A West London couple who claim their basement flat is being illegally sublet on Airbnb said they may have to sell to get out of debt from lost rent and legal fees as they look to evict their tenant. Yasmina Mathias, 62, and Robert Mathias, 74, said retirement was now 'out of the question' as they figure out how to plug a potential £25,000 black hole in their finances.

Yasmina said: "My health has really gone because of this, because of the stress. I'm constantly thinking about it. I'm worried. We have a mortgage to pay."

The couple work from home in their flat in Chelsea. Yasmina runs her own tarot card reading business while Robert manages an IT firm. Both said they no longer feel comfortable in their home due to the constant strangers they claim are turning up in the basement flat which they also own, and feel they have to double-lock their front door.

They also accuse the estate agents Marsh & Parsons and RightMove of negligence, claiming they both failed to carry out in-depth reference checks on their tenant. RightMove said it has confidence in its referencing process and when issues arise, it works with letting agents to secure the best possible outcome for the landlord.

Marsh & Parsons said it does not comment publicly on matters involving customers and their properties. The agency said it works diligently and directly with clients to help resolve any issues.

The homeowners have begun the process of evicting their tenant and are expected to have their request for a possession order heard by a court in December. By that time, they will have missed five months of rent, they claim.

'They just want to pocket the money'

Robert claims he noticed something was wrong two weeks after signing a new tenancy agreement. The 74-year-old was at home when he noticed a family of four outside the property looking lost. When he approached, they said they had arrived from Mexico and had an Airbnb reservation for the basement apartment.

From that point on, people 'streamed' in and out of the flat, Robert claimed, adding that the tenant had also stopped paying rent. He said: "It's really awful. Our home is being invaded. It's like burglary but worse. I can't even go in the back garden to prune the bushes, which [the tenant] doesn't bother doing and we stopped paying to have the front cleaned."

Yasmina and Robert claim their tenant has a 'very organised' operation which includes cleaners and a constant flow of guests. They claim he also installed a new smart doorbell which they believe he uses to track guests when they arrive and leave. The couple have become so fed up with constant visitors they've now resorted to placing a warning on their front window.

It says the basement flat is being sublet without their permission and that guests will be reported to booking agencies. The couple said the flat has also been advertised on holiday-letting sites like Booking.com, Top Hotels London, London Hotels, Airpaz and Stayz, which appears to be an Australian website.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has seen these ads and also found the flat advertised on Vrbo. The ads boast of a two-bedroom lower ground flat 'in the heart of Chelsea' with a fully furnished kitchen, flat-screen TV and free wi-fi and are charging between £135 and £180 a night.

On Airbnb, the flat is described as a 'charming' and 'stylist retreat' in 'one of London's most prestigious neighbourhoods' where 'the perfect blend of comfort, convenience, and character mak[e] it an ideal choice for both short and long stays'. It is being listed for £180 a night and is reserved for most of October.

When the LDRS approached the host via the messaging portal on Airbnb for comment, they declined it. Airbnb then sent us a generic email saying using the portal to solicit third-party services or other websites was against its terms of service and threatened to suspend our account if this was violated again. The LDRS also contacted the tenant via phone and email but received no response.

After being contacted for comment, Top Hotels London, London Hotels, Airpaz and Booking.com said they would remove the ad from their platform.

A Top Hotels London spokesperson said the company does not post any properties on its site illegally and as an online travel agency, it conducts operations in accordance with contractual agreements with suppliers. When asked what it was doing to ensure illegally sublet apartments do not turn up on its website, a spokesperson from London Hotels said they were unable to take any action at the moment and hope similar situations do not occur in the future.

Vrbo said it is investigating the matter and that as per its terms and conditions, hosts have to comply with legal requirements and operate in line with the law. A spokesperson added: "The incoming national registration scheme for holiday lets in England, which we have been calling for for years, will create the first comprehensive and authoritative database of properties.

"Once established, authorities will be able identify and address rogue operators effectively, which will mean that instances of illegal subletting can be identified more easily."

Airbnb said hosts are ultimately responsible for ensuring listings comply with all legal and contractual requirements and urge them to check and follow the most up to date local rules while listing their space. The company said it is not an accommodation provider but operates a marketplace where hosts can list their accommodation. Where possible, it encourages parties to resolve issues directly with each other.

Where this is not possible, it facilitates a pass through process and forwards communications from third parties to hosts. A spokesperson said: "We have been in contact with the host and landlord regarding this private dispute. We ask all hosts to ensure that they have permission to list their space and remind them to check and follow local rules before they list and throughout the year. This is made clear in our terms of service and on our responsible hosting page."

A Booking.com spokesperson said: "All partners must agree to our terms and conditions, verifying that they are legally permitted to rent out their accommodation. In the rare instance that we are alerted to a concern about a specific property, we investigate immediately and can remove the property from our platform if necessary. In this instance, the property is no longer listed in our site."

Stayz has also been contacted for comment.

'It's crazy what's happening in this town'

Yasmin and Robert are also concerned about a constant flow of people turning up at the property in the early hours of the morning which they believe is happening outside of the holiday lets. Recordings seen by the LDRS taken in September show three adult men entering and leaving the property at different times between 3am and 5am in a single night.

One appears to be pacing up and down the pavement after surfacing from the flat and then wanders off. Another is glued to his phone as he makes his way down while a third flicks his hair behind his ears as he scales the stairs at 4.08am.

The following night, a man can be seen casually unlocking the front gate and descending the stairs and then re-emerging roughly 45 minutes later. In addition to this, Yasmina and Robert claim delivery drivers buzz their doorbell late at night looking for the basement flat.

When the couple told Airbnb their flat was being illegally sublet on the platform and requested the ad be removed, they claim they were refused and told only the host could do that. When they approached the host, they claim he said he was helping a friend going through a difficult time.

Yasmina, who has lived there 35 years, said: "I'm losing money. It's my flat. It's my home and it's being used illegally and it's affecting my health very badly. It's crazy what's happening in this town…They just want to pocket the money."

Robert accused Airbnb of ignoring them. He said: "They have a policy of pushing people away. That's all it is to them. They're not interested in ethical issues or legality."

Yasmina and Robert said their experience has left them feeling tenants have more rights than landlords. Robert said: "I think the problem is that politicians have been concentrating for a very long time on the rights of tenants over the rights of landlords.

"They seem to think landlords are wealthy people who make money by providing miserable flats to people who can't afford it. That may be true in some cases but I think there should be equitable rights for landlords to protect them from people who have no intention of paying their rent and illegally making money."

Neighbours claim they lost £36,000 from the same issue

Chris Stewart, 59, and Alison Chapman, 56, agree. They live next door and claimed they too were ripped off by a rogue renter who had put their flat on a holiday letting site. Over a two-and-a-half year period, they claim they lost £36,000 in rent.

They claim their ordeal began in July 2018 when soon after signing an agreement, their tenant began inviting people over and had numerous dogs stay with him – something the couple claim they never agreed to. He stopped paying rent in full, they claim, and advertised the flat on a holiday letting site adding that they found other properties under his name on the same holiday letting platform.

Chris said: "The [holiday letting site] was a small part of the grief we had. The flat was in such a state of damage. It got very bad reviews on [the platform]. The reason we didn't push hard [to have the ad removed] was because the flat was already in such a bad state that we felt, what damage could a guest do? Also, he was putting some rent into our account. What we didn't want was to aggravate the situation with him."

Chris and Alison claim the tenant moved out a number of years ago after they threatened to sell. In the flat, they claim they found shutters ripped to pieces, the bin full of dog poo and vomit in the sink.

When they requested a copy of the reference check report from the letting agent they used, it never came, leading them to believe they never carried one out. Chris said the ordeal was extremely stressful and has made the couple suspicious of letting their flat again.

He said: "We were living on credit cards to keep things going and at the end, we had a massive mess in the flat we had to pay for." Alison added: "It had us in financial stress. Every month, you asked yourself if the rent had gone in. People think because you're a landlord you have a lot of money, but you don't."

'At the mercy of the court system'

Chris Norris, Campaigns and Policy Director at the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), which represents over 100,000 members across England and Wales, said it was rare for homes to be illegally sublet on holiday letting platforms but agreed companies should do more to ensure listings are legitimate. He said: "I think if they were able to carry out the same kind of checks that letting agencies on the residential market carry out to check you do own that property or have the right to let that property, most of these issues would be resolved because they would not be allowed to put them out to let in the first place."

He said in '99.99per cent' of cases in the private rental market, which he said consists of 4.5m households, the system works 'absolutely fine'. Instead, he believes the problem lies with the courts, which he claims have been laden with huge cases loads after the pandemic.

This means landlords wait months for a possession order or a bailiff – a post he said was experiencing a high vacancy rate due to poor pay and a crisis over personal protection equipment. He said: "We're at the mercy, really, of the court system. I think that's where the majority of the real frustration builds up."

This, he said, was making it even more difficult for landlords to stay afloat financially. He said high interest rates, forcing mortgage payments to rise, also didn't help. He said: "A lot of landlords who own a property in the UK have done so on the basis they will make a good return on their investment over a period of about 20 years. It's not a very cash-rich, income-rich environment.

"In most of the country, you are hopefully making a small return on your investment year on year… It's not something that means you're sitting on lots of reserves and it's why they get concerned when there's so much talk about changes to regulations."