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In rental management there are situations no contract can predict. A tenant can pay rent perfectly for two years, take exceptional care of the apartment, end the lease in full agreement with the owner – and a few weeks after they move out, the new tenants start finding debt collection notices in their mailbox.
Sounds unlikely? It happens. This is a real situation that occurred in an apartment we manage in the Bałuty district of Łódź. This post shows what we did to protect the new tenants and the owner from unnecessary stress – and what conclusions we drew for our current procedures.
It is also a story about how our company evolved. The Bałuty case was one of the moments that motivated us to introduce extended tenant verification – now standard in our Gold and Platinum packages.
The apartment in Bałuty had been under our management for several years. The tenant – a young woman who signed her lease before we introduced full verification across BIK, KRD, BIG and Erif credit databases – lived in it for two years without a single problem.
She paid rent on time. She cared for the apartment so well that during one of the inspection visits the owner herself was impressed by its condition – clean, tidy, with small decorative touches showing that someone genuinely treated this apartment as their home. The ideal long-term rental scenario.
After two years, the first signs of financial trouble appeared. At Golden Square we always see a human being in the tenant – so, in agreement with the owner, we proposed an amicable termination of the lease. The tenant left the apartment on the agreed date, with no debt, in full agreement with the owner.
The apartment was repainted, prepared for new tenants, and rented within a few days to a friendly young couple. Everything pointed to success.
A week after the new tenants moved in we got their first message: in the mailbox they had found several letters addressed to the previous tenant. A standard situation – “to the previous tenant” letters happen often, usually for several weeks after a change. We advised them to return the letters to senders with a note “addressee does not live at this address” and to move on with their other matters.
After another week the situation escalated:
It turned out that the previous tenant had a number of unsettled financial cases, and the debt collection companies were pursuing them at the address registered in their systems as her place of residence. Each company acted independently. Each had a different case. Each was convinced that the person they were looking for lived at this address.
A real risk emerged that the new tenants would terminate their lease – and the owner would once again be left with an empty apartment, even though everything on her side had been done correctly.
Debt collection cases require a systemic approach, not individual phone calls. Each company must receive an official confirmation that the person they are looking for no longer lives at this address – and each has its own procedure for accepting such information.
Our procedure consisted of three elements:
Based on the letters and stickers we identified more than a dozen companies operating at the address. Each separately.
Our lawyer sent each company an official letter containing:
These are letters that debt collection companies take seriously – they come from a legal representative, carry evidentiary weight and indicate consequences of further unjustified actions.
The new tenants got a clear instruction from us: no conversations with debt collectors, no phone calls, no discussions. Every contact attempt – email, letter, doorbell – was to be redirected to us. We were the buffer between them and the problem.
This was crucial psychologically. The young tenants did not have to explain themselves to strangers, did not have to stress. They knew someone was handling it for them.
After several weeks of systematic actions:
The whole procedure took several weeks and was handled entirely by us. The owner received only one email from us with the message: “Case resolved. Tenants calm. Apartment continues to rent without interruptions.”
Four practical conclusions from this case study:
1. Previous tenants’ problems can affect current ones. If a tenant had unsettled financial matters, they may “come back” to the apartment long after the move-out. This is not common – but it happens, and the owner should know that this scenario exists.
2. Verification before move-in is the foundation. Checking the tenant against BIK, KRD, BIG and Erif databases before signing the lease catches most people whose risk of these problems is elevated. Today this is a standard element of Gold and Platinum packages at Golden Square. The Bałuty case was one of the impulses that accelerated the introduction of this procedure across all our contracts.
3. Debt collection companies require a systemic approach. Single phone calls do nothing – each company is a different system, different procedures, different legal grounds. Only official letters from a lawyer with full documentation are effective. This is not a place for templates from the internet.
4. Tenants expect protection, not just an apartment. The Bałuty couple would have stayed in the apartment even in a difficult situation – but only because they saw concrete actions on our side. They felt protected. Without that, the apartment would have stood empty and the owner would have been losing money.
Let us see how each of our packages helps in situations similar to the one in Bałuty:
Everything from Silver, plus:
Everything from Gold, plus:
In the Bałuty case the role of the Gold package was crucial: official letters from the lawyer to each debt collection company, lease documentation, formal support for the new tenants. Without it, the entire procedure would have been longer and less effective.
Important: full BIK/KRD/BIG/Erif verification (Gold and Platinum) catches most people whose risk of these problems is real – before signing the lease. This is the best prevention in this type of situation.
Renting an apartment is not just walls and rent. It is relationships, documents, procedures, people. In an ideal world everything runs smoothly – and in 95% of cases it does. But in those 5%, when a problem appears, a professional management company should be a shield between the client and the trouble.
In the Bałuty case this meant:
This is the definition of professional rental management: results, without involving the client in difficult situations.
If you manage your apartment on your own and wonder whether your current procedure is enough for unforeseen situations – book a free consultation. We will show you how our packages work in practice, what safeguards we use, and how much it actually costs.
If you want to compare protection levels – check our management packages. Silver, Gold and Platinum differ in the scope of tenant verification, legal protection and financial guarantees – tailored to different owner needs.
The Bałuty apartment is one of hundreds of examples. Every property under our care has its own story – sometimes simple, sometimes complicated. Our task is to make sure the owner and tenants always have stable, professional support from us.
Author: Monika Graczyk
The above description is a case study of a specific situation and does not constitute legal advice. Each case involving debt collection actions at a property’s address requires individual analysis of the actual state of facts, the lease agreement content and consumer protection and GDPR regulations. Before taking formal action, please consult a lawyer.
