delays from 15 days to one month. “With my wife, we were flexible on this subject because, too, I had struggled a little to find accommodation when arriving in the region. And the tenant is a self-employed entrepreneur, with not always regular income, like me ”explains Romain.

Three commandments to pay, in vain

He and his partner therefore did not use the three -month period before the anniversary of the lease which would have allowed them to resume the apartment. Badly took them because, once this time has passed, their tenant simply has ceased to pay his rent. Email, phone calls, messages via WhatsApp … His tenant has remained deaf to the requests for explanations from Romain, who manages the rental of his property live, without going through an agency. He therefore engaged the high speed by sending his tenant a first command to payvia a bailiff. Then a second, and a third, at a total cost of 750 euros. “But no payment has ever reached me”deplores Romain. And this, although his tenant seems known as the white wolf for rent unpaids: “The bailiffs told me that he was not at his first attempt.”

Romain then resolved to call on a lawyer, for 2,000 euros. Assessment of the races, an hearing between himself and his tenant is planned before the courts, in … December 2025. And even if the judge would order the discharge of the tenant, this could not intervene before the end of the winter break, on March 31, 2026. During all this time, the tenant of Romain will remain in the apartment, without paying him the slightest euro.

Nearly 25,000 euros lost in unpaid rent and legal costs

“I find myself in an unbearable situation. The 950 euros in rent, including charges, are used to finance part of the monthly payment of credit that I always have to reimburse On this property. But these 950 euros, I have not perceive them since March 2024… ”Roman sigh. Who does not drive on gold, with just one Minimum wage. He did his calculations: if his tenant was actually expelled in March 2026, he will have lost nearly 25,000 euros, between the unpaid rent, bailiff’s fees and lawyer fees.

Without “I don’t know in what state I will find the apartment …”Roman breath. He feels “”abandoned By a system however supposed to protect the owners as much as the tenants. The procedures are long, costly, and ineffective ”regret the one who is due to “Alert to a ordeal that can happen to any owner.”

If you too want to testify to difficult relationships between owners and tenants, anonymously if you wish, do not hesitate to write to the writing of Capital.