Witheld Rent

magice

I'll try and make this as brief as possible.

I lived in a property with 5 of my friends between 08-09. The whole thing turned into a bit of a mess. We had the usual problems: landlord not carrying out repairs, things breaking etc etc. Things got much worse and we had prolems with the electricity in our house. The first six months were spent with us trying to push the agency to get the landlord to carry out the things he said he would. At one point we had no/limited electricity for almost a month. The landlord used his own contractors to do the work, resulting in a small fire under a floorboard, which luckily the workmen were there to stop.

Things went on like this for the rest of the tenancy. The agency removed themselves from the relationship so we were left to deal with the landlord direct. Turns out he was in prison and we were unable to get in touch with him or anyone representing him.

After we moved out, the council got in touch and carried out investigations, as we had involved them over the electricity scenario. They found that the propert was unsafe and proper repairs hadn't been carried out. They subsequently sued the landlord for £17,000 and as far as i know, took his landlord rights away from him.

As we were unable to get in touch with the landlord and were living in such poor conditions, we stopped paying rent for the last few months of our tenancy, to try and get his attention. Nothing ever came of this. We also never got our deposits back. These are being held by the agency (even though they pulled out of the arrangement).

I received an email form the agency today saying that the landlord's solicitor was in touch with them to gain copies of the deposit arrangement and the tenancy agreement. This got me a little worried that he is planning on taking us to court over the rent or to get the deposit fromt he agency.

- Would he have a case in getting us to pay him the rent back, considering the problems we had, and how he put us in a dangerous position?
- Do we have much chance of getting the deposit back?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Annisele

Where was this property? (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, somewhere else? The rules that apply will be different depending on jurisdiction).

Did you and your 5 friends have one tenancy agreement between you (so that you were all responsible for the entire rent) or did you have one agreement each (so that you were only responsible for your share of the rent)?

magice

We had a single tenancy agreement. Paid one big lump for the deposit etc.
The property was in England, the South West.

Jowo_2

Shelter will be able to advise you on this.

Do you have any written information, any evidence, (or can you get any) from the local council, that the place wasn't fit for habitation? I assume they undertook a HHSRS inspection?

http://www.dartford.gov.uk/housing/HousingHealthSafetyRatingSystem.htm

magice

Yep, we have newspaper cuttings (the local press covered it) of him being taken to court and fined. We also have a contact at the council who was in charge of taking him to court who can obviously testify this and back us up.

We also have loads of emails that we sent to the agency over the course of our tenancy.

Jowo_2

I think speaking to Shelter is your best bet to find out whether you can expect to pay the rent for the time you spent in the property despite the condition of it.

In Scotland, for example, a local council can order the tenants to withold payment of the rent to a landlord (rent penalty notice) but this doesn't operate in England/Wales.

magice

I was thinking more from a contractual side, he obviously didn't uphold his end of the deal in making the house safe, so did this stop our duty to have to pay? We were paying for what he put in the contact, he didn't deliver this, so we didn't pay?
How would our chances stand in court, given that he was in prison (so a criminal), the eventual fine etc?

tbs624

Was your tenancy deposit scheme registered? TDS, DPS, mydeposits run the 3 schemes.

You say that you have press cuttings but seem a little vague on the detail of the court case involving your LL.

Rent and repairs are generally two separate issues.Except in specific situations, where a T gets the work done and then seeks reimbursement via future rent payments after followng a specific procedure, you are obliged to continue to pay rent and then pursue your LL for disrepair compensation via the courts.

For how many months did you live there rent-free?

If you were not notified of a valid address for the LL after the LA bowed out then you would not have been obliged to hand over the rent until such time as you did get an address given to you. ( LL&TA87, s48) However, that didn't mean that you could simply spend the rent, the usual method is to keep the rent monies in a separate a/c so that they are available for future payment, if necessary.

Did you originally pay the rent to the LA or had it been paid direct to the LLs bank account?

Was this property registered as an HMO? When the Council prosecuted the LL did they mention helping you obtain a Rent Repayment Order? This is where a LL who has failed in his HMO obligations has to repay rent to the Ts, if the LL has been taken to court & found guilty of having an unlicensed HMO (obviously if you had stopped paying rent this wouldn't apply but the full sequence of events is not clear from the original post.)

A case in Nottingham used the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to confiscate the equivalent of an errant LLs rent monies whilst his properties had remained unlicensed- see here

LL/manager of an HMO has to be a "fit and proper person" so your LLs convictions would have to be declared when/if a licence was applied for.

Given the complexities of your situation you should get advice from Shelter or from Community Legal Advice - google for helpline contact nos.

magice

Yes it was registered with the TDS. They were only available to help us after 6 months of moving out, and we have been told that we have to sort getting the deposit out ourselves.

Details may seem vague as it was a long time ago and I tried to keep the story brief. I know that when the electrical installation was tested by the council's electrician, 36 serious faults were found along with other problems, hence why he was taken to court by the council and eventually fined.

We stopped paying rent for about the final 4/5 months we lived there. We had sent a litter to the landlord to the address on our tenancy agreement, recorded. This bounced back.

The rent was originally paid to the agency. The agency bowed out and provided us with the landlord's bank details, but not a valid address.

I'm not sure about the HMO bit, the council only really got evidence from us regarding our evidence at the property. they didn't follow up with us during the court case or after. They wanted to prove that we had paid rent while the premesis was uninhabitable, which we did. It was after learning this that we held the rent back.

Does that make it a bit clearer?

I just want to know if the landlord would have a case against us. Considering he was in prison, didn't show up to court, was found guilty and fined etc? The problems were more than just repairs, they were the basic minimal procedures that needed to be carried out to make the place habitable. Aside from the dodgy electricity, the council found that the fire alarm was faulty, fire doors were not working, water leaks had caused internal damage and windows were in a poor condition.

I just read in one of the documents that he had been issued a license but failed to meet the terms of it.

Hammyman

magice wrote: »

- Would he have a case in getting us to pay him the rent back, considering the problems we had, and how he put us in a dangerous position?
- Do we have much chance of getting the deposit back?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Yes, it is illegal to withold rent in England. He would win then you'd need to countersue.

magice

Even though he breached the contract etc, and essentially performed a criminal offence by renting out an uninhabitable property?