Return of rent?

zzzLazyDaisy

Originally Posted by sockpuppetuk
My description as rental is probably over the top, we are letting a member of the family have the house.

sockpuppetuk wrote: »

They are not friends, just people we know quite well and were comfortable renting the house to.

Presumably the original arrangement for family to look after the house fell through, so you rented the place out to these other people?

zzzLazyDaisy

silvercar wrote: »

Talking generally, from the landlord's point of view, if you are prepared to let a property at half the going rent in return for the tenant agreeing to forego certain pre-defined and agreed legal rights (eg not be given 2 months notice), is this ever legally possible?

No.

A contract can always be varied by agreement between the parties.

BUT, a party to a contract cannot agree to waive his or her statutory rights.

Think about it - what is the point of introducing laws to protect tenants rights, if the landlord can get round them by simply offering to knock a few quid off the rent and getting the tenant to sign on the dotted line.........

The Housing Act 1998, and its later amendments, came into force to protect tenants. Even if a tenant signs a contract agreeing to a particular term or provision, the landlord cannot rely on it if that term breaches statutory provisions.

Logic, my friend, simply doesn't come into it. I think you know that though

sdooley

Your big question is what's more important, getting back into the property in time or sticking to your strict legal rights re rent and deposit.

Yes you have to give 2 months notice etc technically (and the thing about the deposit protection probably isn't relavant as the rules only just came in). But you and they can agree for them to move out sooner - though in that case refunding the relevant rent would be fair. Also give them a fair payment for the carpet - half the cost at least.

zzzLazyDaisy

sdooley wrote: »

The thing about the deposit protection probably isn't relavant as the rules only just came in.

The law relating to deposit schemes was introduced in April 2007 - almost 18 months ago. OP states in her first post that they moved to Spain a year ago. On that basis OP's legal obligation to register the deposit is very relevant indeed.

As for saying the requirement to give two months' notice to quit is a mere technicality... well I guess you could say that about any law....

'Sorry I didn't comply with the speed limit officer, but it is only a (legal) technicality'........

tbs624

sdooley wrote: »

Your big question is what's more important, getting back into the property in time or sticking to your strict legal rights re rent and deposit.

No Sdooley - the big question is why should someone who is letting a property out to tenants think it 's okay to ride roughshod over the tenant's "legal rights re rent and deposit." If people can't LL properly then they should either not do it at all or pay someone professional to do it on their behalf.

And as littlemissmoney pointed out, whilst Sockpuppet was out of the country there should have been a UK agent appointed to manage the property and receive Notices on behalf of the LL: without that no rent was in fact legally collectable so there's another "technical" possibility to consider.

LLs and Ts are of course free to agree between themselves to an earlier departure from a property after proper notice has been given but a tenant *cannot* be obligated to do so on the whim of an ill-informed LL, who has a poorly drafted tenancy agreement put together on the cheap , then compounds it all by whining about what he thinks the tenant owes *him* and makes a joke of not having registered the deposit

If this is how amateur LLs treat people that they know, goodness knows what happens when their tenant is a total stranger.

There is quite simply no excuse for any LL to not register their tenant's deposit when paid after 6 April 2007 and/or to not have fully acquainted him/herself with the rest of the relevant legalities of property letting.

sdooley

There is a difference between the OP's big question and the big questions socially and morally; I happen to agree with the principle of most of your points tbs624.

I didn't realise the deposit protection scheme came in so long ago; I've gone from a long term tenancy to one which didn't ask for a deposit in that time.

The point I was making is if you ask for 1 month notice when the tenant is entitled to 2, then if they want to leave after only 2 weeks you should, fairly, refund them the extra 2 weeks rent; a practical rather than legalistic solution. This is not a Rachmann/Hoogstraten situation.