Some advice or help please nightmare with outstanding rent and agent problems

Biba_2

Sorry for the long winded title!

DH has a flat which was let out through an agent to a company to house their overseas workers in a local factory, the original employment company did not have their contract with the factory renewed the new employment company said it would keep on some of the existing workers if they wanted to stay at that factory and in turn some of the housing including DH's flat. This company then went bust and another company (lets call them TE) came in and again took on all the workers and the rented properties.

There was problems with getting the rents paid on time e.t.c so and this is where I am not 100% in the FACTS as I am going on what my agent said there were e-mails between TE and my agent as to rentals owing and notice being served e.t.c but I believe that TE said they no longer wanted the property as from X date and paid no rent after that period but it was nearly 3 months after that date that their workers vacated the flat with like I said no rent paid for that time.

We have made a claim through the small claims court for the rental owing and interest, they have said that they never took over the rental of the property formally as no lease was signed and they were only collecting rent from their workers on an informal basis,none of which we were aware of, iIt seems there was no lease agreement signed by them.

Still with me?!

My questions are
How likely are the courts likely to find in our favor (I know it will depend on lots more in depth info than this but as a rough idea)

If they don't find in our favor and our agent didn't get a signed tenancy agreement could they be held responsible and would we be able to try and recoup our lost rental income from them?

N79

If there is no lease you can not persue the company.
If there is a lease with the company then a court will only enforce the strict wording of that lease. What was the notice period in the lease? Who was the T? What was the method for giving notice outlined in the lease? What was the term of the tenancy? What was the period of the tenancy?

G_M

It's hard to tell from your rather inprecise post but it appears you have no written contract with TE.

However if you can prove that
a) TE placed their workers in your property and
b) TE took rent from their staff (formally/informally makes no difference)
then it would appear that a contract might have existed, albeit not a written one. Alternatively it may be that NO contract existed between you/TE, and hence TE was acting fraudulently in taking rent from workers for a property they had no rights to.

It becomes clearer however if TE ever paid you rent, even once. You say:
"There was problems with getting the rents paid on time" which implies they did pay you (if late is irrelevant) - that would prove a contract existed between you and TE: They had keys/access to your flat and their staff lived their and in return they paid you 'consideration' (money).

As for your 2nd question, I think you'd need to prove that the agents acted negligently in allowing TE unauthorised access to your property, not advising you in a timely fashion (if that is the case) and taking no action to evict the unauthorised occupants. Difficult but perhaps possible. No doubt the agents would argue
1) they told you what was happening and without instructions from you could do nothing or
2) they had no knowledge (until recently) or
3) they took action as soon as they were aware of the (complex) situation or
4) it was only recently they discovered which company was involved and hence which company might be responsible.

princeofpounds

If the company took over another company without an intervening period of formal bankruptcy then they took over all the liabilities, including the obligations to pay rent.

If the original company went bankrupt then they may not have to pay you, unless they established a new tenancy. If at any point the new company paid your rent then they would have established a tenancy even if there no paperwork. If they did not it could be claimed that the workers were just squatters in the property.

A judge will look not just at paperwork but at all the actions of the parties involved to determine if there was intention to create a contract or if the previous contract still held.

Then there is the legal question of what happens if the workers were paying 'rent' to the company at the same time as the company denying their own tenancy. That is potentially obtaining money by deception.

You sound remarkably unsure about what has happened for someone going to court.

ANYTHING you want to claim in court should be evidenced as much as you can. For instance, claiming the workers paid rent to the company is no good without witnesses or paperwork.

Biba_2

N79 wrote: »

If there is no lease you can not persue the company.
If there is a lease with the company then a court will only enforce the strict wording of that lease. What was the notice period in the lease? Who was the T? What was the method for giving notice outlined in the lease? What was the term of the tenancy? What was the period of the tenancy?

It appears (although I am waiting for a call back from the agent) that no new paper based contact was signed by TE. All previous leases had a 1 month notice period, the notice had to be given in writting, it was 6 month contact that then just rolled over on a monthly basis TE were 'responsible' for want of a better word for the property and rent was paid for 10months and their workers lived there for 13 months, TE were the tenants and they had up to a maximum of 4 of their workers living in the property at anyone time, the 2 previous companies could and did change the employees that were placed there as they saw fit or needed to.

G_M wrote: »

It's hard to tell from your rather inprecise post but it appears you have no written contract with TE.

However if you can prove that
a) TE placed their workers in your property and
b) TE took rent from their staff (formally/informally makes no difference)
then it would appear that a contract might have existed, albeit not a written one. Alternatively it may be that NO contract existed between you/TE, and hence TE was acting fraudulently in taking rent from workers for a property they had no rights to.

It becomes clearer however if TE ever paid you rent, even once. You say:
"There was problems with getting the rents paid on time" which implies they did pay you (if late is irrelevant) - that would prove a contract existed between you and TE: They had keys/access to your flat and their staff lived their and in return they paid you 'consideration' (money).

They did collect rents from their workers and paid it to our agents.

G_M wrote: »

As for your 2nd question, I think you'd need to prove that the agents acted negligently in allowing TE unauthorised access to your property, not advising you in a timely fashion (if that is the case) and taking no action to evict the unauthorised occupants. Difficult but perhaps possible. No doubt the agents would argue
1) they told you what was happening and without instructions from you could do nothing or
2) they had no knowledge (until recently) or
3) they took action as soon as they were aware of the (complex) situation or
4) it was only recently they discovered which company was involved and hence which company might be responsible.

We did have a formal agreement with the agent for them to act on our behalf but I have not read that in a long time but would assume that that meant they would vet and put in to place suitable tenants and contracts. Our agent is my ex boss and I know for a fact that he knew there were tenants in there (he did the inspections) and was also receiving rent from TE and paying it to us and would have known if there was a paper contract as he is a sole trader and would have drawn the contract up and signed it on our behalf! Our agent is very lax with communication and it is usually up to us to contact him rather than him call us, so we didn't know quite how bad the situation was and how it was deteriorating.

Thanks for the help guys.

G51shopaholic

You don't say if the rented flat was in England or Scotland.

Ask your agent for their Professional Indemnity Insurance details.

Biba_2

princeofpounds wrote: »

If the company took over another company without an intervening period of formal bankruptcy then they took over all the liabilities, including the obligations to pay rent.

You sound remarkably unsure about what has happened for someone going to court.

ANYTHING you want to claim in court should be evidenced as much as you can. For instance, claiming the workers paid rent to the company is no good without witnesses or paperwork.

They did take over before the previous company went bankrupt.

You are right we are very unsure of what happened, our agent was very bad with communication and are still not sure of exactly what happened, this I know is very naive on our part and may cost us a lot of money. There was a certain amount of trust with the agent as he is my ex boss and what could be termed as a friend of sorts.

TE have said that they collected rent from the workers so there is no dispute on anyone's part that they collected then forwarded rent and my agent will at least have bank statements to show rental income. He is also the one guiding us as much as possible through this so has all the paperwork and evidence to back our claim up.

Biba_2

G51 it is in England

G_M

Since TE collected rent from their workers and paid it to your agent, and since there is evidence of this, then there is clearly a tenancy.

That said I would guess you have a strong case to claim rent owed/not paid.

Biba_2

Thank you that is what I was hoping, we have learnt some very important lessons through this whole saga.