Q. I have not spoken to my tenant for months. He lives alone and so far as I am aware has no friends and relatives. I am worried that he may be ill or even dead in the property. Is there anything I can do?

A. If you have reason to be concerned, the best thing to do is to send a letter or email making an appointment for an inspection visit. If he does not respond, attend at the property with someone responsible to act as your witness if necessary.

If there is no response to your knocking on the door, look through the letter box and maybe ask around the neighbours to see what they can tell you. If there is reason to think that the tenant may be ill or dead in the property, use your keys to enter, along with your witness and see what the situation is. If all seems to be well, just withdraw and make a file note of what happened. If you find your tenant ill, call 999. If you find your tenant dead, call the police. Again, make a file note of exactly what happened for the record.

Q. I have just been notified that my tenant has died. He lived alone, and so far as I am aware, he had no family. Does this mean that the tenancy has ended and I can go in, change the locks and relet the property?

A. Contrary to what you might think, the death of either the landlord or the tenant does not ‘end’ a tenancy. Think of a tenancy as a ‘thing’ which exists of itself. So, before you can re-let the property, the tenancy really needs to have been terminated in the proper way.