Unbelievably bad landlord

clutton_2

read Eagerlearners long long thread about taking her landlord to court - it will take you a few hours, but, well worth the read

as a LL, i am utterly appalled at what you have had to put up with - why did Environmental Health not come to your help - or did you now know you could ask them for help

very best wishes in your new place

Paulus1962

Clutton, I have started reading the thread from Eagerlearner (just got to the point where she discovered her L/L's address) - thank you for that, there are lots of useful links in there.

With regard to Environmental health, they are already involved. Back in march they sent a letter detailing the faults with the property that had to be rectified and stated that the hot water had to be 'reinstated immediately'. As you might guess, with it now being near to December and still no hot water, there seems to be some difference of opinion between myself and the landlord as to what constitutes 'immediate'.

MummyandPaige

Glad you are now out of there, cannot remember which specific law it is, but will look it up for you. It is illegal for a Landlord to rent a propert without a yearly gas inspection certificate being issued to you. If the property fails (this includes heating and hot water supply) thenn the Landlord has to fix it and then have it retest. It is against the law to do this.

With regards to getting your money back, I really hope you do but I doubt it. I was in the same situation with my Landlord 3 years ago, he too wanted us out and used every trick in the book to keep his deposit including giving us worn and years old carpet and then blaming the state on us.

Alarm bells started to ring when we started recieving post for the Landlord at our house with a court stamp on it. I know what I did next was illegal, but I opened it and found that it was a former tennant of his other house taking him to court for non return of the deposit and he had given our address as his home residence, worryingly the address that we had been given for the Landlord when we moved in was the one that the other tennant lived in.

I contacted the Landlord about this and was told not to worry, then 3 days later he appeared unanounced and told us that the house was in a state of disrepair and we were to move out immediately or he would remove the windows so we would have no choice, this was in the middle of the snow storms one february.

We moved back into my Mums and began the fight, as he had refused to even meet us to give the keys back, let alone give us a deposit back, or a reason why. We had no address for him and only a mobile number as contact, which all of a sudden was never answered.

In a desperate bid to get somewhere we phoned the police and explained the situation, after two weeks they tracked him down and arrested him, only for them to find that they actually had nothing to stick to him so they had to let him go, the only thing that he was eventually charged with was punching the custody sergent on the way out.

We never did see a penny back, we contacted the other tennant and found that she had been chasing for over a year and got no where so taking him to court was only going to end up costing us. We lost £500 and learned that not all landlords are as nice as them seem.

Your best bet is to phone your local councils housing department, they are going to be the people who are going to know pretty much every law regarding Landlords and tennants themselves as they rent so many houses. They will be able to tell you your best course of action and exactly what can be done, if you can find a loophole in the law, then have him arrested, nothing will stick, but it may shake him up enough to sort out the matter.

Paulus1962

Although I continually refer to the landlord as 'he', it is in fact a large investment company. I will not lay down and say 'ohwell, there goes', it is not in my nature. I will argue this with them till the day I die. I already have three firms of solicitors who wish to take the case for the disrepair, damages etc. I also have photographs of EVERYTHING to assist in my case against them. Hopefully, by the time we have finished with all this, we will have enough compensation to buy a nice villa on the Italian riviera (well, I'm allowed to dream!).

N79

Paulus1962 wrote: »

In actual fact a section 21 notice could not be issued by the landlord. If I chose to force the issue by going to court, the landlord would have to produce a copy of the original AST for the benefit of the court. This they cannot do! They are not the first landlord of this property, and somewhere along the line, they managed to lose the original agreement (along with the inventory as well). Hence, they were unable to issue a section 21 notice.

Before anyone reading this gets the wrong idea I would just like to point out that this is rubbish I'm afraid. It the LL could not prove the terms of the original AST then a court would simply use a statutory tenancy with 6 month fixed term as per the housing act. A S21 would be issued against this tenancy, not the original. The only possible complication could be dates but in reality I can't see this being an issue as, in my experience, courts are happy to just use the rent payment period for old tenancies where no-one can prove the original start date.

Paulus1962

It is not rubbish. It is not to prove the terms of the AST, but to prove that one existed in the first place. If you cannot make a helpful suggestion, then don't bother.

N79

Paulus1962 wrote: »

It is not rubbish. It is not to prove the terms of the AST, but to prove that one existed in the first place. If you cannot make a helpful suggestion, then don't bother.

Keeping the advice on these boards accurate is a helpful suggestion.

Under the housing acts an AST is assumed unless proved to the contrary, except in a few defined circumstances. (See section 19A of the 1988 Housing Act as amended by the 1997 Housing Act). You can read the updated text at this link.

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=housing+act+1988&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=2128236&ActiveTextDocId=2128268&filesize=2717

This is how oral tenancies work, how courts deal with lost paperwork etc. Otherwise if Ts lost their copy of the agreement then LLs could just through them out on the street claiming them to be squatters! If the tenancy is excluded by schedule 2A then it would become a common law tenancy but these are very rare outside of London.

Paulus1962

With all due respect, your link proves my point. A section 21 can only be issued if an Assured Shorthold Tenancy existed. When the landlord cannot prove the existence of an assured shorthold tenancy, nor even the commencement date of the tenancy he is in a somewhat difficult position. It is not for the tenant to prove the case for the landlord, the onus is squarely on the landlord to provide the proof.
In section 21(1) and 21(1)(a) it clearly states that the court must be satisfied that an assured shorthold tenancy has come to an end, this cannot be done when an AST cannot be proved to have existed. If you feel that a court would take a guess without any substantive evidence to prove the existence of an AST when the landlord cannot even state categorically when the tenancy started (as already explained, this is not the first landlord at this property, the current one is in actual fact the fourth), then you are mistaken. Courts deal with facts not supposition.

21 Recovery of possession on expiry or termination of assured shorthold tenancy
(1) Without prejudice to any right of the landlord under an assured shorthold tenancy to recover possession of the dwelling-house let on the tenancy in accordance with Chapter I above, on or after the coming to an end of an assured shorthold tenancy which was a fixed term tenancy, a court shall make an order for possession of the dwelling-house if it is satisfied—
(a) that the assured shorthold tenancy has come to an end and no further assured tenancy (whether shorthold or not) is for the time being in existence, other than a statutory periodic tenancy; and
(b) the landlord or, in the case of joint landlords, at least one of them has given to the tenant not less than two months' notice stating that he requires possession of the dwelling-house.
(2) A notice under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) above may be given before or on the day on which the tenancy comes to an end; and that subsection shall have effect notwithstanding that on the coming to an end of the fixed term tenancy a statutory periodic tenancy arises.
(3) Where a court makes an order for possession of a dwelling-house by virtue of subsection (1) above, any statutory periodic tenancy which has arisen on the coming to an end of the assured shorthold tenancy shall end (without further notice and regardless of the period) on the day on which the order takes effect.
(4) Without prejudice to any such right as is referred to in subsection (1) above, a court shall make an order for possession of a dwelling-house let on an assured shorthold tenancy which is a periodic tenancy if the court is satisfied—
(a) that the landlord or, in the case of joint landlords, at least one of them has given to the tenant a notice stating that, after a date specified in the notice, being the last day of a period of the tenancy and not earlier than two months after the date the notice was given, possession of the dwelling-house is required by virtue of this section; and
(b) that the date specified in the notice under paragraph (a) above is not earlier than the earliest day on which, apart from section 5(1) above, the tenancy could be brought to an end by a notice to quit given by the landlord on the same date as the notice under paragraph (a) above.

This is all irrelevent in any case, it is of no importance to me whether or not the landlord could/would/should have issued a section 21 notice, the point is they didn't and they chose instead to neglect the property and break the law by their actions. Their actions included capping the gas supply, failing to maintain the boiler, failing to provide hot water (which, in itself, makes the property unsuitable for human habitation), failing to act upon the notice issued by environmental health, failing to provide a draught free habitat, failing to correct dampness, leaks in the roof, cracks in the walls, mould in the property. Do you seriously think I care about their failure to issue a section 21 notice?

N79

Paulus1962 wrote: »

With all due respect,

No need to be rude

Paulus1962 wrote: »

your link proves my point. A section 21 can only be issued if an Assured Shorthold Tenancy existed.

You are quire correct with this statement. However, paying rent in return for occupation of a dwelling house creates a tenancy and S19 shows that that tenancy would be an AST by default (if post 1997) unless the exceptions applied. If the tenancy was post 1988 and pre 1997 then it would be an assured tenancy unless the LL could show proof that another type of tenancy was created. If the housing acts didn't apply then it would be a common law tenancy. In either case, there are defined terms applied by the courts in determining tenancies in the absence of other information.

Paulus1962 wrote: »

This is all irrelevent in any case, it is of no importance to me whether or not the landlord could/would/should have issued a section 21 notice, the point is they didn't and they chose instead to neglect the property and break the law by their actions. Their actions included capping the gas supply, failing to maintain the boiler, failing to provide hot water (which, in itself, makes the property unsuitable for human habitation), failing to act upon the notice issued by environmental health, failing to provide a draught free habitat, failing to correct dampness, leaks in the roof, cracks in the walls, mould in the property. Do you seriously think I care about their failure to issue a section 21 notice?

I wasn't commenting on your case, where you have clearly had contact with at best an extremely misguided and poor LL and more likely with a criminal scam artist, merely your statement highlighted in my original post.

clutton_2

if rent is paid, and can be proved to be paid, then an AST tenacy exists in the eyes of the law - even if there is no paperwork

please can anyone give me the link for eagerlearners thread, i seem to have mislaid it and want to give it to someone else - thanks