Aggressive lawyer landlord

macmonkey

TJ27 wrote:

The fact that she's a solicitor is probably something which is in your favour.

I've served legal notices on several solicitors, requiring them to upgrade their houses. If they fail to do so we are able to prosecute them. If they are found guilty of a criminal offence, they are not able to practice any more. We've prosecuted solicitor landlords and not only have they been fined, they've had to upgrade their properties anyway, and they've forfeited their careers.

I'm not a legal expert and I don't know if your landlady has done anything criminal. But if she has, and you threaten to take her to court, I think you'll find that she'll be only too willing to comply with your requests.

That's reassuring to hear. She has turned out to be very prickly whenever I've asked for any concessions (that I thought weren't unreasonable requests) like using the deposit to pay for the last months rent seeing as I hadn't lived there for at least two months and no longer had the keys to the house. She immediately threatened court action if I didn't comply. At that stage she must've known that there were new tenants coming in mere days later yet still wanted me to cough up! Now I have to chase her to get almost £1600 back :mad:
And THEN she let the property while I'm still paying for it! The nerve of the woman astounds me.

whambamboo

prudryden wrote:

Sorry - off topic a bit!
Ref: professional cleaners - Do you happen to have a source e.g. a web link or case law that I can look up??
Many thanks

Have a look here:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/DAAEFE58-1AAB-422A-AFED-BDE6C654A4EE/0/oft356.pdf

search for 'professional'. E.g., page 113 (of the pdf).

whambamboo

Tassotti wrote:

As you vacated the property before the fixed term was up, you are liable for the rent until relet, and reasonable letting costs.

Ask the LL for an invoice for these costs. Remember, it can cost 1 months rent plus VAT to relet a property if an agent is used, so I don't think there is much chance of receiving your deposit back.

If he has a six month contract and pays six months rent then of course he doesn't have to pay the cost of re-letting.

TJ27

Well I suspect that she hasn't actually done anything criminal but I just wanted to illustrate that the fact she's in the legal profession isn't anything to worry about.

We dealt with a solicitor landlord about six years ago. He had several really poor properties and knew that we were going to serve notices on them, which would cost him around a hundred grand to sort out. We served what's called a section 16 notice or a "requisition for information." This really was just to confirm that he did indeed own the properties.

He played a few games with us and he didn't return the completed S16. This is a document which takes about 30 seconds to fill in and sign. To his surprise, we took him to court regarding his 30 second oversight and won. The result was that he was landed with a fine of about a grand, still had to give us the required information, still had to spend the 100k on repairs and he got himself a criminal record into the bargain. So he was struck off and has not been able to practice since.

That's quite an expensive little mistake I think you'll agree.

Alan_M_2

How is this criminal? This is civil surely?

A criminal offence is a long way from a civil offence, don't confuse the two things, they are very very different.

TJ27

Yup. That's kinda what I said too I think. But I don't really know the law. In fact I thought a tort was a geordie prostitute.

Sorry, I do ramble a bit! I just wanted to illustrate that if a legal bod threatens legal action, then it might be a good idea to fight fire with fire.

Bossyboots

I have been trying to find where not doing the repairs becomes a criminal offence but no luck so far.

The rules on criminal convictions for solicitors are not as clear cut as stated, otherwise every solicitor with a driving conviction would be struck off.

Angela_D_3

This why we never pay the last months rent.

TJ27

OK. I know. I know. In this case it's probably not criminal.

Not repairing your gaff isn't criminal in itself. But if you're a landlord who gets served with a notice ordering you to repair your property, and you don't do it, then that is criminal.

(No, actually there are some circumstances when you can be prosecuted for not maintaining your property without any notice being served!!! But that's another story.)

Ian_W

Alan_M wrote:

Be aware that Solicitors (I don't like the term Lawyer, its another Americanism !!!!!!!ising our Language) ...

Sorry Alan the term lawyer isn't an Americanism, simply a collective way of describing those [barristers, solicitors, legal execs etc] who practice law. Unless, of course, the Bard, Swift and Dickins, to name but a few, were heavily influenced by American TV!!
The first thing we do, lets kill the lawyers. [Henry IV ii]

The lady concerned is bang out of order, and will know she is, keeping your rental when she has re-let to someone else. AFAIK she is also wrong to keep your deposit unless there is damage, repairs or cleaning needed that goes beyond what would normally be classed as "fair wear and tear" during the period of your tenancy.

As Alan also said, in the same post - put it in writing to her in a civil and structured way and if she doesn't return the money take her to the small claims court.