no forwarding address

[jayb]

Tenant moving today, I have given him 3 months to pay his rent arrears, and to help him I agreed he could pay me a sum weekly, he has only paid now and then and did not communicate though I said I would be at home at a certain time so ther was no exscuse of me" not being in " so but during this time he has managed to buy a car!
I asked him for a forwarding address which he wouldn't give me, said he would phone tonight as he didn't know the name of the street! He had already made journeys to and fro with his belongings. I said I would follow the van to which he said he would run into my car. After waiting an hour for he and his father to load the van, I discreetly followed the van which went to his parents home. I also have his national insurance number, would I be able to trace a future address from this!
I intend to give him an invoice, at his parents home, allowing him two weeks to pay, then I will send a final notice to advise him if he does not pay in a further two weeks I will take the matter to the small claims court. By the way he is verbally aggresive, and refused to set up a standing order though he had signed a tenancy agreement to do so.
As a novice Landlady I feel that the law does seem to give the Tenant ALL the rights and not many to the Landlord! Can anyone please give me advice?

[Tootsie Roll]

Sadly the days of tracing someone via an NI number are long gone - unless you know someone in the Inland Revenue ;)

If you know where he is now - do you need to trace him ? There are specialist tracing companies out there (I work for one) but they are not going to be too interested in just one case - typically they take on 100+ cases each month from all the big lenders etc. Personally I would serve all the papers to his parents address and let them try and tell you he doesn't live there.

[jayb]

Thank you Tootsie Roll and Paul F for your replies. I will write to him at his parents address ( I feel pretty sure he is there at the moment) I will send letters recorded delivery.
I will request him to collect his things, already done so verbally leaving a message on parents phone.
A friend says not to send accounts and warnings untill the locks have been changed - just incase.
I think he may be an expert at this as I have found papers with 2 different adress's (one for unpaid council tax) in the last 18 months. Perhaps the parents are party to this as he was supposed to be living with them before he moved to my property - hence no Landlord ref!! Wish there was a way of warning other Landlords in the area of this undesirable Tenant!
Thank you both for your advice. Jayb