Tenancy end date disputes

darbooka

Do landlord and/or agent have grounds to claim extra days' rent from a former tenant, for surpassing a tenancy vacation, date in circumstances where:
a. the agent's employee agreed with the tenant on a particular date to vacate which was (known to the agent to be) a few days later than the contractual end date because the agent was unavailable to do the 'check-out' inspection on the actual tenancy end date in part becuase that end date fell on a weekend; and,
b. it subsequently transpired that in discussing and agreeing and scheduling the check-out inspection, both the agent and the tenant honestly thought/assumed that the tenancy end-date was one day later than it actually was as per the contract (as all parties genuinely mistakenly confused the monthly rent payment date as the end-date when actually it should be the day before; but the more experienced agent never bothered to check his client's file documents to look at the dates)...

What happens when after the house was vacated the agent urges the landlord to claim a few extra days of rent on the dry premise that the vacating exceeded the last day of tenancy (even though the agent specifically was party and contributed to the scheduling of the vacating/inspection date), the agent ignores all of the other circumstances and factors, and the agent threatens to seek a county court judgement from the tenants if the 'extra' days are not paid for?

Would a court likely adhere to the exact date as indicated on the contract or consider the agent's contribution to the delay in vacating the property, and the role and responsibility of the agent?

silvercar

How much money are we talking about? If its small I doubt the landlord would be bothered going to court. Does the landlord hold a deposit? If you agree you occupied for X days longer than you've paid rent for, why aren't you happy to pay for those few days?

darbooka

silvercar wrote:

How much money are we talking about? If its small I doubt the landlord would be bothered going to court. Does the landlord hold a deposit? If you agree you occupied for X days longer than you've paid rent for, why aren't you happy to pay for those few days?

It's slightly over 100 pounds. Landlord doesnt hold any deposit. In those days the house was not occupied or used at all in the practical sense; but some of those days were used to return the house to its best condition (at voluntary extra expense to the tenants, as a personal courtesy to the landlords), such as carpet shampooing, gardening, extra cleaning and removing some items that couldn't be removed earlier.

Me_Myself_2

What has the inspection date got to do with the end of the contract date. If you stayed for longer, you have to pay a fair proportion of the rent imho.

clutton_2

if a tenant stays on beyond the contractual date, even by one day, i seem to rememer reading that the landlord is entitled to claim a complete months additional rent. However, you say


"""a few days later than the contractual end date because the agent was unavailable to do the 'check-out' inspection on the actual tenancy end date in part becuase that end date fell on a weekend""

I would have thought that any decent landlord, under these circumstances (ie agent not available to do final inspection) would not claim a months rent.

Do you have any of these inspection negotiations re the date in writing or witnessed by anyone ?

I cannot imagine an agent taking you to court for £100 on such flimsy evidence, but, - do you need a reference from this landlord ?

""but some of those days were used to return the house to its best condition"" - the fact that you cleaned in those extra days is of no legal consequence - you signed an AST for a specific period, and you are legally bound to return the property to the landlord or his agent on the correct date (cleaning needs to be done within the Period of rental).