Murder in a Rented Flat

Usually buy-to-let landlords face such snags from their tenants as damaged showers, broken boilers or missing keys. But sometimes a rented flat might become a scene of a crime, such as murder.

In Nottingham, German student David Heiss stabbed his room-mate Matthew Pyke 86 times. The reason for that crime was an argument over an internet computer game. The trial took three weeks, and after it Heiss was jailed for life.

For the owner of the flat this was absolutely unexpected. He has an 18-year letting experience but his biggest problem was non-payment for a couple of months.

Now as the news of a killing spread all over the city, no one wants to move into the flat itself or even into a block of flats, where a grisly crime took place. Moreover, two tenants who lived next to flat, where the murder was committed, asked the landlord to break the contract as they wanted to move out.

After the crime happened, all of the flats were cleared of residents, who were re-housed by the landlord for three weeks, and he had to pay the difference in price. The police also insisted on holding onto the flat as a crime scene for two months. So it stayed unoccupied at landlord’s expense. 

The cleaning and repair works also cost the landlord quite a fortune, and the insurance company was not willing to pay for it.

All in all, the flat was held by police for six and a half months, which amounted to £3,250 of rental payments.

Now the flat is returned to the owner but the trial is still a matter of discussion in newspapers, so the chances of finding a new tenant are extremely low.

As we can see, this was not only a moral tragedy but also a very difficult financial situation.