rent and legal rights

Soot2006

It sounds like your mate was the tenant and you were his lodger.
If this is the case, then you are not owing additional rent for the rest of your mate's contract. You did the right thing by giving notice and your mate could have looked around for a new lodger during that notice period.
What happened to your "deposit"?

lifedon

Soot2006 wrote: »

It sounds like your mate was the tenant and you were his lodger.
If this is the case, then you are not owing additional rent for the rest of your mate's contract. You did the right thing by giving notice and your mate could have looked around for a new lodger during that notice period.
What happened to your "deposit"?

This is what i thought but my legal knowledge in this matter is slim. I told my mate he could have it to pay for the next month of pay, but he isn't happy with that offer, i thought that was more than helpful.

princeofpounds

So you never signed any paperwork and never paid any rent direct to the LL. You are therefore not a tenant and the LL has no legal contract with you at all.

Your contract was with your friend, you were a lodger as he was the tenant and lived there, and as such in the absence of written agreement your only obligation was to give reasonable notice which you did.

No further obligation.

blckbrd

Out of curiosity, as others have said what your liability is to your friend, did he take on the contract on the understanding that you'd move in and pay half?

Or did he take on the property, find it too expensive and ask you if you wanted to share?

terryw

lifedon wrote: »

Cheers for all the replies, and info. Well my ex-housemate has emailed me today asking for at least 1 more months worth of rent and that is that. However i still do not feel it is my duty to do so. The LL has asked that i find another tenant to take my place but is this not sub-letting and up to the current tennant as he has the contract to the house. I relise that im niave to all of this but I want to do what is right, i havnt left due to the mess of the house but that it was not safe to live there. (i know im going around the problem but i dont feel it is that important but maybe it is). I have paid a deposit but that was to the current tennant not the LL.

Other than no smoke alarms (cost from £1 at Poundshop to £5 or so elsewhere) how else was it not safe to live there?

adg1

From your posts, it looks like you were simply a lodger paying the actual tenant some money to live with him. You are, therefore, not party to the tenancy agreement and not bound by its terms.

If you were paying the landlord x amount directly as your share of the rent, you would be on an automatic AST as Lodger says and hence bound by usual AST terms and conditions.

You also said you paid your friend a deposit? Have you got this back? If not then I would guess you won't.

I see two options - be nice and pay up, especially if you want to keep your friend and rent from this landlord again.

- OR -

Leave and don't look back. You don't seem to be on any legal tenancy from what you have said so far so I would tell the landlord to go away and chase his tenant for the damages and unpaid rent or whatever.

My guess is that the landlord realises you are less of a nightmare tenant than the one on the agreement and doesn't want you to go. My advice, based on what you have said so far is to go and not go back. Put it down to experience and, if you did pay your 'friend' a deposit try to get it back but I'd think your on to a lost cause.

theartfullodger

Think you need some new friends

lifedon

blckbrd wrote: »

Out of curiosity, as others have said what your liability is to your friend, did he take on the contract on the understanding that you'd move in and pay half?

Or did he take on the property, find it too expensive and ask you if you wanted to share?

he took on the contract, then asked me if i would want to rent a room, which the LL new of. I agreed that i could do it for a few months, which i did for 5.

theartfullodger

Walk away....