Can Landlord ask for "early" rent?

iscrimger

You're agreement is with the Letting Agency not the Landlord directly. Anything the landlord wishes must go through the agency. For example the landlord cannot just turn up at your front door and ask to inspect the property. Nor can he just request your rent a month early.

You should contact your agency who can advise you on the situation as your contract is with them and you should keep paying them the rent until you are instructed otherwise.

You also do pay your rent on time through the agency. When you signed your tenancy you will have been asked to pay a certain period of time in advance. So when you paid your rent (for example) at the end of June you were actually paying to stay there for July. You are effectively paying your rent a month early!

theartfullodger

You're agreement is with the Letting Agency not the Landlord directly.

.. err.. the agent is simply an agent, acting on behalf of the Landlord. Tenancy agreements name the Landlord and are an agreement between the tenant(s) and the Landlord, occasionally signed on Landlord's behalf by the agent.

Cheers!

Lodger

Gloomy_Past_Bright_Future

iscrimger wrote: »

You're agreement is with the Letting Agency not the Landlord directly. Anything the landlord wishes must go through the agency. For example the landlord cannot just turn up at your front door and ask to inspect the property. Nor can he just request your rent a month early.

You should contact your agency who can advise you on the situation as your contract is with them and you should keep paying them the rent until you are instructed otherwise.

You also do pay your rent on time through the agency. When you signed your tenancy you will have been asked to pay a certain period of time in advance. So when you paid your rent (for example) at the end of June you were actually paying to stay there for July. You are effectively paying your rent a month early!

Yes thats right we do, we pay a month in advance, but the LL wants it a month and 5 days in advance and a month and a week in advance if the rent due day falls on a weekend day.

I am going to contact the LA, as if what you say is correct, this is beginning to sound a bit dodgy.. The LA were paid to tennant find only and not fully manage the property so any probs we have we call the landlord. Beginning to wonder wether he has told LA we have served notice.

tbs624

iscrimger wrote: »

You're agreement is with the Letting Agency not the Landlord directly. Anything the landlord wishes must go through the agency. For example the landlord cannot just turn up at your front door and ask to inspect the property.

:rolleyes: I think you misunderstand the role of an LA. No-one can turn up at your door to inspect the property on demand, however, whether or not s/he uses an LA a LL can indeed arrange an inspection of the condition of the property to be able to comply with S11 repairing obligations. The LL does *not* have to "go through the LA": the LA is merely, as his/her title says, the agent of the LL (See Artful's post above)

iscrimger wrote: »

You should contact your agency who can advise you on the situation as your contract is with them and you should keep paying them the rent until you are instructed otherwise...

The T has been instructed otherwise: as long as the T has it in writing from the LL that's all that's needed.

iscrimger wrote: »

You also do pay your rent on time through the agency. When you signed your tenancy you will have been asked to pay a certain period of time in advance. So when you paid your rent (for example) at the end of June you were actually paying to stay there for July. You are effectively paying your rent a month early!

From what the OP says, he has *not* been paying his rent on time via the LA - as already stated a rent due date of the 13th means that the rent should be in the LLs account by that date. How much simpler could the phrase "rent due upon" be?

tbs624

Gloomy_Past_Bright_Future wrote: »

Yes thats right we do, we pay a month in advance, but the LL wants it a month and 5 days in advance and a month and a week in advance if the rent due day falls on a weekend day.

:rolleyes: No, the LL wants the rent when it is actually due, in line with the terms of the contract that you have signed. You have not been meeting the terms of your contract and now you are being asked to do so.That's a reasonable request.

Gloomy_Past_Bright_Future

tbs624 wrote: »

:rolleyes: I

From what the OP says, he has *not* been paying his rent on time via the LA - as already stated a rent due date of the 13th means that the rent should be in the LLs account by that date. How much simpler could the phrase "rent due upon" be?

Ah but it doesnt state the 13th day of the month, it states the 13th day of the rental period, so therefore if I move in on the 13th it is due on day 13 of the rental period , which to me is the 25th!!:rotfl:

princeofpounds

You're agreement is with the Letting Agency not the Landlord directly. Anything the landlord wishes must go through the agency. For example the landlord cannot just turn up at your front door and ask to inspect the property. Nor can he just request your rent a month early.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Tenants have NO contractual relationships with agents. ONLY with LL. The LL has the contractual relationship with the LA but as far as the tenants are concerned agents are nothing more than representatives of the LL, and their actions can be inferred to the LL. The above is totally and utterly false.

Think about it, if the LL terminates his contract with the agency, why should the tenants remain paying the agent when they no longer have anything to do with the property? It's a totally ridiculous situation. You just have to look at your AST to see who the agreement is with - the LL (the agent may sign it for him as his representative, but it WILL list the LL).

Rent is due on the due date in the contract. tbs624 is totally correct. As noted above, the LL is merely asking for cleared funds on his account by the due date. Therefore he is asking for his rent ON TIME and nothing more. If it isn't CLEARED, you haven't paid it. When you paid the agent previously it matters when it arrived in the agent's rent receipt account, as the LL=agent for these purposes until you are told otherwise.

It seems you were paying late all this time and they didn't choose to pursue it, which is fine, it doesn't really matter as landlords don't have much comeback until you have built up two months of arrears anyway in a fixed term contract.

I am paying the rent out of my account on the 13th I will also confirm this in writing and if he doesn't like it tough, he can serve us notice.

Fine, as long as you understand you are wrong to do so. There's a reason it's called a rent due date and not a rent this-is-when-I-might-raise-the-order date. There won't be any practical impact on you except to spoil your relationship with the LL - he is being totally reasonable to expect the rent by the due date (although 5 days is more than enough to clear, depending on your bank it might be 3 or even less) so he might rightfully perceive your actions as provocative.

You should however get written confirmation of the new arrangements from the LL and ensure that it is really the LL who is telling you to do this and not an impostor (it does happen!).

princeofpounds

Ah but it doesnt state the 13th day of the month, it states the 13th day of the rental period, so therefore if I move in on the 13th it is due on day 13 of the rental period , which to me is the 25th!!:rotfl:

Ah well you could have actually said you moved in on the 25th. Saying that you always paid for the 13th previously kind of implied that you were running on a true calendar monthly basis. In which case you have been generally paying about 9 days early with 3 day clearing.

In that case the LL is under a misperception on when the rental period is, so that's on a monthly basis (rent payable monthly) from the start of the tenancy (25th.). In this case I think you have to point it out to him and come to some sort of compromise. He may not have properly read the thing, which was likely an estate agent print-out.

iscrimger

tbs624 wrote: »

:rolleyes: I think you misunderstand the role of an LA. No-one can turn up at your door to inspect the property on demand, however, whether or not s/he uses an LA a LL can indeed arrange an inspection of the condition of the property to be able to comply with S11 repairing obligations. The LL does *not* have to "go through the LA": the LA is merely, as his/her title says, the agent of the LL (See Artful's post above)
The T has been instructed otherwise: as long as the T has it in writing from the LL that's all that's needed.

From what the OP says, he has *not* been paying his rent on time via the LA - as already stated a rent due date of the 13th means that the rent should be in the LLs account by that date. How much simpler could the phrase "rent due upon" be?

Yes you have misunderstood my point about turning up at the door. You have to be informed of the inspection before it can take place. Nobody can just turn up and do an inspection without prior warning.

I completely understand the rent due upon phrase. But you have completely missed the point.

If your rent is due on the 13th of every month, and you've paid a months rent in advance on signing the tenancy then the landlords payments are being made a month in advance. The landlord is therefor looking for next months mortgage payment having made this months already from the last months rent. If you are late paying your rent for July then the landlord will feel no effect of this because you are paying for a date which has not yet come and is not yet due. I think you'll find it is you who is not fully understanding.

The agency act as the middle man in rentals. You deal with the agency. The landlord has instructed the tenant otherwise but they must deal with the agency until the agency inform them of the new arrangements. Yes the agency act on behalf of the Landlord but the tenant has the tenancy with the agency. The landlord cannot simply state he wants the rent directly - the agency will have to inform them of this.

I am in actual fact agreeing with thearfullodgers post. You seem slightly bent on contradicting my post.

The Landlord has requested they pay rent 5 days earlier, this to allow for the bank transfer period. The tenancy agreement will hold the exact due information. If the Letting Agency are taking the rent on the 13th via DD and the agreement states 'on the 13th' of Each month then the payment has only to be made on the 13th. It depends on the agencies collection method as to the wording.

Banks also do fast payment transfers now - you should enquire with your bank about this. Payments will be received the same working day but are subject to amount limits.

The landlords estimate of 5 days is also too extreme as standard transfers only take 3 days. If the early payment is a problem then I'd request you pay the money directly into the LL's account on the due date of the 13th.

princeofpounds

The agency act as the middle man in rentals. You deal with the agency. The landlord has instructed the tenant otherwise but they must deal with the agency until the agency inform them of the new arrangements. Yes the agency act on behalf of the Landlord but the tenant has the tenancy with the agency. The landlord cannot simply state he wants the rent directly - the agency will have to inform them of this.

That's just simply not true. I'm sorry, I don't often say something like this but you are being a bit of an idiot insisting on this point when there are at least three posters here who know a lot about tenancy law contradicting you.

You just have to LOOK at your tenancy agreement to see it is between LL and T, NOT LA and T.

This gets me irritated because it is one of the most common misconceptions and often proves to be a massive barrier when people try to get their problems fixed. Suing the agent by mistake for deposits for example.

I really hope you aren't an agent, tenant or a LL :S

Let's see what some professionals say (though I use that terms loosely when it comes to letting agents)...

http://www.henleyjones.com/TenantsGuide.aspx

The (ASTA) is a legally binding contract between the Tenant and the Landlord. It states the length of the tenancy and the amount of rent to be paid. It stipulates the conditions required by the Landlord and gives information about your rights and responsibilities as the Tenant.

http://www.ludlowthompson.com/renting/guide_to_renting.htm

An Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) is used for the majority of residential tenancies. This is normally a standard contract between Landlord and Tenant.

The agent is employed by the Landlord so the agent will act in their best interests. However professional NAEA letting agents will abide by best practice rules that work for both landlord and tenant. Using an NAEA letting agent, such as Cardens Residential, ensures that you sign a property AST agreement that clearly sets responsibilities of both the landlord and tenant...