Is the landlord allowed to do this?

cherrykerry

We are currently privatly renting a 1 bedroom flat that has no central heating and no double glazing. The environmental health have instructed the landlord to do the heating and the windows and consequently the landlord gave us 2 months notice to vacate the property. The notice is up on 16th October. After a lot of hard work searching for somewhere else suitable we managed to find another flat and have put in an application for it, it is vacant now so we were hoping to move in soon. I have just called our letting agent for our current property who has told us we have to give 30 days notice to them even though they have served us notice to be out by 16th October. Are they allowed to do that? Surely they can't expect us to just sit on our bums for 2 months then move out at the last minute?

BitterAndTwisted

If you're not in a fixed-term contract you can indeed give them one month's notice in writing. I'm assuming your rent-dates are 17th of the month to the 16th of the month following.

cherrykerry

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

If you're not in a fixed-term contract you can indeed give them one month's notice in writing. I'm assuming your rent-dates are 17th of the month to the 16th of the month following.

Yes our rental dates are the 17th, however as we have been served notice I was hoping we would be able to leave as soon as we found somewhere else to live but from what the agent tells me we still have to give our 30 days?

BitterAndTwisted

As attractive as that idea is, you can't just move out at a moment's notice just because they've served you with two months themselves. By the sounds of it, this particular landlord deserves to have that property empty and not seeing any rent for a very long time. Here's hoping, eh?

poppysarah

You'll owe them rent to the 16th.

Move out sooner by all means but expect to have to pay for the property to be empty/or negotiate handing the keys back early for a reduction in rent (Stops them having an empty property and they can sort viewings to suit them then)

cherrykerry

In that case I will give them our 30 days notice today then. They can't do any viewings because the environmental health have said its unfit to live in and have told the landlord he has to do the windows and heating before its fit for someone else to rent it. To be honest I will be glad to see the back of the place as the landlord has been nothing short of useless. The new flat we have applied for has central heating and double glazing, is in far better condition and the landlord is lovely.

silvercar

Your notice has to end at the end of a rent period. So even if you give notice today it will have to be for the rent period that ends 16th October.

I'm surprised that the environmental health officer has the authority to insist a landlord installs double glazing, many many properties that don't have it.

tbs624

cherrykerry if the EHO has said the property is unfit to live in, you may want to get some legal advice about pursuing this LL for damages. He has clearly failed to meet his legal obligations to you as his T.

Is your tenancy deposit(if one paid over) in a scheme, as required by law? ( property in Eng/Wales)

cherrykerry

The letting agent told me 30 days notice which would take us to 2nd October. Does this mean we will only have to pay rent until then (we pay 17th every month) or will they still charge us the months rent in advance up to 16th October?

As for damages etc I don't know where we would start. The Environmental health are persuing the case for new windows as the ones that are in are very old poor quality metal framed windows. They are large windows for the size walls that are there (3meter room, 2meter windows) which consequently make the flat very cold. The only form of heating was an electric fire in the lounge. Because of the lack of heat (we used electric heaters aswell which still were not raising the temp enough in the winter) and very poor quality windows and the fact its a ground floor flat we had a very cold winter in that flat and several items of our furniture are now ruined because of mould, this includes our £600 sofa which we only purchased last September. Environmental health have told us the mould is due to the condensation caused by us not being able to raise the temperature in the flat because of the lack of decent windows and heating.

I should also add that we completly redecorated the flat before we moved in including painting and putting in new carpets at our expense. The deposit is in a tenancy deposit scheme so I can only hope the landlord pays it all back.