Need help - Landlord asked to end tenancy early due to financial problems

frarsies

Hi there

This is a fairly complicated situation so please bear with me!

Before I explain the situation, can anyone tell me if there's an official procedure, or at least recommended course of action to take, if a landlord approaches the letting agency managing his property to request ending the tenancy early due to his financial problems and a need to sell the house?

Now the situation - We were/are in an assured shorthold tenancy as a group of 4. One of the four is an employee of the letting agent that manages the property. Naively, we didn't see the conflict of interest of him dealing with issues with the house himself until it was a bit too late. Anyway, sometime in Nov 2009 our housemate/estate agent comes home one night and tells us that the landlord is having money problems and has asked if we are willing to move out of the property before the end of the tenancy, because he is having money problems, but that we can stay until the end (early april 2010) if we want to. Fearing possible eviction/repossession etc we agree that we are happy to move out. At this point I was expecting to receive a letter of some kind stating what would happen next but received nothing. As a group of housemates we say that perhaps the end of Jan 2010 would be a good move time, but don't officially agree upon this with the estate agency. In fact, we have it on record that we specifically told them we wouldn't commit to an exact date until we had an idea of what property was available, because obviously if there wasn't anything, we had every right to stay put until the end of the tenancy. After a couple of weeks of constantly asking for something in writing, our housemate emails us stating "permission to leave early without penalty" if we agree to a move out date of 31st Jan, and to respond to this email if we agree - none of us respond as we still feel it is unfair to set a date when it is us helping out the landlord.

So, three of us (not the estate agent!) decided to move on together and at the end of November we found a property we liked. Before putting in an offer we approached our current estate agent first to find out if we would be able to move as quickly as the new place required (2 weeks time). Our housemate wasn't working that day, however we were told that they'd have to talk to him, for reasons unknown to me, because surely anyone in the office could get in touch with the landlord? Anyway, later that day we talk to the housemate and he tells us he's already found somewhere and he can't move until the end of January but says he'll try to work something out. So, we go ahead and put an offer on the new place which is accepted. We let the estate agent know as soon as possible and effectively give one months notice and agree to pay rent until 31st Dec, 2 weeks after we've already moved out. Our housemate then states that he's going to have to speak to the landlord because we'd agreed to a move date of 31s Jan - which we hadn't! He comes back later that day saying he's managed to get the landlord to give us january "rent free" but that we wouldn't receive our deposit back until he (the 4th housemate) had left the property.

So, we moved out, paid final bills and transferred accounts into the name of the remaining housemate. When i emailed the remaining housemate to ask for his contribution to the final bills and to tell him everything is now in his name, he states that there must be some misunderstanding as we are all liable to pay bills for the house until end of Jan. We are pretty sure that when you leave a house you are no longer liable to pay bills, as who would think it fair to pay for someone else's energy usage?

So to sum it up, the two questions I have are:
1. In terms of our contract, does it still exist? What rights do we have now?
2. Are we actually liable for bills that someone else has created?

Many thanks for any help - am happy to clarify any points as i realise this is confusing!

clutton_2

whose name is on the bills ?

if you have moved out - what rights would you expect - other than to get your deposit back when the final tenant leaves ?

is the deposit protected ?>

frarsies

thanks for responding

All of our names were on the bills - after i sorted the final bills i requested that our 3 names be removed and his left on - most of the utility companies opened a new account in his name.

Yes we expect to get our deposit back, but because of how the tenancy ended, with no agreed upon date etc, do we have any right to claim it back sooner?

Yes the deposit is protected.

clutton_2

if the remaining tenant has bills in his name.. they are his bills....

When all 4 of you moved in.. there should have been a "lead tenant" nominated... do you know who that is ? - ask the deposit protection scheme