Leaving Contract Early

vodouman

Hi guys,

We're all students living together in a rented house. The contract we signed was from September 2010 - June 2011.

We pay per term. We are currently in the second of three terms and have paid fully for the current term and the one previous.

Living in this house has just been a nightmare and we want to move out at the end of this term. We just wanted to know what everyone thinks we should do...

There were 9 of us altogether at the start of the year and since then 2 of them have moved out because they were disgusted with the state of the house and the behavior of the landlords.

Our landlord comes and goes as he pleases and he turns up 2-3 days of the week unannounced and just goes about the house doing what he fancies. He turned up this morning and told us we needed to clean the house as he was bringing people round to view it later, 4 hours notice. Last time this happened the people came round to view the house unannounced and just entered our rooms without knocking and entered even when they were locked (unlocked by the landlord). When he turned up this morning he also told us that 2 new people would be moving in this weekend. This is just a few of a massive list of problems and I just want OUT!

If I gave my notice to leave at the end of this term citing some excuse such as 'my course is ending early and I no longer need the room' would they have to accept since they let two of the other people cancel their contract early?

Cheers,

Luke

BitterAndTwisted

Are you are all on separate contracts or on a "jointly and severally" one?

vodouman

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Are you are all on separate contracts or on a "jointly and severally" one?

We all had a contract each to sign so I assume that it's separate contracts. The people are really dodgy so I doubt it's a legitimate contract. We are only allowed to pay our rent in cash, which is in the hundreds per person in one lump. When we originally signed the contracts they had made alterations to it with things crossed out and written in by hand.

BitterAndTwisted

Assume nothing! Get your contract out and read it properly so you understand it. You need to be absolutely certain what the length of the contract is rather than the frequency of the payments. Please treble-check those dates and come back.

vodouman

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Assume nothing! Get your contract out and read it properly so you understand it. You need to be absolutely certain what the length of the contract is rather than the frequency of the payments. Please treble-check those dates and come back.

We're waiting for a copy of our contracts. We keep asking for a copy and they always make an excuse for not bringing them round. Once we get a copy of it I'll make an update here... I don't think they want to give us the contracts, whenever we ask for it they insist they need to know why we want them.

tbs624

OP - as you say this a property occupied by 9 people, do you know whether it has been registered with the Council as an HMO?

There are specific standards required for HMOs and the LL/manager has to be a "fit and proper" person. He has certain rights to access the communal areas but absolutely should not be letting himself into your individual rooms - he has to give you a min of 24 hours advance written notice and if its not convenient you can ask him to arrange another time.

Requests for all rent payments to be made in cash and failure to provide Ts with a copy contract tends to flag up someone who likes to operate "under the radar"

Your LL is legally bound to give you ,at the very least, a written statement of the basic terms of your tenancy.

If your contract is an individual one then the usual way out would be for you to agree to pay the LLs reasonable re-advertsiing costs & continue to be responsible for the rent until a new T can be found to take your place.

However, you may also like to know that if this property should have been licensed as an HMO and has not been, if the LL is found guilty of that charge application can be made for a Rent Repayment Order.
Do you have receipts for your cash rent payments?

Have you paid a tenancy deposit? LL scheme-registered it and given you the scheme's prescribed info? (prop in Eng/Wales)

Talk to your Uni Accoms Officer, even if the property was not on their lists. The local Council should also have a private sector rental officer - usually called a tenancy relations officer - who can help.

vodouman

tbs624 wrote: »

OP - as you say this a property occupied by 9 people, do you know whether it has been registered with the Council as an HMO?

There are specific standards required for HMOs and the LL/manager has to be a "fit and proper" person. He has certain rights to access the communal areas but absolutely should not be letting himself into your individual rooms - he has to give you a min of 24 hours advance written notice and if its not convenient you can ask him to arrange another time.

Requests for all rent payments to be made in cash and failure to provide Ts with a copy contract tends to flag up someone who likes to operate "under the radar"

Your LL is legally bound to give you ,at the very least, a written statement of the basic terms of your tenancy.

If your contract is an individual one then the usual way out would be for you to agree to pay the LLs reasonable re-advertsiing costs & continue to be responsible for the rent until a new T can be found to take your place.

However, you may also like to know that if this property should have been licensed as an HMO and has not been, if the LL is found guilty of that charge application can be made for a Rent Repayment Order.
Do you have receipts for your cash rent payments?

Have you paid a tenancy deposit? LL scheme-registered it and given you the scheme's prescribed info? (prop in Eng/Wales)

Talk to your Uni Accoms Officer, even if the property was not on their lists. The local Council should also have a private sector rental officer - usually called a tenancy relations officer - who can help.

I am not sure whether the house has been registered as an HMO. Coming back to my original point, the other two people moved out and weren't required to pay any additional rent because they gave a bit of notice before the term ended. I think everyone who is remaining in the house wants to move out at the end of the term so I don't think the landlord would be too happy about that because of all the lost money. Would they have to allow us to leave early since it was apparently okay to let the other two leave early?

We are given a little scrap of paper with a room number and a bit of scribble on it to the tune of 'Room x paid £xxx' that is it when it comes to any form of receipt.

We paid a 'non-refundable bond' of £150.00 before we moved in.

tbs624

vodouman wrote: »

I am not sure whether the house has been registered as an HMO.

This can be found out by checking your local Council's website - they will either have an online checker available or a contact no/email address. Worth checking even though you want to move out See link

vodouman wrote: »

Coming back to my original point, the other two people moved out and weren't required to pay any additional rent because they gave a bit of notice before the term ended. I think everyone who is remaining in the house wants to move out at the end of the term so I don't think the landlord would be too happy about that because of all the lost money. Would they have to allow us to leave early since it was apparently okay to let the other two leave early?

What they did with other Ts is irrelevant: in any event you seem to have a LL who is making up the rules as he goes along. The key thing is that you are legally obliged to pay rent through to the expiry of your FT unless your contract specifically allows for a mutual break clause. LL is not obliged to release you. If there are repairs/access issues you have to deal with those as separate matters - you cannot unfortunately simply use them as a "reason" to renege.

vodouman wrote: »

We are given a little scrap of paper with a room number and a bit of scribble on it to the tune of 'Room x paid £xxx' that is it when it comes to any form of receipt.

Dated and signed by the LL?

vodouman wrote: »

We paid a 'non-refundable bond' of £150.00 before we moved in.

What was the wording on the receipt for the "bond"? What was the stated purpose of the bond? Was it to cover admin/referencing fees or to be held against any omission of the Ts?

vodouman

They are not dated but just signed. The receipt for the 'bond' was the same as the rent ones. 'Person x paid £150.00' all they told us was that it was a 'non-refundable bond'.

I'm thinking of just leaving and not telling them. These people really don't seem like the type of people to take any sort of legal action because of all the dodgy goings on. Also, just to let you know, the person that shows up all the time isn't actually the landlord, he just does all of her odd-jobs. We never actually see the landlord she never turns up. He's her business partner or something like that.

Blacksheep1979

I'd have a chat with the landlord and say you're going to follow up on all the irregularities (payments in cash, people being let into your room, if the deposit is protected) etc and also that you'll make sure you're in for each prospective tenant visit and tell them exactly how terrible it is there. I'm sure they'll be glad to have you out. Is there anywhere you can go though?

vodouman

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

I'd have a chat with the landlord and say you're going to follow up on all the irregularities (payments in cash, people being let into your room, if the deposit is protected) etc and also that you'll make sure you're in for each prospective tenant visit and tell them exactly how terrible it is there. I'm sure they'll be glad to have you out. Is there anywhere you can go though?

Yes I would move back home and travel up to university for my exams next term. I do computer games development which is heavily coursework based. Next term I don't have any lectures, just exams.

Good idea though, if they tell me that they wont let me leave then I'll just become a pain in the !!! and follow up all of their contract terms etc.